Theleekycauldron created the Phase II page for AELECT at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase II/Administrator elections. Will this be where the RfC takes place after the debrief phase? fanfanboy (block talk) 15:24, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We're not ready for that yet, and it may end up not being used at all. Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Debrief is the official place to leave feedback at the moment. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:19, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We don't actually do "official" on Wikipedia as - other than the WMF - there are no authorities here, just a self-governing and consensual community, but we know what you mean. ;-) SilkTork (talk) 18:44, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it might be helpful to go back and edit the candidate pages to use a green/red hat instead of a yellow hat, depending on whether the candidate was elected or not. It may also be helpful to add a sentence to the top of each stating whether or not they were elected, and what their percent was. This would 1) provide important information with less clicks (not having to go find the results page to see) and 2) would be in alignment with what RFA does. Is everyone OK with this? –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:50, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree, I was just thinking that yesterday after following a link to one of their pages. I think a mention that they passed and the final vote tally, similar to regular RfAs, would be ideal. Hey man im josh (talk) 22:31, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that sounds useful and sensible. Thryduulf (talk) 22:46, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Great. Since there's no objections, does anyone want to start on this? –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:59, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd give it a go, buuuut I'm tentative because I'm not sure who to mark it as closed by. I certainly don't want to be perceived as the closer. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:03, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. FOARP (talk) 14:31, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Primefac you were the 'crat who flipped the bits. Would you object to being the formal closer? Thryduulf (talk) 19:16, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If it's an election, and thus a straight vote, I would make the argument that no closer is needed. Primefac (talk) 20:21, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's a matter of semantics at this point. I believe it makes sense to note, at the top of the relevant RfAs, that they were successful. However, typically we have

Final: (200/20/2) – Closed as successful by whoever.

I guess we could do something like,

Final result: (200/20/2) – Adminship granted.

Without a signer? Not sure the best approach, but at the end of the day the goal, at least from my POV, is just simply to make it clear they passed and include the vote as we traditionally would. Hey man im josh (talk) 20:26, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose my point was that on a normal RFA, the 'crat that closes is the closer. On an admin election, hatting the discussion is a formality. In other words, I would support your second suggestion over the first. Primefac (talk) 20:31, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd just put something like Achieved X% in the October 2024 administrator election. Promoted to administrator. or Achieved X% in the October 2024 administrator election. Not promoted to administrator.. You can sign it or not sign it -- that part probably isn't too important. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:10, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I like this wording but I'd swap "promoted" for "elected". HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:19, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with using elected instead of promoted, due to the connotations of promoted. isaacl (talk) 19:48, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Primefac that no formal evaluator of the result is needed. (No one closes arbitration election candidate pages.) Adding a note about the result is a purely ministerial act. I agree with Novem Linguae that it doesn't matter if it's signed or not. There can be a link to the results page, which has the edit that actually released the results. isaacl (talk) 19:48, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone please add the new admins to Wikipedia:Successful adminship candidacies/2024 and to Category:Successful requests for adminship? And to any other lists where their names should appear?--Diannaa (talk) 15:42, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

No opinion on if we should do this or not. Moving this comment from the debrief page because it's more like an actionable chore than feedback on the process. Thoughts welcome. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:45, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely successful election candidates should be added to the first list. The latter I'm not sure, perhaps a new category for successful admin election candidates? Thryduulf (talk) 12:58, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agree on the latter, I just created Category:Successful_administrator_election as a sibling category and Category:Unsuccessful administrator election and grouped it under the existing Category:Wikipedia administrator elections tree.

I'll start populating it and interlinking then. Raladic (talk) 15:19, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Finished the categories.

As for the page you mentioned @Diannaa - it looks like right now it's also specifically tailored to the RFA process, so a lot of the columns don't make sense.

Instead there is already an existing Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024/Results table for the election results, both positive and negative, so I think that maybe we just want to create a sibling table instead of re-working that existing table and co-integrating them instead? Raladic (talk) 16:29, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Actually on second thought, we just need a few tweaks to be able to integrate them into the table. I'm working on a Template:AdErow that will work like Template:Rfarow to work in the table, but have the right parameters for the table to generate a useful display. Stay tuned. Raladic (talk) 17:13, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Done, I added all to Wikipedia:Successful_adminship_candidacies/2024#2024 and Wikipedia:Unsuccessful adminship candidacies (Chronological)/2024 using the new Template I created. Raladic (talk) 18:23, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The template is a really good idea imo, thanks for that. Diannaa (talk) 19:37, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should the candidate subpage template from Wikipedia:Administrator_elections/October_2024/Candidate_subpage_template to Wikipedia:Administrator_elections/Candidate_subpage_template, somewhere in the template namespace (this is probably a better choice), or some other place that doesn't include a time period because the current location makes it look as if it was exclusive to this trail run. fanfanboy (block_talk) 20:57, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If we move first election stuff out of the first election subdirectory, it could break first election stuff as we iterate on it. But then again, maybe that'd be worth it to iterate on it? Not sure. Let's leave it for now I think. We can circle back to this when it's time to create second election stuff. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:05, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with leaving it for now as it's really not that important. fanfanboy (block_talk) 23:32, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase II/Administrator elections. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:16, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Now that the RfCs at WP:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase II/Administrator elections have been closed, the next step would be to hold the Renewal RfC per WT:Administrator elections#Planning for post debrief above. Before we do that, the new rules decided in Phase II should be collected somewhere, so that folks commenting in the Renewal RfC can see them in full. We should probably move the current content of this page, WP:AELECT, to a subpage for the October 2024 election. Then, we can rewrite this page as a general summary of the revised AELECT process. Toadspike [Talk] 05:23, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Completely agree. I plan to do all that unless somebody gets to it first. I'm leaning towards a copy paste move to the subpage, keeping all the history at Wikipedia:Administrator elections rather than the subpage. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:42, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies Novem, I got there first ;) I've added a pretty brief summary of the RFC results to the page, and I've updated Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024 to be about the trial election (it previously was just a redirect to WP:AELECT) - I did a simple copy/paste move like you suggested, and am now editing it down to size. I'll continue tidying up Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024, but the main admin election page should now be free to be just about the process itself, rather than the trial election. BugGhost 🦗👻 19:00, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024 is now in ok shape, and so I've removed details about the trial election from WP:AELECT (such as the schedule, results page, the list of scrutineers, etc) and placed an {{about}} template at the top to direct anyone who wants info on the trial election, rather than the AELECT process generally. The wording on the rules and implementation needs updating for the proposal. I'm probably going to leave this for tonight, but might pick this up again tomorrow. BugGhost 🦗👻 20:37, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This all looks great. Thanks for your help! –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:54, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If we're going to try to do the next election 5 months after the previous one, are we basically at the point pretty much right now where we should be announcing when the signup period starts? Valereee (talk) 02:07, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I believe we have to do the full process reauthorization RFC first. Not sure where that would leave the schedule, though. Perfect4th (talk) 02:13, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Perfect4th, sorry, I'm clearly missing something...full process reauthorization RfC? Valereee (talk) 02:18, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Valereee, I don't see anything explicitly stated on WP:AELECT at the moment, but the recent RFC for workshopping election details says This RfC will not discuss reauthorization of administrator elections; that will be decided on in a follow up RFC after the RFCs on this page are all closed. The idea is to improve the process as much as possible first, then later have a straight up and down vote about renewal. Seems to have also been discussed in #Planning for post debrief above (which of course I saw only after I chased more obscure revisions). Happy editing, Perfect4th (talk) 02:23, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hm...not actually sure what that even means. @Novem Linguae, can you translate? Valereee (talk) 02:51, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The 2024 RfA review proposal only resulted in admin elections being approved for a one-time trial run. We need the community to approve it again to make it a permanent feature. Toadspike [Talk] 03:02, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good grief. Valereee (talk) 03:09, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've got a feeling it will snow-yes, based on the community feedback. Hopefully it won't be much of a timesink BugGhost 🦗👻 07:51, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I also think the RFC will pass easily. Hopefully an infinite renewal, not just an additional trial. There's probably multiple blockers for the next election though:

• renewal RFC
• WMF needs to make a couple changes to the SecurePoll software, then permit it to be used locally on enwiki (phab:T378287, phab:T384302). WMF recently hired contractors to work on SecurePoll, so I think this will move forward shortly.

Once those are cleared, it should be easy to turn this into a recurring process.

I purposely put the word "ideally" into the RFC question about how often to have admin elections. I think the next election will happen whenever all the blockers are solved, then after that we can try to hit the 5 month cadence a little more strictly. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:06, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the main administrator election page has now been updated to incorporate the results of the mini RFCs. I'll pause for a day or two to let people copy edit / tweak the page, then I think we should be all set to launch an RFC authorizing future administrator elections.

We can make it a simple yes/no question: "Now that the one time trial is complete, are Wikipedia:Administrator elections authorized to continue indefinitely?" This wording sound OK?

Do folks have any preference on if we should hold the RFC on this talk page, on an AELECT subpage, or on a WP:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase II/ subpage? cc @Theleekycauldron. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:52, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I believe we agreed that Phase II was the best page for the reauthorization RfC, @Novem Linguae :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 11:25, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Theleekycauldron. I don't recall agreeing to having both RFCs be in phase 2, but I dont mind since no one so far has objected. Would you like to create the sub page now and link to it here? Can you please put a notice that says that the RFC is a draft and is not open yet? Thanks in advance. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:25, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Novem Linguae: I'm so sorry, you're totally right! Forgot that the mini-RfCs already went there. Happy to create it there, but if you have a different preference, that works for me too. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:47, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Theleekycauldron. No worries. Maybe a different (fresh, blank) phase 2 or phase 3 subpage than the mini-RFCs? –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:06, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Phase 3 subpage seems simple and clearest. Soni (talk) 13:38, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As soon as Leeky gets a minute to create the page and post a link to it here, I'll fill it in with a draft of the RFC and we can iterate a bit, then launch. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:01, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Like Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase III/Administrator elections ? Soni (talk) 04:11, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I defer to @Theleekycauldron for the page title. Would be great to get it created soon though. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:10, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good to me! I'll draft some language for the RfC :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 05:15, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't have a place to !vote on such a survey. I would be forced to vote no, and I would make a stink about it. P2 has made adjustments, but I'm a firm beta test believer. We clearly didn't get recall petitions right the first time. We haven't tested these major changes in real time, and IMHO we haven't sufficiently foreseen how the system will be gamed over time. Adding an election tempo introduces an election season, for example. Political elements, as another. Ignore this at our peril. I agree that consensuses have been reached, but I do not think we've given sufficient thought to stress testing our changes at this moment in human history. I suggest a third option should be further testing, say, three election cycles before final approval. I'm sure my comment is out of process, but I believe you'll find I'm not the only one who'll object to a yes/no option. If you remember, the advent of political parties in the US was not foreseen by the framers. Further, all this prior process discussion assumed a current US government which acted predictably and within the bounds of law. This is clearly no longer the case. BusterD (talk) 12:19, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

At the very least we should consider the tempo of changes relative to current events. Sustainability. That's my reasonable concern. BusterD (talk) 12:28, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@BusterD What are your specific concerns about how the current US government or other current events would impact the Wikipedia administrator election process? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:02, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My concern is about the inevitable politicization of the admin request process once this becomes a regularly scheduled !voting process (precisely in a context of incredible external chaos). For my part, I very much enjoyed the outcome of the last admin elections; I think we promoted outstanding new sysops who seem serious and open to feedback. That's great for all of us. But I don't believe we have sufficient data to indefinitely promote this process to elections every 5 months regardless of the need for moppers. My reservation is about the irrevocable nature of the change once we've made it, towards what I view as chosen polarization. I'll work harder to make my case when the question is asked formally. BusterD (talk) 15:03, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think bringing US politics into discussions about Wikipedia administrator elections is a bit odd. I wonder if the same arguments can be made in a different way. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:33, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I believe I intended to make a point about the dangers of majoritarianism, in the context of what has been happening in the US. I was also referencing very real live threats against our movement. The world's richest man, a man with a competing communications structure, has targeted this project directly. He now has been given virtually unfettered access to Americans' personal data, including many of ours'. By changing wikipedians' societal structure to be more in line with one country's particular political structure (regular elections), we risk weakening our culture of vigorous disagreement. Doing so indefinitely at this precise moment seems the height of folly. BusterD (talk) 13:09, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The word "indefinitely" in the proposed wording might spook some; it's also quite... ambitious, in purely design engineering sense. (And I'm not arguing about the choice of word here, but rather the concept.) How about proposing as the next stage of the roll-out a finite (and not very large) number of elections, after which another review will be carried out? There are many moving parts in all this, and many factors which have so far only been probed once, with a particular set of parameters. Another, say, 2-3 elections with revised parameters could tell us a lot that we don't yet know about how this thing behaves when released into the wild. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 14:11, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that would be exercising too much caution - we've already had 2 RFC's about holding a trial (both of which had strong support, the first being declined only on technical grounds), the pre-trial planning and discussion, the trial itself, the debrief, the RFC workshops, and the fleet of post-trial RFC's themselves. In general I think we're already dragging this process out too long, and further trials and discussions could become naval gazing. Tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of words have already been written about AELECT - I think the time has come to just ask whether to accept it or reject it. We can repeal or refine it by RFC later on if there's a need to do so.

Regarding wording, I agree maybe we could soften it - "Should Admin elections be adopted as a recurring process?" or something (I don't feel very strongly about this though). BugGhost 🦗👻 14:41, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

By convention, all Wikipedia processes are in place until they're modified, so I agree that "indefinitely" isn't required in any question. isaacl (talk) 17:19, 11 February 2025

Agreed, indefinitely is a scary word, and it's implied anyway. My suggested wording: Should Wikipedia:Administrator elections continue as a recurring process now that the trial election is complete? Leijurv (talk) 17:30, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Requests for comments on broad matters consume a lot of community time in aggregate, so it's a bit of a judgement call on what approach seems more likely to be more streamlined. Does the community feel the process has general acceptance and so is likely to persist, even if needs further modifications; does it think that there may be significant problems that might not be resolved, and so a full re-approval of the process would be more time-effective; or something else? It's difficult to tell, but given that an election process has been sought for many years now, and English Wikipedia editors just seem to like voting in any discussion, my suspicion is that it may be more efficient to follow the usual Wikipedia approach of enacting a process rather than a trial (in this case, extending a trial), and reviewing its effectiveness while it is operational. With the five-month gap between elections, there will be sufficient time for the community to discuss stopping the process if it feels it is desirable. isaacl (talk) 17:32, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea on the revised wordings. When the subpage is created, we can place one of those wordings in there, and then iterate a little bit more, if needed. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:36, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to make some unsupported assertions. These are my opinions, based on my experience here. I believe the scheduled nature of these elections makes our community more vulnerable. Many nations replace their representatives in free and fair elections which occur when needed. These sorts of electoral processes are inarguably less resource-consuming than those in countries in which set dates are scheduled. These sorts of elections see less grandstanding and less corporate manipulation. Scheduled election dates by definition create election seasons. We shouldn't ignore the risks of giving disrupters advance notice of moments the wikipedia community's attention might be inward facing (as I believe it was during October 2024 elections) instead of outward facing (as we are when we have disasters to cover). Again, all of this is my opinion, based on 20 years of watching this stuff, both here and in RL. BusterD (talk) 13:32, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

BusterD, I've read all of your comments here thus far and I do not know what you're on about. Bringing all kinds of politics into this seems irrelevant and unhelpful – I'm sorry if that sounds harsh. I realize that Wikipedia faces many external threats, but I do not see how this particular method of selecting administrators makes us significantly more vulnerable to these threats. I understand if you are deliberately obfuscating your worries, but it is not clear if you are.

Perhaps I can clear some things up. The elections will not be regularly scheduled years in advance. Individual editors will do their best to hold elections "approximately every 5 months" – if there is no interest in doing so, they simply will not be held. If the elections turn out to be a disaster, anyone may open an RfC to end them. Elections do not "dispose of our disagreement-based culture" – their goal is to make it easier to disagree with candidates (vote against them) without hurting their feelings or being badgered about it. If you would still like to disagree in public, there are discussion pages for that, and the discussion time has been lengthened since the trial. I don't understand where your concerns about polarization, majoritarianism, or dominance are coming from, in a non-competitive process with a passing threshold (70%) far beyond a simple majority, to elect administrators who do not vote like parliamentarians. And since RfA will still be around, I disagree that elections are a "total change in wikiculture" – it will be at most a partial change. On the other hand, there has long been a consensus (at least since 2015) that change to the RfA culture is needed.

I hope this was in some way helpful – if you are still concerned, I would be happy to see you voice your concerns more clearly in the RfC, as you have promised. I hope it is clear that I have no hard feelings against you; I am simply having trouble understanding what you want to say. Toadspike [Talk] 19:49, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I echo the same thooughts as Toadspike, I don't understand your points here. US politics shouldn't have any bearing on WP elections BugGhost 🦗👻 01:35, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I understand, but from a different angle. What is probably a concern would be an eventual encouragement of gamification (of sorts) of the elections, where unlike the RfA format, the regularly scheduled elections offer a clearer or easier goal to work towards promoting their "own kind" of editors as admins. In the RfA format, like it or not, the voracity in responses from the the rest is an effective guardrail in this case, making people think twice on supporting or oppose the nominated person because their !votes are public. The only guardrails for the elections are the questions and answers, and nothing is stopping adversarial hijacks of the process if they have a large number of active editors voting silently. In the real world, it can happen, and it had happened before. e.g. Association of Women for Action and Research#Attempted takeover by conservative Christian group (if anyone wants more details, there is a detailed record at fandom). On here, the only few recourse to prevent or defrock the troublesome admins would be through Bureaucrats, Arbcom, and/or the various functions in WMF (T&S, UCOC, etc), and each option will definitely take increasingly longer reaction time as compared to the one before, time which the community may not have if the admin(s) go(es) rogue in the eyes of the community. – robertsky (talk) 07:13, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And WP:RECALL, which has (for better or worse) an pretty short reaction time. Thanks for clarifying the main worry though. Since admins, unlike legislators or executive committee members, do not "vote" anywhere or make content decisions, I still believe fears of hijacking to be inapplicable, but I can understand how you may disagree. Toadspike [Talk] 18:07, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do we think a lot of people will want a time limited renewal? If so, I suppose we should do an option a option b option c type rfc, and make a time limited renewal one of the options. Thoughts? –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:40, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What we can do is say that people can specify a number of elections they'd like to reauthorize for (up to indefinite), and the closer can authorize as many new elections as have consensus (assuming that someone who wants 3 new elections would also support having 2 new elections). theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:48, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would also be advisable to delete "Now that the one time trial is complete," from the RfC question, and instead, include the fact of that trial having happened in some introductory material on the RfC page. Some editors might be sensitive to the question being non-neutral (even though that would be a stretch), so it's better to avoid any obstacles. I think it would be best to write the RfC question as: "Are Wikipedia:Administrator elections authorized to continue?" – plain and simple. And again, the invitation to specify, if one wants to, how many elections to authorize, can be stated in the introductory material (with the understanding that if there is no consensus to limit the number, then the elections continue until they don't). --Tryptofish (talk) 22:56, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I could go along the language "Are Wikipedia:Administrator elections authorized to continue?" yes or no. I could go along with a preliminary schedule of test votes. I cannot go along with a total change in wikiculture with insufficient playtesting. For my part, I want us to find dedicated and qualified new admins as much as anybody. I don't want (in exchange) for the en.wiki community to dispose of our disagreement-based culture in favor of a more political voting one. Our movement represents a different cultural approach to mere dominance. There are moving parts here, and they will never stop moving. We should game this ourselves, and benefit from the experience.

Ahem. Thanks, whoever sub-sectioned this. I feel I have unjustly disrupted a simple technical exchange between two wikipedians I trust implicitly. I am being pointy. I am not normally known for such disruptions. BusterD (talk) 12:56, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I don't think the new election process signifies a total change yet, and I think there are ways to safeguard against problems that may arise. The open viewpoint request for administrative privileges process remains in place. Wikipedia's consensus-can-change tradition is also still here and can rein in any abuses, even if they're in progress. English Wikipedia guidance isn't a set of binding laws; the community can agree to cancel an election or put the entire process on hold whenever it wants. isaacl (talk) 16:36, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase III/Administrator elections

Took a whack at a first draft :) feel free to wikify it into something better! theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 05:27, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good. I just went through and made my suggested changes. I think it's looking pretty good. Any thoughts or concerns before we launch the RFC?

Also, do we want to take this opportunity to promote AELECT to a guideline or a policy? Would be pretty easy to insert this wording into the RFC, if we think it's a good idea. Considering we just RFC'd 22 little details of the AELECT page, I think it's safe to say that the AELECT page has a PAG-level of consensus. Although if we skip making it a PAG, that should be fine too. Lots of procedural pages such as WP:RFA and WP:AFD are not PAGs. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:08, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just a thought: I'm leery of the or any other limitations phrase. It seems to invite participants to suggest arbitrary "tweaks". What I'm imagining is a bunch of Option Bs that create a giant mess - contradicting each other. "Authorized to continue for 2 more elections assuming at least X people vote in each" or things of that nature, that would make the RfC impossible to close. I think it is duplicative of the phase II RfCs. If I were writing the RfC, I would put: Option A - No. Option B - Yes, more trial(s) are authorized (please specify how many). Option C - Yes, administrator elections are authorized to occur approximately every 5 months. Leijurv (talk) 19:30, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, that seems fine to remove. Done. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:59, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The draft as it currently stands looks good to me. No edits here. —Ganesha811 (talk) 06:59, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The wording "with no limitations" feels a bit off to me. I’m concerned it doesn’t fully reflect the considerable RFCs and consensus and time put into thinking out the process and trying to make it a secure, "safe" admin selection process. I’d prefer something like B – Authorize administrator elections to continue for an additional x number of trial elections (please specify x); C - Fully authorize administrator elections, or something of the sort. Perfect4th (talk) 07:14, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I changed it to Yes, without needing further trials or renewals. Administrator elections are authorized to occur approximately every 5 months. Does that make some progress towards your concern? –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:07, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that helps, thanks. Perfect4th (talk) 20:04, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

When the RFC launches, any objections to sending a mass message to Wikipedia:Administrator elections/Newsletter list? Will probably use the {{Please see}} template for neutral wording. I do not believe this to be canvassing since the newsletter list is not partisan -- I believe it is all folks that are interested in administrator elections, not just "pro" AELECT or "anti" AELECT editors. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:54, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, as advertised and described on the mailing list page, it is to get notifications about the process. Thus not notifying those on the mailing list would be breaking a promise. isaacl (talk) 22:35, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's fine. —Ganesha811 (talk) 07:00, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, sounds good to me. Surprised there wasn't one for the mini RFCs, I didn't realise they were happening until near the end BugGhost 🦗👻 17:27, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Send it :) Leijurv (talk) 03:11, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The renewal RFC is live at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase III/Administrator elections. The MMS bot should be along soon to notify this talk page as well. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:11, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Administrator Elections | Renewal RFC phase

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase III/Administrator elections.

You're receiving this message because you signed up for the mailing list. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:21, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I know, what an important detail.^[Joke] Currently, the name of this heading is "Who can vote" in the present tense and "Who could vote" in the past tense, as seen on ADE and the October 2024 subpage. I don't think we should be changing the name of this heading every time an election finishes, so could we settle on a name with some more permanence? I suggest "Voter eligibility". Aaron Liu (talk) 17:14, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In general, re-writing pages for past elections to be in the past tense should, in my view, not be done. With a clear indication of the status of the election at the top, there's no need to change the rest of the page as no one will be confused that the election is still ongoing. I think people coming to see the page in future would be more likely to want to see the state as it appeared during voting, and not a reworded page. isaacl (talk) 17:29, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was the person who split the Oct '24 details into the separate subpage and turned everything past-tense - just wanted to say that I don't really have much preference on this, it just felt like it made grammatical sense at the time seeing as the page was created after the election had ran (when it run running, details of the trial were just on the main WP:AELECT page). I've got no opinion on what happens in future elections' subpages, and wouldn't object if someone made the Oct 2024 subpage present tense (I don't think it would be worth doing, but I also won't attempt to stop anyone). "Voter eligibility" sounds like a good header to me. BugGhost 🦗👻 00:32, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'll just change it to that, then. My main concern was with link stability. (As for the tense of page content... I have no preference, since it is virtually impossible to be tense-neutral in English.) Aaron Liu (talk) 03:31, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do we really need to be this exclusionary? Let's keep it at a name everybody understands —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:27, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a tense-neutral suggestion? Aaron Liu (talk) 15:18, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Present tense feels sufficiently neutral for this, right? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 15:20, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, because it is present tense and will be changed into the past tense, which breaks links. With ACE also changing content to the past tense I'm not sure if there's consensus to not rewrite into the past tense. This isn't any important enough for me to push it, though, so you're free to change it back if you wish. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:08, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't agree that a verb "will be changed into the past tense", and I don't think this should be a consideration in choosing a heading. That being said, I don't have a problem with using "Voter eligibility". isaacl (talk) 16:38, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The truth is, people are spontaneously changing verbs to the past tense, as seen at ACE. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:46, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It happened in 2023 at the arbitration committee elections page, but not in 2024 (yet), and has not happened for all past elections (as of when I checked in 2023). It leads to very stilted language and doesn't bring any particular benefit. If a trend develops, I think determining a practice by consensus would be warranted, but I don't think it's necessary yet. (On a technical point, someone changing a heading could add an anchor to preserve older links. I didn't mention this before because I think the re-writing shouldn't be done anyway.) isaacl (talk) 17:11, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

special:Diff/1262010917. Nothing else was changed 2024 but that's more of an oversight. Anchors can be added, but the editors who spontaneously change the tense are unlikely to realize that. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:15, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, not an oversight. I didn't object to that brief change made in the lead sentence, but I will object if the rest of the page gets altered, after having posted my view on this matter in 2023. isaacl (talk) 17:22, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have the same position you have, then. (Though I think that all headings should just be tense-neutral.) Aaron Liu (talk) 20:03, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

With little copy edits like this, probably best to just make the change, and anyone that doesn't like it can revert it. Will save us 650 words of discussion :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:13, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it was worthwhile to mention the broader issue. I feel what best serves future readers is to preserve the appearance of the page as it was during the vote. Perhaps it would be helpful to have a status banner at the top, similar as with the arbitration committee elections, so the current state of the election is clearly identified. isaacl (talk) 17:18, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We did have a status banner at the top; it was only removed this month. There was rough consensus to make it just an ombox, and I did make what is now {{Administrator elections status}} based on the ACE status header, but I misconfigured it spectacularly during the trial election; while the misconfiguration has been fixed, I'm not sure if we'll get consensus to adopt that automatically-updating template instead of the manually-updated header template we had. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:08, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was referring to the individual election pages. When the next election page is created, it could have a status banner to highlight the current state of that specific election and eventually its results. It wouldn't be a lot different than the current lead sentence at Wikipedia:Administrator elections/October 2024, but some editors like to have that info given additional emphasis. isaacl (talk) 23:10, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The header is the header for the election pages. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:21, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That header currently solicits participation in the past RfCs. My suggestion is for a header that just describes the state of the election and which never gets modified again after the election is closed and the results are announced. isaacl (talk) 00:28, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I'd got with Voter eligibility or Voter suffrage. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:21, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]