Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship

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I think Floquenbeam did a good thing removing the RfA from WP:RfA. Whatever may have been going on, the candidate was seemingly away for some time, and the RfA seemed incomplete to many commenters, and so removing it gives the candidate time to address that should they wish to. And by pausing things in this way, reduces potential waste of volunteer time, and reduces the effects that a confused electorate can potentially have upon said RfA.

I wish this was standard practice from the bureaucrats to do, but I guess it's a case-by-case basis kind of thing.

In the future, should someone just need to ask at WP:BN? As a general rule, waiting after 12 (or 24?) hours of no response from a candidate for a process which asks the candidate to be present and available for discussion, seems a fair time for bureaucrats to wait, then they should (kindly) step in and pause things.

I welcome others' thoughts on this.- jc37 20:20, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was fine with Floquenbeam handling this as a case of WP:IAR, but if the community wants this to be encoded in policy, it does seem like there needs to be an option in addition to WP:NOTNOW and WP:SNOW in cases where the candidate isn't actively engaging or the RFA is incomplete, but it's not hopeless or completely inappropriate. We often don't know what's going on behind the scenes (only the visible effects) and reengaging in situations like this can be quite daunting. I also wouldn't want to require a bureaucrat to be the one who always pulls the trigger on such an option before the discussion spirals. The more I think about it, encoding this in policy might be the way to go. I'm guessing there was some additional and unnecessary delay because IAR isn't something administrators would typically take lightly. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 20:48, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This "pausing" seems like bad precedent to me. At RfA, the candidate has the power to stop the process themselves and then simply start the process again from fresh at any time. If truly some emergency or unexpected thing happened in real life that prevents them from being responsive at RfA, then if the candidate is able to edit, they should communicate that to us and withdraw their RfA until there is a time that works better. If the candidate is completely unable to respond due to the emergency, then perhaps we could discuss suspending RfAs as a courtesy on a case-by-case basis (in this case, though, the candidate was actively editing during their RfA). Otherwise, if it becomes clear that an RfA is not going to be successful, then we should just go to WP:BN and ask a bureaucrat to close the RfA early per WP:SNOW. Mz7 (talk) 21:00, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd support a rule that an RfA monitor (which any uninvolved admin or 'crat can self-appoint as) may pause and untransclude an RfA if it is below 60% support, the candidate has not made an edit related to the RfA in over 24 hours, and it seems plausible that further participation by the candidate could change the outcome of the RfA. The candidate could revert the pause and retransclude at any time in the next 48 hours if they wish, for any reason or no reason, after which point the RfA cannot be paused again; if they do not, the RfA closes as unsuccessful. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 21:13, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with a 60% threshold, but I'd prefer to leave the has not made an edit related to the RfA in over 24 hours part more loosely defined to allow administrator and bureaucrat discretion. 24 hours is definitely too high for today's RFA landscape. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 21:18, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I don't like the idea that candidates are expected to be active throughout the request period, continually monitoring the support level to see if they're able to have a respite. If the community only wants candidates with a certain floor level of support, I think this is better implemented by requiring a set number of support statements before a request is made. isaacl (talk) 23:23, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My own thought is that it probably doesn't need codifying, because it's an extremely rare edge case. Hard cases make bad law. Floquenbeam (talk) 21:41, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not comfortable with the idea that the community can decide to pause requests in an ad hoc manner. I think this introduces a degree of gatekeeping to adminship requests. If the community wants this, it should be more direct and enact something more formal: specific criteria, a nominating committee, a certain threshold number of support statements, or something else. isaacl (talk) 23:23, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RFA has a long history of snow closes done by non-bureaucrats. In fact, the header of WP:RFA has instructions for it. When Floq paused the RfA, it was a 48.5% and falling. Just to get back into crat chat territory, it would have needed 47 more support votes without another oppose. Show me any RfA that recovered from such a hole, and I might even try to eat my keyboard. We don't need to expand the ever expanding bureaucracy to deal with this case. The case is blatantly obvious. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:56, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there is a history of closing requests early, and thus precedence around the circumstances when the community deems it to be appropriate. There isn't precedence for pausing a request, and I'd rather not have a lot of bureaucracy around when pausing is appropriate. isaacl (talk) 00:08, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it was a good use of WP:IAR to temporarily pause the RFA, especially given the regrettable {{Administrator without tools}} template left on their talk page which seemed to come with plenty of support but little in the way of advice or help. WP:IAR exists for unusual cases and even WP:SNOW is ultimately an application of IAR most of the time. In contrast to what happened here, bureaucracy powers through process without concerning itself about potential harm to individuals or the community. Anyhow, I don't think we need to overthink this. While I would support an official "third option", this kind of situation is rare enough that we don't really need to update the policy. IAR exists as a policy to help us handle rare cases. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 00:25, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The pause was appropriately bold act where bold action was needed. There is not much point in continuing this RfA as it stands. I frankly would have thought LaundryPizza03 was a slam dunk for confirmation, and I can imagine how disheartening it must be for them to be treated this way. However, I am also fine with Barkeep49's reversion of the pause, as an administrative exercise of WP:BRD. BD2412 T 00:24, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This appears to be a tragedy of misunderstood expectations. I can't fault anyone here for trying to mitigate things and marching off the map in doing so. Jclemens (talk) 01:20, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've started a discussion at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(idea_lab)#Should_admins_be_extended_confirmed? about making admins keep Extended confirmed by default. Editors here may be interested in that discussion. Soni (talk) 07:06, 28 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]