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

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Discussion following up on a successful proposal from Phase I of WP:RFA2024 to have a discussion-only period at the beginning of RfA. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 23:23, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome! This is the discussion following up on a successful proposal from Phase I of RFA2024 (Proposal 3b: Make the first two days discussion-only (trial)). 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The trial has been in effect through the RfAs of ToadetteEdit (NOTNOW), Numberguy6 (SNOW), DreamRimmer (withdrawn), and Elli (ongoing). The trial will conclude either when five RfAs have concluded without SNOW or NOTNOW, six months have passed, or if consensus resolves to end the trial early.

• no !votes (comments indicating "support", "oppose", or "neutral") may be made An explicit exception for joke !votes should be made. Polygnotus (talk) 23:40, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Why? QuicoleJR (talk) 23:43, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  @QuicoleJR: Because, people will make joke !votes in the comment section and others will literally interpret them as !votes and delete them and then drama will ensue. Also, has it been made clear what should happen to non-joke !votes? Should they be not be counted? Struck through? Removed? Polygnotus (talk) 23:45, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  An admin, an IP, and a sockpuppet walk into a bar... Randy Kryn (talk) 23:57, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I was more thinking among the lines of this one Polygnotus (talk) 00:00, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  ...and the bartender says, "what're you having?" The admin says, "I'll have a glass of your finest champagne." The IP says, "Give me your cheapest draft beer." The sockpuppet says, "Just water for me; I can't afford a third drink." Levivich (talk) 02:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  That's gotta be the best Wikipedia joke I've ever seen. Hats off to you. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 03:35, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Not bad! ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:50, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  It can be difficult to discern jokes, especially when you don't have labeled sections. Imagine the chaos where someone gets a normal-looking !vote removed and insists it was a joke. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:47, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• I think a large issue with RfA being an unpleasant process for applicants are the detailed explanations of "oppose" votes, not a lack of them. Perhaps the most hurtful (or even dishonest) explanations of oppose votes have been provided only because they're practically required for a vote to count without causing huge drama. If this is true, the discussion-only period was a mistake going into the wrong direction, and admin elections may help. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 00:41, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  @ToBeFree: I was wondering what you might think of something like this? Do you think something like that could work? Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 02:10, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Admin elections with a crat chat? I'm not a fan of bureaucrat discretion. Admin elections solve multiple problems including supervoting in my opinion, and I'd say there's no need to remove or weaken that part of the solution. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:48, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  My idea was much different than admin elections, at least as it was conceptualized in the reforms. Essentially, I was thinking an anonymous vote with a running tally that begins as soon as the RfA starts + the general comments section/questions. But otherwise comparable to how RfA usually is (such as the crat chats). Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 22:51, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• The aspect of facilitating SNOW closures is indeed something I didn't think about when supporting this proposal. Should there be some sort of motion for early ("expedited") RfA closing? While this may incur a bit of stress on the candidate, it will resolve the efficiency problem and have it all be over with sooner. Maybe we can make it so early closure can only be proposed 4 hours after opening? Aaron Liu (talk) 02:54, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• I find it difficult to discuss this (and the early close proposal below) while there is an RfA currently ongoing, and plan to comment after it closes. Levivich (talk) 02:58, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• We haven't had a full-length RfA yet, but for the two early closes and DR's ongoing, the two-day discussion period seems to have caused quite a few more questions than before. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I doubt the 32 questions in Numberguy6's RfA made the process any easier for him. Once the discussion period ends, we could end up having less questions than normal, but we can't tell at this point. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 03:01, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Would it be possible to remove the general comments section and shorten the discussion-only period down to 24 hrs for the remaineder of the trial? I think it is a good idea to have a short time before voting for only questions to be posed and then answered. This would prevent rushed and uninformed voting. It would also give the candidate a right of reply before users casting judgements. I think the three-day discussion-only period has been too cruel, drawn out, and unnecessary. It doesn't achieve what it was set out to do. — GMH Melbourne (talk) 03:57, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Wouldn't that cause even more questions to be asked (which is undesirable according to ARandomName123's comment above)? Polygnotus (talk) 04:01, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  @Polygnotus: I guess you're right. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with questions relevant to better informing users. Perhaps keeping general comments and just shortening the discussion period to 24 hours could be a solution. That being said, Numberguy6 still received 22 questions within the first 24 hours of his RfA. GMH Melbourne (talk) 04:32, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• This feature has failed to fix a lot of the things we hoped it would, but I think it's still an improvement. Stealing a point from Wikipediocracy, A big part of the 'emotional challenge' of an RfA is the usual initial flood of support votes in every non-obvious no, followed by a single oppose that heavily swings it over. I think in DreamRimmer's case, they understood why they were going to be opposed and probably had a rough idea of how the ratio was going to start out. Snowmanonahoe (talk · contribs · typos) 14:17, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

note: section added retroactively. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 02:09, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Support early close so far this experiment has achieved nothing but waste a lot of community time and prolongs the suffering of unsuccessful RfA candidates. In both Toadette and Numberguy RfAs (and very likely DRs), the discussion period simply forestalled a close for two days, attracting a lot of community energy without any change in the outcome. (t · c) buidhe 00:56, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Support early close. Yeah this does not seem like an improvement to me. Lotta milling around, walls of text accumulating without being structured enough to lead somewhere productive. It makes me appreciate that threaded conversation under specific oppose votes (typically) is actually a helpful way to track what major concerns arise and how much weight they deserve. The prospect of having to winnow that out from the morass in the general comments section of DR’s RFA for example seems to have made the process less rather than more efficient. Innisfree987 (talk) 01:21, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. The fundamental reasons for this change were not elucidated in the proposal, but any change to the RfA process should be an effort to attract more people to sit through the process, without compromising standards or the effectiveness of the vetting process. While this trial run did not result in lowering standards, it also did not make the process any more attractive. As pointed out above, it also made the process less efficient for the community, many of whom needed to visit this page multiple times to weigh in on the candidate. I agree with the call to abandon this trial before we deter potential candidates from RfA, or fail to promote a good candidate who would have passed without this change. – bradv 02:15, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Support close per Buidhe. Polygnotus (talk) 02:17, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose early close – We have one ongoing RFA discussion (DreamRimmer) potentially heading toward neither NOTNOW nor SNOW result. Indeed, I see plenty of "support" votes yet also plenty of "oppose" ones there. Sure, two other RFAs were closed as either one, and the process seems either annoying, slow, or whatever. However, at this time, the amount of such after enacting the trial run is too small for me to favor early close at this time. After DreamRimmer, let's wait for either four more RFAs resulting in neither NOTNOW nor SNOW or three to four months then, whichever first. In other words, why not patience? George Ho (talk) 02:35, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose early close. The format is a change, and the community did not adjust well to 2 of the 3 RFAs so far. There were usual RFA comments repeated, which led to arguments and frustrations. However, I think the third RFA was a marked improvement on all of them, particularly with more 'Crat involvement. As Innisfree987 said, we have walls of text accumulating without being structured enough to lead somewhere productive. So I think we should continue with the process, but structure it more.

The process has not been immediately beneficial in my eyes either, but I'd prefer if every RFA reform idea didn't get discarded at first resistance. If it still fails, it fails. I just think we do not have a sample size enough to say it yet, with adjusting community behaviours. Soni (talk) 02:56, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose I don't think it's going great so far, but the community voted to approve this trial run and we should see it through. It's not as if the status quo was so desirable that we must return to it ASAP. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 03:38, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose While i understand and sympathise with Bradv and Buidhe's arguments, the community did decide to run this trial and should agree to stick to it for the (limited) time that was agreed. The currently running RfA benefited from at least one 'Crat's reminder to stay on discussion before the voting period began, and i would hope that each of the next four in the trial will also attract sufficient 'Crat attention. The call to close the trial is too soon (or NOTNOW, if you like) for us to judge the success or failure of this attempt. Happy days, ~ Lindsay^Hello 04:11, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Support early close. This format (with the oppose section initially closed) seems to push of lot of opposition into the early questions section. The following comments snipped from various questions at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Numberguy6 feel to varying degrees to be pushing back against the nomination. I've left the names off to avoid personalizing what does not seem to be a personal issue: "Looking at Special:PageHistory/Template:Expand language, I don't see any edits by Numberguy6. [...] the one-year time period you've chosen to examine is rather short. [...] A lot of your "Plug-in electric 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. [...] 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. [...] looking throughout your reverts I can't see messages or warnings that you've left on talk pages after. [...] There's been some concern about the brevity of your answers here, and I see that across your many years editing Wikipedia, you've only edited your own talk page 24 times. [...] You state in an answer above that "I thought that only admins had the authority to leave such messages. I did not learn otherwise until I applied for adminship." As you have stated that you intend to block vandals if this request were to succeed, don't you think it is likely that many users may find this a rather alarming lack of policy knowledge for an admin candidate? [...] your answer is quite vague [...] I realize that candidates have their ideas of why they want to be an admin, but not a concept of all the admin areas to be taken care of. [...] Right now anyone can already see whether corresponding articles on other language wikis exist, so there's no need to duplicate that information. If a multilingual editor has the language and editing competence necessary to check the quality of text and sources in a corresponding non-English article, then they already know whether the English one can be expanded from it or not, and the template is unnecessary for them. A monolingual English editor shouldn't be trying to expand our English article from the corresponding non-English article anyway, because they can't verify the non-English text and sources, so the template doesn't help there either. For that matter, if you don't have the language ability necessary to check the quality of text and sources in the linked article beforehand, then you shouldn't be adding a template to tell other editors that the English article can be expanded from that corresponding article, because you don't actually know if that's true. [...] I've seen, at least with {{Expand Japanese}}, is that well-meaning editors see that a Japanese Wikipedia version exists and slap that template on our article, even though the additional Japanese Wikipedia content (which they cannot read) is useless on English Wikipedia, e.g. a bunch of unsourced lists, comically unreliable sources, BLP-violating personal information, non-encyclopedic detail like the voice actress's nickname for her plant, etc etc. In those cases adding the template is less useful than doing nothing at all. [...] Some editors have expressed concerns you are planning to work in areas that you currently have limited experience in."^{(27 May 2024)} I think a previous attempt at something similar also resulted in a barrage of vaguely accusatory questions. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 04:33, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. When the current RfA is closed, we'll have a grand total of one data point for how the new process works in a non-SNOW/NOTNOW setting. Granted, it doesn't seem like a particularly positive data point. But statistically, that's not enough to draw any meaningful conclusion, especially given the inherent erraticness of RfA. We should see this through, and while we may not keep it, with more data we may be able to iterate on it. The impetus for this change — reducing the pressure of the first two days by offering a chance to air concerns not attached to a !vote and giving the candidate more time to answer questions — is still an extant issue that we need to find some way to address. Sdkb ^talk 05:40, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Support early close. 1) Disorganized. Increased mental effort for !voters because all comments are mixed into a giant vat of prose. The previous system had a nice way of sorting comments into support, oppose, neutral, general comments. 2) Obfuscates how the RFA is going. The tallies at WP:RFA and at User:Enterprisey/rfa-count-toolbar.js provide non-helpful 0-0-0 for two days. 3) Folks who participate in the first two days need to remember to go back on day 3 and copy their comment over. 4) Seems to result in more questions being asked of the candidate, which is burdensome to the candidate. 5) In my opinion, no change to the toxicity and no positive change to the dynamic of RFA. Opposers still make blunt comments and still make aspersion-like speculations that surely sting for good faith candidates. 6) Denies candidates the normal first 24 hours of all supports, an important morale booster in the normal RFA process that helps balance out the opposes to come. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:10, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  As I said, two totally unsuccessful RFAs and one RFA split aren't enough to end this trial abruptly. Furthermore, this year so far (Jan–May), amount of nominations is about the same compared to the same period of last year. Noticeably, four pre-trial nominations were successful this year to this date, while three within the same period of last year were successful. Perhaps we'll see loads of nominations this summer? Hmm... I'm doubtful; compared to last year, the nomination run has been slow so far, i.e. amount of nominations have become scarcer over the years as much as successful ones. George Ho (talk) 06:26, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose: we have had three RfAs that are not representative of the general pool and (in my view) none have been the most toxic RfA in the last 12 months (which is not a large pool). Hopefully in the trial of five we will see a successful RfA (or an RfA that would have been successful under the old system) so we can compare. An early close would be bizarre. — Bilorv (talk) 09:44, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose early close. I don't support the change being tried but the community voted to conduct the trial and the trial deserves to run its course and to accumulate proper amount of data. Otherwise there will be endless debates that the trial was closed prematurely and similarly endless attempts to bring it back. Just let it run, and if it should fail, let it fail convincingly, with sufficient data. Nsk92 (talk) 10:18, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Support early close It hasn't done anything to improve the environment. If anything, it makes it worse. --Hammersoft (talk) 11:23, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• As the person who proposed the idea, this should be closed early. I'm generally done with RfA but since I was the one who proposed the idea that eventually became this proposal I feel some responsibility here. And the outcome of this has been to change the dynamics in a way that amplifies the negative qualities of candidates. The goal was to introduce a time for thought and high level discussion. While that has happened, soome I don't think it has happened in proportion to make it worthwhile to keep or even see if it'll get better with more experience (as Lindsay suggests). I think it likely that all of these candidates would have faced difficulties in passing even without this method but this method made it even more lopsided and negative than it would have been otherwise. English Wikipedia should, in my mind, be willing to try out new things and it should be equally willing to admit when they've failed. That ability to admit when things have failed and move on will make it easier to say yes to other ideas which might work. This has failed. We should move on. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:25, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose early close we need s larger sample. I don’t think this change has made things catastrophically worse than a regular RfA Mach61 15:52, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• I encourage those insisting we persist with this debacle to stand for adminship themselves, rather than insisting someone else get butchered for their entertainment. —Cryptic 16:15, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I do not believe total utility would increase if I gained access to the tools included in with the sysop userright, hope that helps. Mach61 17:57, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose early close: I'd agree the sample size is SO small, none of the three candidates were "shovel ready" admins. I do agree in practice the prior discussion will likely focus on negatives. So far not one of these candidates had passed a prior ORCP. None of them were going to pass the RFA anyway. This trial hasn't really been tried yet. What we HAVE learned so far is the change has encouraged three unqualified candidates to believe the trial might make them more likely to pass. Hasn't worked out for those three. These are wins, not losses. BusterD (talk) 16:41, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm kind of torn on this one. We've really only had one RFA that was an actual full test case, the other two were obviously going to fail, as was evident from the moment they were posted. Is it not possible to just close obviously doomed nominations during the discussion period? It should be, for the sake of both the candidate and the community. I think there may be some merit to discussing things before unthinking "no reason not to support" or "they disagreed with me one time so oppose" votes start piling up, but in the case of obviously unqualified candidates we should still be able to close them right away as we used to be able to do. The real downside here is seeing users with no chance whatsoever getting beat up on for two days before the inevitable NOTNOW/SNOW close a few hours after voting opens. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 17:50, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Unlikely candidates can succeed, sometimes Mach61 18:02, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  But the point here is that the discussion phase is actually making it more obvious when we have a candidate with no chance at all (which I don't think applied in GR's case). Numberman gave what is, quite frankly, one of the worst answers I have ever seen in an RFA I think it is merely a logical step up from Extended Confirmed. If I am qualified for the permissions, then I can receive the permissions; there's no cap on the number of admins. From the moment they posted that, this had 0% chance of success. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 18:12, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose early close. There's no rush. No damage is being done, interesting data are being generated, and we need multiple instances of different flavours to find out the pros and cons of the system. So far we've had a NOTNOW, a snow close, and (presumably) a reasonably clear fail. Ideally we can also get a couple passes, then we'll have a spread to talk about. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:11, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose early close. We've only had one non-snow/notnow RFA under this new system, and the system worked as intended: problems were uncovered during the discussion phase, leading to a clear and quick result. Under the old system, this RFA would have gotten a bunch of supports, then the problems identified, then a big swing as people struck their votes and moved to oppose. That would not have been better than what just happened. So, I see 1/5 test cases so far, and it was a success (even if the RFA wasn't). Mostly, though, we haven't had enough real trials to determine if this is helpful or not. Patience. Levivich (talk) 18:47, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose early close. Three RfAs - two self-nominations, one nomination that apparently came about much sooner than the timeline the candidate had previously stated was their intention, only two of the three to actually reach the voting period, and only one to meet the 5-count requirement of the proposal - is not a large and diverse enough sample to gauge anything. --Pinchme123 (talk) 22:28, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment My original hope was that discussion would be followed by secret ballot. Sadly there is very little benefit to the system of early discussion. The only benefit I see is we get voters who are entrenched in their positions after early discussion. In the previous system editors would vote, "why not", "yup" and "I thought you were an admin already" but later revelations would sometimes cause voters to abandon their positions. So that previous system was harder on the candidate who gets their early hopes up only to fail later. My gripe has always been with the unofficial steering committees fussing, striking etc. and a secret ballot is the only fix for that malady. Lightburst (talk) 23:45, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  And only for elections... Elections close discussion before voting, to reduce the pressure. Just a random Wikipedian^(talk) 01:27, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Support early close, largely per Barkeep49 above. It's clear this isn't going to fix anything, and is only aggravating our existing problems with hierarchy and bigdealism running wild. (For my part I would suggest that any meaningful fix to RFA will require revisiting the idea that any perms, other than maybe crats, should involve inquiring into anything other than the respective likelihoods of use and abuse.) I don't think there's any particular need to stand on ceremony here. It's entirely proper (and consistent) for the community to approve trying out something that hasn't been tried before, and then quickly decide to end the trial once it's apparent that the harms outweigh the benefits. -- Visviva (talk) 01:42, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What we have is a situation where an editor is extensively discussed over two days while they are expected to just watch silently. If someone wants the input of the candidate, they have to go to the optional questions section to make a formal request for an answer, and the candidate is even more helpless having to just sit and wait patiently for someone to ask the right questions. This is not a technical requirement but this is what is happening, through interaction of usual RFA etiquette with this new trial. This is, in my opinion, also why there are so many questions. One alternative could be that the candidate only answers the compulsory questions and then participates in the discussion threads naturally; optional questions arise and get answered in the discussion threads themselves. Maybe. — Usedtobecool ☎️ 09:42, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure that this is correct, appropriate, or correctly placed. Anyone who knows better has my permission to reformat or move it. Best, Usedtobecool ☎️ 09:44, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree with discussion format needing more workshopping. So repeating the only idea I have, more section headers. General discussion with horizontal lines was clearly more structured than just discussing all over the place. I think specific subsections would be a strong positive for General discussion (So say "AFD participation" could be discussed in one section separate from "Content creation". Or whatever headings people choose).

In my opinion, this will make RFAs more readable and easier to follow along, while potentially solving a couple concerns from above discussion. Soni (talk) 18:57, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

+1 to subsections by topic. Levivich (talk) 19:19, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think the discussion format should be threaded, like having some subsections to discuss issues with the candidate. Just a random Wikipedian^(talk) 00:05, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to workshop my idea I've mentioned above. The idea is that an early closing request can be stated four hours after commencement. Their consensus must be assessed before voting opens. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:39, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not seeing anything in the language of the proposal that prevents an uninvolved admin or 'crat from simply unilateraly closing obvious NOTNOW/SNOW RFAs as they have been able to do in the past, and yet nobody saw fit to do so during the discussion phase of the two obvious cases we've had so far. I feel like if just clarifying that NOT/SNOW can still apply during the discussion phase is sufficient without inventing another whole process. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 18:02, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This was a whole thing with ToadetteEdit, I think Numberguy avoided a SNOW close anyway. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 18:47, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Agreed with JSS. I think crats closing clear cut NOTYET/SNOWs before formal voting begins is perfectly within their current mandate. And if it's not, I would like it to be. Soni (talk) 18:57, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Good idea. Is it possible to amend the language of the close of 3b? Aaron Liu (talk) 20:31, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As noted by Joe in the the close at the top of the page, this was not specificed. Did we learn nothing from the pending changes trial? Failure to specify how a trial period was to be evaluated and what was supposed to happen after the trial led to literally several years of protraced debate and blame-casting. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 18:15, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ah. So that's why Protect -> Pending Changes -> "PC1: Review revisions from new and unregistered users" has a giant PC1 in front of it. From looking at your RFC navbox above, looks like a PC2 and maybe some others were proposed and maybe even trialed. Interesting. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:42, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Unlike the pending changes trial, no switches have to be flicked and no affected articles have to be reset in order to end the trial. We can just go back to the previous process immediately. For better or worse, many of the editors who like to weigh in on the process for granting administrative privileges are cautious about making significant changes, and so there hasn't been any appetite to set predetermined goals or evaluation criteria. As we have seen, the results are highly influenced by many different factors, so it's reasonable to take a wait-and-see approach. isaacl (talk) 20:23, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with isaacl. The change may take a bit long to advance, but I don't see how discussing what happens right now will be any more efficient than discussing after. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:29, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]