The template is intended to aid RfA participants by providing links to statistical data about the candidate. Assuming you're referring to the xtools RfX vote tool, I'm not sure how valuable it is to know how many RfA !votes the candidate has casted in terms of their suitability for adminship. — MusikAnimaltalk16:34, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Can someone please remove the 'AfD Closes' link as it no longer works.
In the latest RfA, it was claimed SQL's AIV Analysis doesn't work so needs replacing. If you see the RfA, there is another tool on Xtools but I can't get that to load either.
RhinosF1, I wasn't aware that it wasn't working until today when another editor brought it to my attention. I'm not going to have enough time to work on it for the next couple weeks - so I'm going to go ahead and remove my tool from the template. SQLQuery me!03:38, 25 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
At Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Analysis of edit summary usage I asked a question about how much history the analysis of edit summary usage in the context of an RfA. I am of the opinion that going back 10 or 15 years does not add useful information about a current candidate, and suggested 5 years. Someone else suggested 2 years. Whatever we decide, it appears that the link in this template is the place to make the change:
So, if we make the change, what is the right number? How far back should we go to make it so the reader sees how the candidate uses edit summaries now as apposed to a decade ago? 2 years? 5 years? some other number? --Guy Macon (talk) 14:02, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I would say 2 years sounds good; this is the period of time I usually look at when evaluating candidates. I will look further on some things like the block log, but edit summaries? 2+ years ago probably shouldn't matter. Just be sure to also change the link text to "Recent edit summary usage" — MusikAnimaltalk18:42, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
On my PC that second URL appears to be the same "all edits from all time" summary except with "Jimbo_Wales" instead of "Jimbo Wales" in the URL. The actual anontools template gives you this:
Note the weirdness in the "[" and "]" placement...
Getting back on topic, one editor wants more discussion, and I have zero objections to more discussion, so where should I post the RfC? So I can combine proposals, are there any other related statistics that RfA voters see that go back over ten years when they should show the last two years?
Right now I can only edit Wikipedia for a short time before having to either rest or do more physical therapy, so I would really appreciate it if someone else could grab the ball and run with it on this one... --Guy Macon (talk) 16:19, 19 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't feel this is quite RfC-worthy (but if enough people here disagree, then certainly it is). The questionable part I think is whether edit summaries from 2+ years ago are relevant when evaluating a candidate. Ahecht's suggestion finds the middle line, where we give you all-time stats and "recent", and you as the !voter make the decision on what you feel is relevant.
Relatedly, I have plans to add the form for each tool in XTools on the result pages. It wold be collapsed at the top, similar to the "Search for contributions" panel at Special:Contributions/MusikAnimal. This would at least make it more clear that you can filter by date, and allow the user decide what date range they think is important. It will be a while before this is implemented, though. — MusikAnimaltalk21:41, 19 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Giving the user a choice is ideal. but we still should pick a default for those who don't make a choice, and that default should be in the range of 2-5 years. The RfA !voters who have a clue already ignore edit summaries from ten years ago, but RfAs also attract newbies and editors with a chip on their shoulder, neither of whom are likely to select a date range or even bother to look past the pretty pie charts at the top. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:39, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
