Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Liz/Bureaucrat discussion

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Further discussion of this decision or "meta" issues should occur at WP:BN or WT:RFA, other issues not related to bureaucrat decisions elsewhere. –xenotalk 16:39, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Extend discussion[edit]

The RfA instructions say "In exceptional circumstances, bureaucrats may extend RfAs beyond seven days or restart the nomination to make consensus clearer". Having watched the RfA, I have seen votes switch, from support to oppose, from oppose to neutral, from neutral to support .... every which way really. I wonder if just leaving things open for another day or two would allow a consensus to settle one way or the other and ensure people have cemented their decision? I can't recall any recent case where this was done, but it might be worthwhile doing here. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:12, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Lear's Fool's RfA in 2011 is the last time I remember that, so it has been done. Obviously I'm not disinterested here, so I won't comment on the merits of doing so. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 12:14, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As WJBScribe mentions in the 'crat chat, there's off-wiki forces at work, especially towards the end of the RfA. I think that those forces would have more of an effect if this were re-opened, and personally agree with the decision to close. I'm sure the 'crats can make a decision, that's what they're (we're) there for. WormTT(talk) 12:16, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Extensions can work where canvassing has occured early in the RfA, as extending serves to dilute the effect. The reason I ruled it out in this case is that apparently this RfA was flagged on a non neutral off-wiki site within the last 24 hrs of the RfA, so extending the RfA would presumably give greater opportunity for the result to be distorted by the canvassing. I also made some comments about the dangers of extensions just to see if the result gets clearer in the last cratchat. WJBscribe (talk) 12:18, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note in the interest of transparency: The Wikipediocracy thread mentioned by User:Sitush in this edit was started on August 1 at 5:03PM (roughly half way through the RfA). Disclaimer: The thread is now hidden and I am not a WO member so I can't verify this personally. -Thibbs (talk) 14:02, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I am, and I do, allowing for timezone confusion. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:36, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, I totally agree with Worm and WJB. --Dweller (talk) 12:46, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dweller I'm perplexed by comments about lack of content contribution, given she has 12,389 edits to mainspace. I'm also bothered by people opposing because she has a high level of activity outside of mainspace. I'm mulling this, but minded to seriously downgrade opposes on these bases. I would like to say that downgrading any opposes because users are concerned about mainspace contributions and article writing competency is wholly inappropriate. The community is empowered to have whoever it wants as an administrator, if they don't want Liz because they don't like their contributions, that's their inalienable right. I would suggest you're getting to the stage of downgrading the validity of comments because there's no consensus, you can't really make consensus appear by telling people their comments are less worthy or downright wrong. Nick (talk) 12:57, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And admins wonder why normal editors don't trust them. Dweller, discounting opposes because you don't agree with the rationale of the editor is BS. My opposition was not based on the number of mainspace edits, for me that is a "who cares" statistic. What I care about is the fact that she has not demonstrated that she knows how to create quality content, and that she spends too much time on the drama boards. Ritchie333 has it right, below. GregJackP Boomer! 15:24, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Dweller, I'll also note that coming to my talk page to tell me not to call BS when I think something is BS is not conducive for open discussion. But if you want to chill conversation, that's the way to do it (or to try to do it). I don't think it is appropriate for you to substitute your judgment for that of the community, I believe that an admin that does so is not fit to hold the bit. Is that clear enough? GregJackP Boomer! 15:42, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Liz's volume of mainspace contributions is actually quite impressive (she outstrips mine by quite some margin; I guess that means I'm not fit to be an administrator either). Granted, many of these are categorisation edits (and who needs those, right?) rather than content, but still, oppose votes based on "doesn't edit mainspace enough" are therefore pretty wide of the mark. Yunshui 雲水 13:04, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) I thought the same thing [as Nick]. There are some opposes that seem to be telling untruths (e.g. 54), but mainspace edit ≠ content contribution. The vast majority of Liz's mainspace edits are just reverts of unconstructive edits or large scale categorization changes – I'm not saying that it's not helpful, but it doesn't involve creating anything new of substance. People are perfectly justified in opposing because they dislike Liz's lack of content creation. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 13:06, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I see opposes from well respected admins, including Philg88, Drmies, Dennis Brown, Bishonen and Kudpung. I don't think sweeping them under the carpet with "well we don't agree with your view" is going to work - there is a serious risk that if the RfA passes by downplaying oppose votes, there will be a handful of people watching Liz and booting her off to ANI the minute she makes even the slightest of mistakes (this happens to admins generally, but in this instance I feel it'll be more pronounced). Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:10, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
And at least it is a meaningful rationale. There are support votes with none at all. - Sitush (talk) 13:13, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's not a valid objection; if they're supporting her candidacy, it must be that they're not especially concerned. The real question here is, have all of the supporters taken into consideration the arguments in opposition? There's simply no way to know that. Alakzi (talk) 13:31, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Or it might mean that they haven't been paying attention. There is no "must" about it. - Sitush (talk) 14:27, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You first sentence is a rephrasing of my second sentence and your second sentence simply does not follow. Alakzi (talk) 14:59, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I agree with Ritchie here and I was quite disturbed by the Crat chat, as I have been following Liz closely and consider myself very informed as to her suitability, yet their comments seem to say they will completely discount my vote because they don't consider it valid. This is insulting and has not gone unnoticed. Noting that an editor has spent too much time in politics relative to content is as valid a vote as any other. Crats are obviously here to weigh the validity and applicability of any vote, but there is NO policy that says content contributions can not be used as a valid reason to oppose, so throwing out well expressed votes that use this rationale is not within policy and would constitute a supervote, ie: substituting your own opinion above that of the community. That is political and the antithesis of what Crats were selected for. I'm trying to remain open minded, but I am disturbed by the tone and ease of which some are willing to cast out votes. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:25, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ditto to Ritchie333 and Dennis Brown; I presume Dweller's comment was just a posting-when-tired blip which he'll retract. If a 'crat seriously believes that they have the supervoting right to disregard any comment with which they don't personally agree, then to be blunt they shouldn't be a 'crat. – iridescent 15:37, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've never had anything but high regard for Dweller, so I hope you are correct. The very idea that one can't consider content experience for adminship is absurd to the point of bizarre, as we are an encyclopedia. Not saying it's the only criteria, but obviously it is a valid one. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:47, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Is it so absurd, actually? Writing is a key aspect to an encyclopedia but adminship is more concerned with maintaining the content as well as policing behaviours rather than outright writing them. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:51, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, absurd. I never had a GA or FA until after I got the bit. I'm not a wiz at prose, but I had deep experience with sourcing and writing small stuff, gnoming, and could demonstrate the ability to settle editing disputes I was involved in. This takes experience, and the lack of quality experience doing this is as valid a reason to oppose as there is. You are free to disagree, but that doesn't change the validity of my vote. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 16:01, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Crat chats: when it rains, it pours. Is this three in the last couple of weeks? Anyway, to echo some of the others above, I disagree with at least part Dweller's comment – it is possible to rack up that number of mainspace edits without contributing any significant content, and I think it has been shown at previous RfAs and crat chats that lack of content contributions is a valid oppose rationale. Jenks24 (talk) 13:19, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The validity of the "lack of content contributions" rationale has been under dispute in the past, c.f Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Bsadowski1 and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Lugia2453/Bureaucrat discussion. And of course, the fair amount of "Not an issue for me" posts in a number of RfAs. That would need a community discussion to settle at some point. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 13:47, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
...and despite having some experience with it, I still don't think it is necessary to be an admin. I believe that each user has their own way of contributing, and I very much disagreed when I read a comment stating that gnomes/vandal fighters/etc. were not valuable compared to the content creators. It is true, of course, that without content creators there would be no Wikipedia, so perhaps there is a bit of truth to that statement, but as Wikipedia grows the importance of dedicated maintenance users also grows. Suppose the content creators had their way and all these users left, and only content creators remained. They would have one of two choices: (1) Continue to be a dedicated writer and simply monitor articles in which they have a personal interest, while the more neglected sides of WP rot; (2) Revert vandalism throughout Wikipedia, while simultaneously attempting to write content; considering the undeniably small number of dedicated content creators in proportion to all users, a flood of vandals could simply overwhelm them and not leave any time for writing anyway, unless they give up on maintaining the other articles and fall back on option (1). I'll let readers draw their own conclusions as to what they would prefer. ;) --Biblioworm 14:30, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree that opposition based on one's lack of content contributions is fundamentally a solid foundation to ground one's opposition upon. Suggesting what a candidate might do with the tools based on his or her "political conviction", on the other hand, is categorically baseless and a quite blatant assumption of bad faith. I think !votes casting that aspersion rightfully should be reduced in weight, and there are several of them in the mix. Good luck discharging your duties as a crat; I am confident that a proper close of this RFA is at hand.--John Cline (talk) 14:09, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Our bureaucrats are held to a very high standard and are assumed to be, and believe themselves to be impartial and dispassionate when assessing a debate. They are going to have to be very wise in what they do here to avoid marring that image. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:38, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Crats are required to judge the consensus, not maintain an "image". WormTT(talk) 07:06, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Like Nick, I too am dismayed to read Dweller's comment. Firstly, the number of mainspace edits alone is not an indication of content creation. Secondly, some editors have decided that content creation indicates a greater appreciation for content and the creative process, which may help admins to undertake administrative actions with more care and respect for editors. The fact that you (Dweller) have decided that this factor is unimportant is justification for you to support the candidate. However it is not justification for you to "downgrade opposes" just because you disagree with those opinions. If I had known that you would take this approach, I would have opposed your RfB. (Ironically, at that time I wrote "Dweller clearly knows how to interpret "Consensus".") [Disclosure: I support Liz's application.] Axl ¤ [Talk] 14:22, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There are also a number of editors that don't agree with content creation being necessary for adminship, though. And neither policy nor the nature of the administrator tools imply a need for such. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 14:27, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Those editors should !vote in support of candidates who have the other skills required while lacking content creation. Axl ¤ [Talk] 14:28, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would be very disappointed if "not enough content editing and creating" were simply discredited. By the same token, I think "too many edits on the dramaboards" probably means, for many of those who made comments of the sort, "too many edits without contributing positively" or something like that; that is certainly my position. I've been looking at AfDs (after looking at dozens, if not hundreds, of discussions the candidate was involved in one way or another), an important area and one where the candidate has done little work, and I keep asking myself how she would act, and whether she would decide on any of them at all, since decisiveness was one of the qualities I found lacking, on ANI and elsewhere.

    Anyway, we should (no, you all should) be very careful in discarding some votes--after all, one may well wonder what kind of support "This easily could have happened a while ago" is. (Yes, it could have, but it didn't, and if it had, would that have been a good thing? and if so, why? etc.) Typically, "support per nom" is good enough, and I don't have much of a problem with that attitude, but criticizing the opposes smacks of bias. In fact, I think overall this RfA has been hotly contested, but the tone was generally collegial; let's not sour it afterwards by placing conditions on what a decent "oppose" vote is and what isn't. Drmies (talk) 14:36, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • (ec)I don't think anyone is "discarding" votes. When a debate is close to this one must look at the quality of the claims being made. I think it is more a matter of opinions failing to sway others than it is dismissing anyone's opinion. An argument that drew challenge and failed to sway someone should be given less weight than an argument that went unchallenged or succeeded in swaying people. The fact is that the opinion that content creation is a requirement met with significant challenge and not only did not not sway people several people doubled down on their support position. It is not bias against the idea, it is recognition that the idea was not compelling to many of those involved. Chillum 14:42, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Chillum, in all fairness, but that reasoning goes for each and every argument pro or con that was advanced during this RfA... --Randykitty (talk) 14:47, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Every argument that was challenged, and particularly arguments where people doubled down on their original position. Chillum 14:56, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "This easily could have happened a while ago" went unchallenged. Are you willing to argue that therefore it was a strong argument or swayed people? This is not a path we wish to go down. Drmies (talk) 15:17, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • My suggestion the level of challenge that an opinion receives should be taken into account when deciding its weight does not imply that I think a lack of challenge means that it swayed people. No I am not willing to argue that, nor do I think that my position is anywhere near the same path. Chillum 16:38, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • (ec) Chillum, this approach might become the thin end of a nasty wedge. Currently, I avoid replying to almost all RfA comments that I disagree with, because even though I do disagree with them, I respect the other person's right to hold them. What you've just said ups the value of challenging comments we don't agree with. Such challenges are often the cause of considerable heat in RfAs. To avoid that, I think each comment needs to be taken on its own merit, regardless of who did or didn't challenge it. --Stfg (talk) 16:44, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is a reason we call it a !vote instead of a vote. RfA is supposed to be a discussion, you are supposed to engage with people you disagree with. Remain silent if you wish, but you will not be heard. Chillum 16:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well if you say something that is obviously false like "WP:ADMIN is 70% full of bad-eggs" then you can expect people to respond to you. People disagreeing with you is part of the discussion I was talking about. You seemed annoyed when people responded then and said your "!vote is not up for discussion", my point is each and every !vote is most certainly up for discussion. Chillum 23:39, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Who says it's false? Not to me it's not. You know as well as I do that there are bad eggs in the admin pool; you get them in all walks of life, you only have to ask about to discover the truth. I seemed annoyed as I didn't expect to be the victim of a lynch mob for saying what I said. That was how it appeared. CassiantoTalk 08:44, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • You said something disagreeable and a bunch of people disagreed. I say it is false, and so did a bunch of other people. Calling it a "lynch mob" is tacky hyperbole, people just disagreed with you. That is the nature of discussion. Chillum 14:14, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I second Drmies' last remark. Despite being hotly contested, this RfA shows that those who claim that it's a snakepit are wrong. This was a civil debate, not marred by personal attacks on anybody, including the candidate and with many opposers expressing appreciation of the candidate, even though they don't think she's admin material. --Randykitty (talk) 14:44, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh no – I fully find it to be a "snakepit". --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:43, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "[no] personal attacks on anybody". Bullshit. (Drmies's smearing comment I have "well-known dislike of almost all admins", and Blade's characterization of my Oppose !vote as "petulant rant".) IHTS (talk) 21:14, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unfortunately, I don't think that's what it means – I've gotten from this the strong impression that there is a subset of RfA voters who will view any participation at something like WP:ANI as a "black mark" against the candidate. (I bet poor User:Erpert, et al. wish they knew about this viewpoint earlier in their Wiki participation!) Apparently, "pre-training" for any aspect of Adminship means you're a "careerist" with suspect motives... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:43, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • WJBscribe the wide support shown in this RfA While I agree that there is wide support and a highly unusual number of support !votes (at least in recent RfA history), the same goes for the highly unusual number of oppose !votes. And as you note, many people apparently wrestled with this, which in my view makes the opposes !votes more significant, not a kind of doubtful supports as you seem to imply. --Randykitty (talk) 14:39, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, Randykitty. Plus, there were editors who changed from support to oppose or decided on oppose after waiting on the sidelines and seeing what others had to state. And a number of the oppose votes did not use a "You need to create article content" rationale. In fact, some of them stated that they did not care much about that or the WP:GA and WP:FA arguments. Flyer22 (talk) 14:45, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm farly convinced that this high turnout is the result of the candidate's own subliminal canvassing by constantly being in those places, and often enough, where one gets noticed. Halve the number of votes in all columns and the percentage still stays the same. It's only the high rate of participation that could lead one to perceive this RfA as having been an ordeal for the candidate. As Drmies states, ...overall this RfA has been hotly contested, but the tone was generally collegial; let's not sour it afterwards by placing conditions on what a decent "oppose" vote is and what isn't. As I said above, the 'crats are going to have to tread very carefully on this one. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:05, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The tone at the RFA was not particularly heated compared to RFAs of the past, but the tone of the Crat chat...I find disturbing. I wan't to assume good faith, it almost feels like some are invested in promoting and simply searching for a rationale to do so. I'm not saying that is absolutely the case, but the choice of language has been poor at best. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:33, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly wouldn't have cared for some of the comments in both directions, it wasn't the most heated discussion ever but it was far from ideal. A lot of the points (and I include myself, I think it's fairly obvious which comment of mine I refer to) could have been made a lot better, and as much as people below are discounting the canvassing the accounts that were obviously only there because of it left some of the more toxic comments. I don't need to be a mind-reader to say this was an obviously harrowing experience, whether you care for Liz's editing or not. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 15:47, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I like Liz and was looking to her eventual RFA down the road some time, even though I had no choice but to oppose her now. The point, to which you seem to agree, is that the RFA was rather typical in my respects in that there was some heat. What made it seem worse was that the participation was quite high, so even with a typical signal to noise ration, it was a fair amount of noise. From my own RFA, I understand that, but it comes with the territory when you live a high profile existence here, it can't be avoided. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 16:04, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"It's only the high rate of participation that could lead one to perceive this RfA as having been an ordeal for the candidate." Seriously? [dumbfounded...] --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:48, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"Subliminal canvassing by...get[ting] noticed"? Shirley you jest. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:38, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Consensus should be determined by quality of arguments through the lens of policy, so I think some !votes should be discounted at the very least. If some consider there should be a privileged class of "content creators" who can take ownership of any article they choose, without threat of policy enforcement, they should obtain WP:CONSENSUS for removal of WP:PILLARS 3 and 4, rather than bullying a candidate they fear may not treat them unduly favourably. Burninthruthesky (talk) 21:03, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Likewise, those who consider there should be a privileged class of "administrators" can seek consensus to abolish pillar 1. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:55, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
only the high rate of participation that could lead one to perceive this RfA as having been an ordeal for the candidate - only? Well, there's an actual human being who is the subject of all of this discussion and who might have some insight into what aspects of this process made it feel like an ordeal. Maybe descriptions like the candidate's own subliminal canvassing might come up. Kudpung, I hope you posted this before having enough coffee or something, because that's a remarkably insensitive, callous, dismissive comment. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:27, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Canvassing[edit]

Just out of curiosity, where was the off-site canvassing taking place and was it support or oppose? --Randykitty (talk) 13:53, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose on Reddit, although it is disputed there. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 13:55, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That canvassing doesn't seem to have added much to the oppose camp. The aforementioned discussion on Wikipediocracy likely contributed more so to the influx of editors...on both sides. Flyer22 (talk) 14:03, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I guess that explains at least in part the unusually high number of participants here. --Randykitty (talk) 14:32, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Randykitty, see my comment in the section above.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:10, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I would assume Liz's high visibility is what led to the high turnout. She does clerk at Arb and is a regular fixture at ANI. I would have been shocked if the turn out was low. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:28, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The effect of canvassing is very difficult to assess. Were I assessing the consensus, I'd be focussing more on strength of arguments and less on numbers. I'd also take note of the change in voting type after the canvassing took place, and would take it into account that way in a final decision. It's certainly not easy. WormTT(talk) 14:12, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It swung both ways in the hours around that Reddit post. There was a large influx of supports, followed by more opposes. I doubt very much that the post made any difference at all. - Sitush (talk) 14:22, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have the impression that canvassing had a large impact. As has been noted, there are very few new accounts participating and not in numbers that distort the percentage support/oppose. --Randykitty (talk) 14:32, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Concurring with this. One or two now struck votes may have been canvassed but from an analysis of the edits of some late opposes/supports I do not get the impression they arrived here through canvassing. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 14:35, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think one of the things to note about off-wiki canvassing, at least on RFA's, is that it generally tends to attract people who are already Wikipedia regulars but wouldn't have otherwise voted. You dont need to see some guy with a redlinked talkpage and an edit count of 2 to say "canvassing"! And they need not have even posted in the reddit thread. Thus there's really no smoking gun that leads us to say a vote should be scrubbed. But we can see trends like a sudden surge of votes by people who havent voted or even edited recently, but are comfortable with Wikipedia and RFA's in general as evidenced by sizable long-term edit counts.
Eleventh-hour oppose votes by UnbelievableError and Auerbachkeller stand out to me as people who likely wouldnt have even logged in to Wikipedia that day had they not been alerted of the RFA from elsewhere. One of those had not edited anything since April and the other had only made a few Gamergate-related edits since late May. I would say those votes are at least the very least suspicious. Also we could consider the possibility that some people were brought in by a site completetly different from Reddit, or through email. —Soap— 16:36, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I somehow didnt notice that Auerbach's vote was removed. I apologize. However, the other wasnt, and that account had had even more of a gap between the oppose and its next most recent edit. —Soap— 16:39, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Soap, I thought similarly about the canvassing coming from elsewhere (likely from multiple places). Flyer22 (talk) 04:29, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Mkdw's wrong heading[edit]

How can Mkdw-an administrator create such a misguided heading about a discussion concerning himself ? Move to talk page justified. Could have selected some other heading. With that controversial heading, there was a negative vote swing yesterday. However, such speculation was not fair, as he is an administrator.Aero Slicer 16:28, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It was a very poor choice of heading, it is hard to say how much effect it had. Any careful examination would show that there were no canvassing concerns, however that does not change the fact that "Liz" and "canvassing concerns" kept showing up on the watchlist of all the participants here. Chillum 16:43, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There was almost 5 to 4% negative swing after that heading was given by Mkdw. It didn't harm him but harmed someone else. Previously it was coming down slowly. I never wanted to vote here as at first there was 95% support but when it went below 80% I had to enter the scene. Aero Slicer 16:49, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

<-This was also canvassed on-wiki by a SPA near the start of the RfA. It was reverted fairly quickly, but anyone who had the fringe theories notice board on their watchlist would have seen it. --Versageek 08:33, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

26,500 HotCat edits[edit]

To verify, go here and click "Next 500 results" 53 times. A bureaucrat mentioning the "12,389 edits to mainspace" roused my curiosity. I didn't find a way to search by namespace, but glancing through the results shows a substantial portion are to mainspace. Manul ~ talk 16:22, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

One can filter for someone's (Liz's) mainspace contributions here. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:24, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, but the point was tallying the HotCat edits, which you can't do from Special:Contributions (setting aside the impractical solution of counting them manually). Manul ~ talk 16:35, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There's a namespace filter under advanced options; unintuitively, you have to put a comma in it to search the main namespace. 9501 of her mainspace edits have the word "HotCat" in the edit summary. —Cryptic 16:37, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what the point of this is, other than to highlight a possible error re: numbers. HotCat stuff isn't content work in the sense that most people would use the term; it is more akin to semi-automated filing. - Sitush (talk) 16:42, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
A bureaucrat said, "I'm perplexed by comments about lack of content contribution, given she has 12,389 edits to mainspace." That 9501 of those are HotCat edits would seem important to know. Manul ~ talk 16:51, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) And this shows another 1500 or so Twinkle/STiki edits. Not all of the latter will be to mainspace, of course, but it looks like about 10,000 of the "12,389 edits to mainspace" are automated edits. To put this in perspective, I consider myself a rather heavy user of aut0mated edits and have about 21,000 of them, but on a total of 57,000 edits. Sitush, I think the point of this exercise is to argue that the "content creation argument" is stronger than the "12,389 edits to mainspace" suggests. --Randykitty (talk) 16:56, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Semi-automatic tool, actually. One has to still assess every edit manually, not like a fully automated bot which operates without input. Not that it affects the argument in either direction. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:00, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) In which case, the answer is that it is not. Content creation involves writing, research, weighing up neutrality/reliability etc, discussion of issues. Categorisation in articles, in particular, might be useful but it is robotic and routine by comparison; often extremely so, as I find out periodically myself. Click on one, modify/add/delete, repeat. - Sitush (talk) 17:02, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Don't admins routinely use semi-automated tools? It seems like Liz has had some good preparation for the roll. On the otherhand, I haven't seen much evidence that supports that an admin has to be a significant content creator to be able to be trusted with the tools. INeverCry made an excellent point in that regard. However, I do concede that significant content creation would be an asset for an admin who wanted to work in certain areas, such as closing RfCs.- MrX 17:19, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've no idea what admins use but you are missing my point: what she has been doing with HotCat is not "content work" in the sense that most people would consider it. That content work is considered to be important has already been stated by numerous people although, fwiw, I would not be one of those requiring a FA. - Sitush (talk) 17:24, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I would think it would be useful to know what admins do, broadly speaking, rather than (apparently) assume that they primarily adjudicate content disputes. I'm aware that there are a numerous people that believe that content creation is an important prerequisite for adminship, but the are a seemingly larger number that believe otherwise. If our goal is to build an entire online encyclopedia, then I think categorization is an important part of that. It's easier than researching sources and writing prose, but it pretty closely aligned with what a lot of admins do on a daily basis.- MrX 17:33, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Many admins are dealing with behavioural issues when wearing their admin hat. The best way to understand behaviour is to have experienced the other side. The example I gave that related to me was very well analysed by Abecedare, and unfortunately showed a lack of understanding by Liz in multiple aspects relating to content. Don't forget that the mop comes as a full toolset. - Sitush (talk) 17:38, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I understand your viewpoint, and partly agree. I would hope that any admin who lacks such experience would venture cautiously into areas requiring it. A lot can be learned about (Wikipedia) behavior though quiet observation.- MrX 17:55, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Trust of the community[edit]

For those who are claiming that content creation is not a "valid" oppose, I'll point out that WP:ADMIN states: Any editor can comment on a request, and each editor will assess their confidence in a particular candidate's readiness in their own way.

In other words, if an editor does not believe that the candidate is ready due to lack of content creation, that goes to their confidence in the candidate's readiness to get the bit. It is just as valid and should be given just as much weight as those who !voted "support" with no policy comments. Either is equally valid. GregJackP Boomer! 17:29, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If that were actually the case, then all votes would be counted equally and a supermajority would win the day. I think the reality is a little more nuanced. Bureaucrats are trusted to assess consensus. If they assign lower weight to some votes, for example, because the reasoning is tangential to the duties of adminship, then that is their prerogative. - MrX 17:47, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's an over-simplification. What makes their view that content creation is "tangential" the correct view? Grix outlined any number of valid reasons that content creation is a valid argument. Why shouldn't they assign a lower weight to those who just said "support" without much further explanation? GregJackP Boomer! 17:54, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
WP:ADMIN doesn't say anything about content creation being a prerequisite for or a duty of adminship. In fact, it says it's a "technical ability" and "Anyone can request adminship ("RFA") from the community, regardless of their Wikipedia experience." To answer your last question, "support" without additional explanation is traditionally construed to mean "I agree with the nominating statement(s)".- MrX 18:07, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Which means an awful lot of people agreed with a error made by one of the noms. (A minor thing, acknowledged and explained earlier today - got to dash but a diff shouldn't be hard to find). Opposers have to "work" much harder to get their voice heard. - Sitush (talk) 18:14, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The only prerequisite is the trust of the community. It is reasonable for individuals to have their own criteria in order to trust the candidate. Any criteria that is "reasonable" (ie: many would agree that the criteria is reasonable, even if a minority of editors) then that is reason enough for the vote to count fully. Many people consider moderate experience that doesn't use HotCat or automated tools a criteria, thus it is de facto reasonable, as it is a widely accepted criteria. Requiring many FAs to get the bit? Not reasonable (per the fractional minority that hold that view), but that isn't at stake here. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 18:24, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict × 3) I don't think that's an oversimplification at all. You said "Either is equally valid". No, it's not. You're actually being too generous. Giving a rationale of "little content creation" is better.
I think the most flawed !votes in this RfA came from supporters: e.g. "Support I thought Liz was already a sysop" (179). That's not a good reason. If someone says something along the lines of "In my experience, Liz has shown good judgement and strong knowledge of Wikipedia, always managing to keep a level head (etc.); the fact is, I thought they were already a sysop based on their excellent conduct", that's a valid reason to support. Saying "I thought Liz was already a sysop" is not a reason at all; it's a statement which has many different potential connotations, depending on what the reader of the comment chooses to infer. I can cite many more examples of rationales which are essentially just votes with no reasoning in disguise: "sounds good to me", "wait, she isn't one already? Weird.", "I think is an excellent move", "absolutely" etc. These really shouldn't be given as much weight as any !vote which came with a genuine argument.
As for content creation (or lack of it): yes, it's a valid reason to oppose. It does not have as much weight as (e.g.) "candidate has been topic banned for inflammatory behaviour and had rollback permissions removed", because it is not as big an issue (and I don't think anybody would say it is). I think that could possibly be what Dweller and some other people seem to be trying to say (although – as always – there's a large chance I'm just completely wrong); lack of content creation is an inherently weaker issue than some reasons for opposition. It is not, however, something that should be ignored. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 18:27, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This has to be the most laughable and invalid justification for an oppose during the entire RfA! CassiantoTalk 19:49, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
And what about the substance of this one?: "Support No brainer. Bazj (talk) 11:00, 28 July 2015 (UTC)" (7). IHTS (talk) 21:47, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
IHTS, I would say that 60% of the support votes gave a bullshit reason like that. CassiantoTalk 18:53, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bilorv is spot on. Content creation is and always has been an obviously-valid reason to oppose. I supported but I think the opposers have a valid point in objecting to the candidate's disproportionate focus on drama boards as opposed to content involvement and I would similarly oppose most candidates with that focus without hesitation. However just like any other position at RfA, editors are expected to give due diligence and actually assess each individual candidate's content contributions, rather than set an arbitrary statistical benchmark and automatically oppose if it's not meant. The OP's obvious tendency to do the latter rather than the former discredits his attempt at lecturing the community. RfA is generally a productive discussion on both sides, but the editors who decide to start trolling RfA, automatically opposing everyone who doesn't meet whatever unreasonable criterion they've set, are hands down the biggest contributors to RfA's toxic atmosphere. Since GregJackP decided to start participating in RfAs this June and has participated in 10 so far. He has done nothing but oppose every candidate, with the exception of one. The candidate he supported, citing GAs and FAs as his reasoning, was soundly rejected by the community. So, while Greg's general point here isn't wrong, that's not all there is to an RfA. His behavior certainly isn't right and not only do I think him to be a poor judge of administrative candidates but a denigrator of the RfA environment. Swarm ♠ 19:53, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank god I don't care what you think. GregJackP Boomer! 20:11, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Exhibit A. But as long as you continue to behave unreasonably without regard for the community's opinions, myself and others will continue to point out why you're utterly in the wrong. Swarm ♠ 20:20, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
So I should just become part of the hive mentality? No thanks. I do respect the community's opinions and consensus should be honored. But I'm not going to stop pointing out where I think the community should be going, or where it is wrong. Not paying attention to content is one of those areas. That's why the lifetime appointment of admins is wrong and why the whole admin system needs to be rebuilt. However, this is what we have and I'm allowed to contribute. I get that you don't like someone who thinks differently. Too bad, get used to it. GregJackP Boomer! 20:45, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think replying "lol, really?" to someone acting in good faith is anything other than rude, disrespectful and intentionally provocative? I don't want you to stop having opinions. But I would really appreciate it if you could keep the snark and inflammatory thoughts to yourself because it just encourages hostility. You don't have to listen to anybody. However, "Thank god I don't care what you think" is just a classic troll line. It doesn't say anything of substance; it only implies that you have no respect or sense of maturity. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 20:55, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. GregJackP, WP:CIVIL is one of our policies, and you have to follow it. Spaghetti07205 (talk) 20:57, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above comments were removed by Opabinia regalis in this edit; I assume this was a mistake, so I'm restoring them. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 22:02, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Bilorv: Thanks, it was indeed. Though for some reason your ping didn't ping. Are small pings not a thing? Opabinia regalis (talk) 22:17, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Opabinia regalis: Your ping seemed to work. How odd. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 22:25, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Presenting an argument about adminship standards is part of how the community's preferences get defined, so complaining that someone's arguments don't follow the current community preferences is talking in circles. It's not clear why a single, entirely predictable oppose !vote is somehow unusually toxic in any case. And since the only person Greg has supported this year was not in fact "soundly rejected", it's hard to follow your point, Swarm. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:15, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Opabinia regalis. Swarm, I understand that you do not like that I don't follow the hive. I haven't done that in my life and I'm not going to start now. The problem in Wikipedia is, for the most part, administrative. We allow children to be admins. We appoint them for life. Try reading what my admin criteria are, and the reasons for that. If you don't agree fine, but I really don't care if you (or anyone else) agrees or not, because it is my opinion, not yours, not the hive's, not the community's. So long as I respect the decision of the community, the consensus that is developed, there is nothing to be said but that you don't like my position. That doesn't mean I don't get to try and shape the consensus in a later discussion. GregJackP Boomer! 21:29, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I respectfully disagree on on every point, Opabina, but thanks for your input anyway. And yeah, the Rich RfA is what I would consider "soundly rejected" particularly for an editor of that magnitude. My point is incredibly straightforward though. This is not a matter of merely "not following the hivemind" because one is an individual, the idea here is that holding to and advancing opinions and positions that are unreasonably detached from those of the larger community, in effect showing a striking disregard for general community standards as well as other editors, on a consensus-based project, is literally not helpful to anyone, not given much weight, and only affects the project negatively. RfA is enough of a hellhole as it is without editors making it that much more difficult by opposing for ridiculous reasons. This is in no way a sign of evolving consensus, on the contrary it's been happening longer than I've even been here. Not saying you're not entitled to your own opinion Greg. I'm just saying that your way of operating is in my opinion inappropriate and despite your disregard for mine and others opinion, you're going to continue to be called out on points of serious contention. As to how any of this relates to your original post, the point is that you're not incorrect but coming from you that doesn't mean much because it ignores the actual reasons your argument stands out from other ones and should actually be given less weight. Swarm ♠ 22:17, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless, I will let this go for now as I've made my point and I'm sure this discussion will be reignited by someone sooner rather than later anyways. Swarm ♠ 22:24, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
without editors making it that much more difficult by opposing for ridiculous reasons - yeah, that's so much better than my comments. It makes me want to reconsider all of my actions in my entire life, strike all opposition to the hive-mind, embrace groupthink, and no longer be unreasonably detached from the larger community. OMG, what was I thinking?
Oh yeah, I actually was thinking. For myself. Without help from the hive. You really ought to try it. GregJackP Boomer! 22:56, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
See, that attitude is exactly what the problem is. You make it sound like everyone else just blindly follows the pack and is incapable of thinking for themselves; that community standards, precedents, and consensuses are a bad thing and it's good that you're making a point to be different. However that perspective is incompatible with the way Wikipedia operates, and that's exactly why you've been getting so much grief over this. You use derogatory buzzwords like "hivemind" and "groupthink", but that only shows a fundamental misunderstanding with how Wikipedia is run. The community doesn't just blindly follow the status quo in some sort of numbed, zombielike singular consciousness. The status quo is determined by consensus, which is formed through discussion and precedents, and that's how the people who build and maintain Wikipedia determine the what is and isn't appropriate. It's the cornerstone and foundation of this entire project's governance, and those who come here only to shirk community consensus either end up blocked or continue to perpetually disrupt the project and make it less enjoyable for the editors who have come to work together in good faith. Doing it at RfA is not in itself particularly disruptive as RfA is already a 'horrible and broken process' by default, but it still reveals a problem with attitude and willingness to work in a collaborative environment. Wikipedia is not the place to demonstrate what a free thinker you are or how stubbornly principled you are or good you are at resisting "groupthink", it's a place for forming and abiding by consensus, making compromises, and collaborating with others. Swarm ♠ 00:41, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Are you trying to bait me? I'm just curious since you've been extremely insulting in your comments about me, "poor judge" & "denigrator", behave unreasonably, ridiculous reasons, and perpetually disrupt the project. You know, I don't care that you embrace the hive-mind, that is your choice. I don't care if you bait me, I'm not going to call you an asshat or worse. I'm going to do what I do, which usually involves creating content. Tschüß, GregJackP Boomer! 01:43, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It's funny because that comment is more baiting than anything I've ever said on Wikipedia and I'm the one who offered to let this go quite some time ago. I'm sorry if I've insulted you but I'm not going to apologize for calling you on out on bad behavior, explaining why it's bad behavior, or becoming increasingly harsh in tone when you repeatedly respond with what boils down to WP:IDHT, even when I'm explaining project policy to you in the most straightforward way possible. My last message was not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of written policy and it is a matter of fact whether or not you like it. At least you have now documented what can only be seen as a deliberate refusal to abide by one of our key policies and site-wide principles, so we've gotten to the underlying cause and it'll be good to know for future reference. Swarm ♠ 04:20, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
So now having your own opinion is "bad behavior" - got it. As to refusing to abide by a WP policy? Don't fabricate stuff, no where have I refused to abide with a policy. You may be an admin, but you don't get a pass on civility, any more than anyone else, nor have you pointed out a single policy that I've violated. Either make a clear statement with evidence of what policy I've violate, or abuse someone else. GregJackP Boomer! 05:06, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Greg, by "We allow children to be admins.", you mean late teenagers? Flyer22 (talk) 06:53, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I mean people who are minors in their respective jurisdiction. In most countries that is 18. So if they are under the age of majority, they are a child, and en.wikipedia allows them to hold the bit. GregJackP Boomer! 07:43, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Now that *is* unreasonable as many countries allow those under 18 to serve in the armed forces, and a 17 year old with a state-sanctioned gun is not a child. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:32, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's not unreasonable. One of our child admins engaged in a conversation with a editor and a banned editor, sharing information that resulted in my being outed and harassed off-wiki a number of years ago. I won't go into the details, but children should not be admins, regardless of whether they can, with parental consent, serve in the military. GregJackP Boomer! 23:27, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Another WP:IDHT response, completely ignoring my unending diatribe on WP:CONSENSUS being the basis of the community, the very concept you keep referring to as "hivemind" and unilaterally rejecting. Laughable. Just laughable. If I don't get a pass on civility, you don't get a pass on consensus, but here we are. Act like you're within your rights to disregard the community all you want, and damn the opposition! That's fine. I'll continue to point out how and why that's bad behavior and makes Wikipedia worse. Best regards! Swarm ♠ 20:53, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You really should read the policies that you are posting. You are not hearing what I'm saying, probably because you have an opinion set in your mind and don't want to listen to anything else. Exactly where have I stated that I would ignore consensus? Where have I stated that I would disregard the community? If Liz gets the bit, that's the community speaking and I accept that. On other decisions, I accept consensus. You have some erroneous belief that hive-mind and consensus are the same thing, they are not. You are right about one thing, you've been on a diatribe. Your word, not mine, but "diatribe: a forceful and bitter verbal attack against someone or something" is accurate. I really wish you would stop with the harassment, since you won't point out any actual violations. GregJackP Boomer! 23:34, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You may claim that you appreciate consensus now all you want, but the entire crux of this disagreement is the fact that you're holding to an opinion that is significantly detached from the community consensus on what reasonable RfA criteria are, thus taking me back to my original point and substantiated by my multiple ensuing explanations. Claiming you respect and abide by community consensus after the preceding discussion is like Stalin saying he wants a laissez faire economy in Russia. It just doesn't hold up to the principles one's made a point to project! Swarm ♠ 01:07, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Again, please stop with your baiting. And now you're apparently a psychic, since you know what I think? Stalin? Really? Who are you going to compare me to next? Should I be ready for Goodwin's Law to kick in? Jesus, leave me alone and stop your harassment. GregJackP Boomer! 03:23, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
GregJackP, you have every right to make your comments at RfAs. Others have every right to disagree with your given rationale. As for the weight of your comments, that's ultimately for closing bureaucrats to decide. You go wrong, however, when you imply that any policy-allowed oppose comment ought to be given equal weight to simple "Support" comments (from your statement "[My oppose comment] is just as valid and should be given just as much weight as those who !voted 'support' with no policy comments"). If an editor were to oppose candidates because they "had not walked on the moon", that criteria is not against any policy but would be given zero weight because it is absurd. In the same RfA, however, simple "Support" or "Oppose" comments would be given some weight (possibly low) because those comments are best interpreted as having an implicit rationale endorsing the nominator's and perhaps the subsequent pro/con rationales taken as a whole. Since an obvious counterexample to the assertion they should carry the same weight has been given, it is therefore not true that any policy-allowed comment must carry equal weight to simple "Support" or "Oppose" comments. Clearly, the content the rationale matters in determining weight and it can render the weight lower than some default value given to simple "Supports". Your particular rational does have a point and it's not absurd; so it's not as trivial as the counterexample and more nuanced to discuss. I think the crux of that matter is that many (including myself) see your content creation stance as too strict and that content creation is only of secondary concern and that other matters like determining trust are more important. In other words, people are trying to convince you that your oppose arguments are weak. This is what they really mean if they are saying or implying it's invalid. You should not interpret replies challenging you as denying you the very right to comment, if that's how you are taking it. More likely, editors are trying to prompt you to reassess your overall view of the RfA process. People are fully in their right to do that.
That said, let's examine what's gone on in this thread. You've implied people can't think (diff). You've made uncollaborative replies like "I don't care what you think" with an edit summary of "lol, really?" (diff). You've slyly written (diff) "I'm not going to call you an asshat" as if you didn't intend to imply as much. In your later comments you are asking about breaches of policy. I am sure I don't have to remind you that Civility is a policy. On top of this, your accusation towards Swarm over baiting (diff) violate our guidelines over assuming good faith. When you write above that you are ("not going to stop") to combat "hive-mind" and "groupthink" (diff) in regards to the context creation issue and we need to "get used to it" (diff), it suggests a battleground mentality against our Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not policy which forbids "[carrying] on ideological battles". So, there are at least two policies just for this thread where a case could be made that your editing is not abiding to those policies.
More generally, I don't know if you realize just how unpleasant the tone of your comments reads. Maybe you are under too much Wikistress. Are you still having Fun? If not, you might wish to consider a Wikibreak. They really can help. Jason Quinn (talk) 22:24, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Jason Quinn, have you considered speaking to Swarm about his incivility? Or is it just non-admins that merit your attention? If not, I'll be happy to discuss this more fully with you either on your or my talk page. Regards, GregJackP Boomer! 23:49, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You are trying to distract from the issue at hand while not actually responding to any points raised by this editor. Any perceived incivility by me is uncharacteristic of me as a whole and triggered by your own refusal to civilly consider other viewpoints. Swarm ♠<
Again, go harass someone else. GregJackP Boomer! 03:17, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't hear that! I didn't hear that! I didn't hear that! I didn't hear that! I didn't hear that! I didn't hear that! I didn't hear that! Swarm ♠ 15:08, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Content[edit]

In this and other RfAs, there has often been an issue with content contributions. It can mean many different things, and it may not be articulated well by those raising it. It is an important issue, and two of the three nomination statements acknowledged that: Worm, "I do always have a concern when a candidate does not have significant content work - it makes it harder for them to empathise with those editors who do and lack of empathy leads to a significant portion of admin problems"; Yunshui, "The spectre of content creation (or lack thereof) will undoubtedly raise it's head during this discussion; my position is that content creators are at the heart of Wikipedia, and that those who don't deal in content have the primary duty of supporting those who do."

There are several ideas that may be behind an editor's requirement for content. Those ideas may not be express, but here are some that I see:

  • Membership. The encyclopedia is about developing content, so candidates should have developed content. A simple analogy is a birdwatching club will only promote members who actually do a significant amount of birdwatching.
  • Experience. Candidates will interact with editors in content disputes, so candidates should have some experience with their own content disputes. It's not enough to read about such disputes, but it is necessary to experience them. There's a gamut here. After a few thousand content edits, one will be subject to some heated content disputes, edit wars, crazy editors, and even some POV pushers who know how to act nice. For new content, there's the frustration of having the work CSD tagged within a few minutes (and while still editing it). Such experience will temper an admin's actions.
  • Conflict. Another result of content work is getting to see how one responds in stressful situations. The crux of Q3. Reverting obvious vandalism is a safe edit; it helps the encyclopedia, but the one doing the revert does not have the same stake in the article. If a candidate has not been in any conflicts, then it is difficult to judge how they will react when they are.
  • Skill. An important part of providing content on WP is doing research, understanding the research, summarizing the research, and providing references. Providing content shows that one can do that. If one does not provide content, then it is not clear that they have those skills. Someone who provides good content will probably take the time to research, understand, and apply the appropriate policies. Someone who has not provided content may not be able to adequately interpret and apply policy.
  • Attitude. A low percentage (not just count) of mainspace edits is often a concern that the candidate may be more interested in policing the community rather than contributing to it. The concern is a Catch-22; an admin candidate is often volunteering to do some policing, but a !voter may not want a gung-ho policeman. A milder form of this is hat collecting.

There may be other viewpoints.

Disclosure: In this RfA, I am a reluctant oppose. I do not envy the 'crats in this evaluation, but that is why we pay them so much.

Glrx (talk) 17:34, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well stated. GregJackP Boomer! 17:43, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This may be already covered there, but also "Policy understanding: Without article editing experience, one cannot easily assume that the candidate understands the core content policies and practices that underpin this project and that administrators are frequently called to assess (e.g when closing an AfD). GA, DYK or FA work can also train policy and practice understanding." Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:46, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
And I would counter that as a severely flawed analogy by pointing you to the one I drew up in the RfA, namely that we don't require federal judges first commit a crime and go through the justice system before permitting them to sit on criminal cases. It's their legal knowledge which counts, not whether they've had direct experience being prosecuted themselves. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:49, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No, but we do require that they be lawyers and have training in the law. You don't take a baby lawyer, straight out of law school, and make them a judge. Even where judges are elected there are limits, like in Texas, where a trial court judge must have been a lawyer for 4 years to run, an appellate court judge for 10 years. That's the experience, not whether they have been a criminal or not. GregJackP Boomer! 17:59, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Wait—baby lawyers can't become admins? Won't someone please think of the children!- MrX 18:21, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with GregJackP; it is good to have some admins who have experience in writing content, and who have at least one GA or more. Although I supported Liz because my concerns about content were made up for by her diligent work on ANI, fighting vandalism, etc., I would have liked it better if she did have some more content work. Spaghetti07205 (talk) 18:42, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
And your support for her should be completely weighted, not discounted or downgraded. GregJackP Boomer! 18:52, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Spaghetti07205, I'd say that until you've come forward and told everyone who you're a sock of, your support isn't worth the paper it's written on! CassiantoTalk 19:53, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If a sock, his comments should be struck, and not considered at all. GregJackP Boomer! 20:28, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. How many of the other votes were made up of socks I wonder? CassiantoTalk 21:19, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well, none of the opposes, obviously... GregJackP Boomer! 21:21, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It is long-standing that we do not routinely checkuser participants at RfXs; the chilling effect and harm would far outweigh the gains. If you have strong reason to believe that multiple accounts were used by the same person to manipulate the vote, please open a request at WP:SPI. I will say that if we are talking a handful of accounts, I do not think that removing a few accounts from either side would materially affect whether or not consensus was demonstrated. This was a very well populated request (about 280 respondents in total) where 3 or 4 on either side aren't going to tip the scale that dramatically. -- Avi (talk) 21:31, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There's nothing chilling about it. I predict the identity of the puppeteers would come as no surprise to most. CassiantoTalk 21:39, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It would be chilling if everyone who responded at an RfX knows that they would be checked. That's what I meant by "routinely"; that part of the routine of opining at an RfX is that your account is CUd. Of course, if you have evidence that there has been abuse of the multiple account policy, a check can be run, just like for any other part of the project. -- Avi (talk) 21:42, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
How is it chilling? If you are not a sock, a CU won't matter. If you are a sock, we don't want you affecting an RfA anyway, and socks should be blocked. But it is not chilling for those who are not socking. GregJackP Boomer! 22:01, 4 August 2015 (UTC)][reply]
Historically, Wikipedia, and Wikimedia as a whole, have been against the checking of accounts without a good reason, even if the information is not disclosed outside those who are allowed to see it (Staff, stewards, checkusers, Jimbo). The global checkuser policy states that "…must be a valid reason to check a user." I do not believe that participating in an RfX is ipso facto a valid reason to check, nor do I think that the Foundation or any of the other checkusers or stewards would agree. If Wikimedia ever moves to a paradigm where anonymous/pseudonymous editing is no longer supported, then all bets are off. For now, though, Big Brother is not watching, nor should he. -- Avi (talk) 22:12, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No, I'm aware of that as to CU, and I don't disagree that CU should only be used when necessary. I probably wasn't clear. I do not see a "chilling" effect by the use of CU at RfAs, but I am not proposing that we start using it at RfAs. I just don't see that we need to worry about a chilling effect on a sock. Regards, GregJackP Boomer! 22:48, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Philosophical discourse on whether analogies are useful

In my humble opinion, every single analogy that has been expressed in regards to this issue is just stupid. The judge comparison is wrong because it would only apply if someone was saying "Oppose because Liz hasn't been blocked, so how can she administer blocks?" Content creation is a positive contribution, not a negative one, so comparing it to a crime is absurd. On the other hand, the birdwatching thing is ridiculous because there is no differentiation in that situation between different types of activities related to birds; the logical conclusion to come to is "A member of a birdwatching club should watch birds; an admin should have edited Wikipedia", which no-one is disputing. The closest I can come to a birdwatching analogy is "To become a member of a club for bird enthusiasts, one should have published a novel based on birds; the fact that this applicant has spent thousands of hours birdwatching is completely irrelevant", which is absurd.
So please, can we all just drop the analogies? There's no analogy which perfectly reflects the situation here, and everyone seems to understand the situation well enough for us to avoid resorting to simplified explanations which capture the issue imperfectly and just make everyone quibble over details. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 18:43, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In a word, no, there's no good reason for dropping analogies. Even if all are flawed (which I dispute), a flawed analogy can be insightful. For example, the judge analogy was invoked to suggest that content content contributions should not be required. The very discussion of the analogy provides a useful insight into what actions might be legitimately required and what actions should not be required. I personally find analogies a powerful tool for understanding issues. They work best when they are apt analogies but even flawed analogies can be insightful. And even if every analogy to date has been flawed, your suggestion that we should drop all analogies is itself absurd. Perhaps the next one will be the perfect one.--S Philbrick(Talk) 20:19, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Analogy as a method of explaining things can used extremely effectively as a teaching tool. Good analogies may also provide some comic relief even in the most dour of situations, but even a poor analogy usually gets uts message across. Clever analogies are akin to thinking outside the box. They have that 'wow' factor. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Analogies have in common with logical puzzles, and are difficult to construct without cooks and flaws. Casually constructed analogies usually easily break down once you start to analyze them. Most people don't analyze them, so their "power" really has invalid basis but goes undetected. A sound analogy, like Romeo & Juliet true love, is as beautiful as it is rare. IHTS (talk) 22:28, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I would say it is some combination of the initial points. As I have said in the past, we are here to build an encyclopedia, not to sing Kumbaya, and this is a shop floor. Harsh words are often exchanged. But they grow out of the desire to have the best possible encyclopedia, in a majority of cases. Some hand in the work is needed for an admin, because I don't think you can get into a dispute which grew out of content and crossed the line, without understanding the passion that the desire to have just the right words in there can arouse, and the irritation that can be felt, and acted upon, against those who seemingly will not see (the perspective is shared by both sides, of course). It also is a great help in having your rulings accepted if you have been in the trenches of content, too. Liz hasn't been there, and her discussion edits seem to me to show in a dispute she jumps in on one side, and states the case strongly and without a lot of "on the other hand"s. I want admins who will understand where both sides came from in such a dispute, and I fear that Liz will jump in, select a good guy, a bad guy, and act accordingly. Content contributors do not grow on trees, the learning curve is very steep, and I don't want a ham-handed admin driving another FA writer off Wikipedia. That's my view, and I would vote oppose if it was reopened or on a revote.
Short of actual harm to people or another great ill, what counts here is putting the best encyclopedia we can in front of the reader. Who doesn't give a shit about this discussion, he just wants to check that answer from pub trivia or find out about the company whose name is on grandma's heirloom. Let's give him the best shot at that. And that means admins who can carry authority because they are respected across the community.--Wehwalt (talk) 07:22, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Clearing something up[edit]

I seem to have caused various problems with my earlier post. And with at least one other post I've made today elsewhere, so I'll try to be careful this time, but I think I owe it to Liz, the other Crats and various puzzled people on this page to try to explain. One confusion that has become clear was around my use of the word "downgrade". My meaning was "give less weight to", not dismiss out of hand. The role of the Crat at RfA is about weighing opinions, not counting !votes. My apologies if I gave an impression that was high handed.

Furthermore, there are different flavours of oppose !votes on content at this RfA. My take was that two of the types of oppose rationales I'd perceived seemed logically flawed. I clearly wrote that I was "perplexed", and "mulling" it and if people didn't understand that this (and other comments I've made both here and elsewhere) reflected an open-minded position, I don't think that particular confusion is down to my lack of clarity.

There's no need for distracting arguments here, so anyone wishing to discuss this futher, please do so at my talk page, where cocoa and biscuits will be available, as well as further befuddlement the next time I express myself poorly. Again, apologies for that. --Dweller (talk) 20:41, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Validity of the opposing arguments[edit]

I think what needs to be said here and is going unmentioned is that a lot of the opposition seems to be based more off personal animus than a broader evaluation of competency. The Tumbleman example is a good instance of this as these are opposing disputants who are simply outraged that Liz took the "wrong" side in the dispute. Except, admins should remain impartial and make cautious use of their tools. Getting upset that an admin is not showing enough favoritism to the "right" people and being more ruthless towards the "wrong" people is demanding a standard of admin conduct that is directly in conflict with what is expected of admins. Some of the concerns about an alleged hostility to content creators and overbearing attitude on civility are further in conflict with this characterization of her as being too lenient. The concerns appear to be an extension of personal battles between her and certain cantankerous content creators. Her response to my question is consistent with her general pattern of leniency and none of the cited examples indicate that she would be particularly harsh towards anyone in her enforcement of the civility policy. In other words, the opposition is largely from people who want her to adhere less to the standard of conduct expected of admins or is all smoke and no fire.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments moved here from Wikipedia:Bureaucrats'_noticeboard[edit]

  • Waiting to see if Bureaucrats are going to allow a known cabal and an off-site harassment group derail a RfA that should have passed with no problems(despite some minor concerns that only show the editor wasn't ready 2 years ago). 200 support votes should not go unnoticed. Dave Dial (talk) 18:33, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • I respectfully differ that the concerns were minor. Moreover, there is precedent for receiving more than 200 supports and not demonstrating {automatic} consensus {to approve}. -- Avi (talk) 18:38, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • Where is the evidence for lack of consensus in your precedent? The candidate withdrew with the !votes at 299 support, 85 oppose and 17 neutral (72%). According to the "As a rule of thumb, most of those above 80 percent approval pass; most of those below 70 percent fail; the judgment of passing is subject to bureaucratic discretion" rule of thumb, if it had not been withdrawn it would be up to the 'crats to examine the arguments and determine consensus. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:18, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • 100 of those support votes were in the first 2 days. Calling the opposers a "cabal" and "offsite harassment group" misses the mark. It's the same argument as saying the first hundred support votes were more akin to facebook "Likes" rather than an assessment of the candidate based on qualification and policy. Getting 200 support votes and also attracting such large opposition that it's not a shoe-in is an indication of polarization, not consensus. Using a conspiracy theory to discredit people that disagree with you is an indication of just how polarizing it is. In the candidates before this one, there was another candidate with nearly identical percentages and closed "no consensus" with similar arguments but half the participation. That was much less polarizing. --DHeyward (talk) 21:53, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • And no, my sound reasoning "oppose" had nothing to do with 'carte blanche' required for content as I am not FA or GA reviewer, rather it was a concern that the use of the tools would be to further goals other than an encyclopedia and it included both content and judgement - Sitush's argument was about stepping into disputes and Bishonen's concern was defending sockpuppets. Both events seemed to Liz is more about protecting WP as a social space rather than an encyclopedia and really wasn't a cabal nor was it arguing for carte blanche for content creators nor is it a knock on gnome work. Jumping into drama is not gnome work. Both were "you're in the way, and you don't know you are in the way" type of problems and both were resolved as expected. We do need admins that can jump into drama, but not admins that don't understand how to approach the issue before jumping. Characterizing the opposes in anything but good faith is sadly misplaced. --DHeyward (talk) 22:08, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that most of the 'oppose' !votes occurred because Liz made statements indicating that content creators should not be given carte blanche exemptions from most rules. Which, I guess, means that I can never be an administrator, but I already knew that. I think that this irrational prejudice against wikignomes and against editors who are mostly interested in the kind of work that administrators are actually called on to do is toxic. It results in new admins who are great at creating GAs and FAs but inexperienced in mediating disputes or dealing with user behavior problems. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:57, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Most users who do categorisation or vandalism reverting won't have any more experience in mediating disputes or dealing with user behaviour problems, additionally they'll have had little or no experience in collaborating with others to generate GA/FA content, and are at a significant disadvantage when it comes to making suggestions and defusing potentially unfortunate situations relating to content. This is, at the end of the day, a project to produce encyclopedia content, and people seeking administrative help generally will expect the people they contact or interact with to have experienced similar issues and know from personal experience how to resolve them. Nick (talk) 22:16, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

!Votes and trend[edit]

Another analyses that is missing is the trend. I was disappointed that it was not extended. The trend to oppose started much earlier than the canvassing. After the first two days, the !vote was S:100 O:7. Since then it has been much weaker. Whether this is due to the opposing editors doing investigation prior to !votes or perhaps the supporting editors simply liking the candidate without needing to to do much review, it's clear that it wasn't canvassing. On trend alone, support eroded from over 90% with 100 support votes to just under 74% at close. Had this been extended a few more days with the same trend, there would not be a need a for this discussion as the 70% marks would have been reached. The strong participation in addition to large amount of opposes indicates a rather polarizing candidate and it seems based on trend and polarization of the community, there is no clear consensus to award the bit. --DHeyward (talk) 21:47, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support and Oppose votes plotted against time.
Support percentage as a function of time.
Votes per day.
Some data usually helps with things like this so I threw together a graph of the supports and opposes against time, having recorded them from 6 hour intervals. The result can be seen on the right. It actually shows a strong burst of support in the last day of the RfA. Sam Walton (talk) 22:07, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I just missed the end by minutes, or there would have been one more support !vote. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:11, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There are some more too-lates here, for the record. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 22:13, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I stand corrected. The crats instinct to close due to external publishing seems to line up with that spike. --DHeyward (talk) 22:19, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Are you suggesting the last minute support voters are keen /r/WikiInAction/ readers? Brustopher (talk) 22:20, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sam Walton's graph is quite interesting. Although, as already noted, it shows a lot of early support that leveled off as opposition emerged, the latest time points actually show a larger late surge in support than in opposition, although both showed late increases. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:24, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Brustopher: I have no idea. I don't read it and I think it was your notice that pointed it out. If I take the count when support was at 158 support votes, opposes were at 50. That was still a higher percentage than the close. What's missing is the !vote support percentage trend. SamWalton can you put running percentage "support" on the right Y axis and plot? Or email me the data and I can do it. --DHeyward (talk) 22:35, 4 August 2015 (UTC) Sam Walton Sorry about that. --DHeyward (talk) 22:36, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I was among the last-day trend of supporters, such as it was. I'm not sure how much you can read into trends here. Lacking clear spikes, usually due to the revelation of "new information", probably not that much. Of course, when there's a strong oppose trend in the first few days, RFAs often don't run for a full week. Myself, time was running out, so I had to come off the fence before bedtime, or just not vote at all. Wbm1058 (talk) 22:26, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, my reason for finding it interesting is that late trends can indicate whether one "side" is convincing the other. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:33, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The trend for that is % support. It was still declining even with the spike. --DHeyward (talk) 23:13, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I don't want to open a new argument, but it's not as simple as that. Absolute numbers reflect the actual numbers of editors: there were more late arrivals than one might have expected, who were not swayed by the opposition. I'm not saying that the % trend is less useful, but one has to take into account the fact that it over-values opposes relative to supports. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:24, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If successful % is changing, that's what is trending. It's not the absolute number but rather the change. If the successful % was going up on the last day, that would indicate a reversal. If it's still going down, even though it's going down more slowly, there is still a trend of increasing opposition. Before the uptick, the % successful was over 75%. After the uptick it was 73.5%.  % successful was still trending down, there is no reversal, it's just happening slower. Had the RfA ended before that uptick, the percentage of support !votes (S:158/O:50) -> 76% would have been higher than it was at the end (S:200/O:72) -> 73.5%. It's still trending toward oppose even with the uptick. --DHeyward (talk) 00:45, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sam, thank yu enormously for that graph. Its exactly what I wanted to know but was too afraid to ask for.I would have done it myself if I knew how. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:31, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Given the fair point above about support percentage being a more useful trend I've plotted that too, as well as the amount of support and oppose votes each day. @DHeyward: I've put the raw data at User:Samwalton9/Lizstats if you want to do anything more interesting with it. Sam Walton (talk) 10:03, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the time since I was last logged in, someone has added two new graphs, that I think substantiate what I was saying to DHeyward above. The support % shows what DHeyward was saying, whereas the votes per day shows a clear shift on the last day, that is invisible in the % graph, but that is nonetheless very interesting. It's false to say that one graph is valid and the other is worthless, unless one is using the data for advocacy instead for insight. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:55, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    @Tryptofish: It's not invisible in the % graph. It shows the last four periods of the % graph and the change in the second derivative. That change is the bar graph. That's what the votes per day shows as well. All the graphs are useful (thx Samwalton9) if they help illuminate things for you but I am concerned you are missing what it is showing if you believe the bar graph shows something not seen in the cumulative support + cumulative oppose + cumulative support percentage. The first derivative of cumulative support % is always negative, the second derivative is close to 0 for the entire RfA until the last day when it is positive. The mathematical question is whether it shows a change in consensus. The daily bar graph is interesting in light of the last day of canvassing, but it wasn't enough to reverse the trend. RfA isn't a 50/50 proposition. It takes nearly 4 to 1 ratio (80%) for a clear "Successful" with no discretion. Similarly a 2 to 1 (67%) support to oppose ratio is a non-discretionary, clearly "Unsuccessful". Looking at the bar graph on the last day show the kick in support votes but note it is still below the cumulative Support/Oppose ratio so that figure of merit will continue to decline. Had it been 3 to 1 (75%) or higher, the percent trend would not have declined on the last day. There is no advocacy as this is purely mathematical. If you see different things in various plots of the same data, that is a concern because math doesn't lie or advocate. All the plots are consistent and show the same thing without passion or prejudice. Anecdotal Yogi Berra reference - Pizza maker: Do you want me to cut the pizza into 4 slices or 8 slices? Yogi: Better make it 4. I don't think I can eat 8. --DHeyward (talk) 19:47, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    +1 for first and second derivative mentions! -- Avi (talk) 19:52, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Avi, plus one to you, for having to read through all of this, something I do not envy. I really do appreciate the thoughtful reply from DHeyward, and I have no quibbles with what you say about cumulative results. But there are more things to examine than that, in that non-cumulative results can be illuminating about changes in sentiment as the process went along over time. I agree that the last-day results contribute to the overall trend without reversing it. But the last-day results show what editors who came to the RfA thought that day, and I think that what WJBScribe said about it here gets it right. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:51, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How to pass an RfA[edit]

I know exactly what it takes to pass an RfA and become a Wikipedia administrator.

  • Do a lot of noncontroversial edits to lots of articles. Typo fixing, Reverting obvious vandalism, adding references, that sort of thing.
  • Pick a bunch of poor-quality articles that nobody has edited in a while and bring them up to GA standards.
  • If anyone opposes you on in any way, let them have their way and abandon the article.
  • Comment on things like AfDs, RfCs and RfAs, but always wait until here is an overwhelming consensus and agree with the majority.
  • Never, ever become involved in any way with any sort of noticeboard or other dispute.
  • Never express any sort of opinion about anything.
  • Keep this up for at least a year.
  • In other words, completely avoid anything that in any way resembles what administrators are asked to do in real life.

Do this and you will sail through your RfA with little or no opposition. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:35, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

- until some clever Dick like me realises that that was the agenda all along... Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:49, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I thought that there was an essay at meta, that advises against being a clever Dick. :-) --Tryptofish (talk) 23:16, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, and I think that's rather the point: do all the things Guy suggests, and you'll be accused of "cynically doing things to build a resume for Adminship", and get rejected (even though, by that point, you'd almost certainly be qualified for it...); or, actually edit the way you want to, and get rejected either for "not having the right background: come back in 6–12 months" or be accused of "not having the right attitude for Adminship". IOW, you're damned pretty much no matter what you do – the voters want neither candidates that explicitly "prepare" for Adminship nor the ones that just "edit away". I said this elsewhere – but if the collective RfA voters are expecting a bunch of NeilN's hiding in the woodwork, you're going to be disappointed, because there just aren't that many of those... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 23:14, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This is about as accurate as it gets. Source: experience Swarm ♠ 00:48, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There is an academic paper that broadly supports this model, based on research. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:41, 5 August 2015 (UTC).[reply]
I wrote an essay on that four years ago. Reaper Eternal (talk) 15:54, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Brilliant. Just brilliant. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:40, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Gender imbalance[edit]

One thing to keep in mind here is that WP has, both in editors and its admin corps, a great imbalance in the ratio of men to women participants. If this RfA is a close call between the support and oppose camps (BTW, I didn't vote in the RfA), then I hope the Bureaucrats will remember that the Ada Initiative and the recent Ally Skills Center have called on us male Wikipedians to do more to try to fix this imbalance in Wikipedia. One way to do this, of course, is to try to get more women admins. Cla68 (talk) 00:13, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Cla68, do I understand you correctly? Are you saying that female editors need affirmative action to get promoted to admin? I'm not sure I can support that. Women are just as capable as men and should not need help to get the bit. They can do it on their own. GregJackP Boomer! 01:47, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I can't believe you really typed that out and pressed "save page". Samsara 00:17, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)The current role the bureaucrats is to determine what is the consensus, if any, of the project members who chose to respond. It is not to impose their own (or anyone else's) agenda, no matter how noble or ignoble it may be. Your point would have been much better made whilst the discussion was open to possibly convince the people's whose decision this truly is. -- Avi (talk) 00:18, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This seems like you're trying to make a point about something, but for the life of me I'm not sure what the thrust of it is. PeterTheFourth (talk) 00:23, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@PeterTheFourth: Do you mean me or Cla68? -- Avi (talk) 00:28, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Avraham: I intended to address Cla68- should have been more clear, I'm sorry. PeterTheFourth (talk) 00:32, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm saying that WP needs more women admins and that should be taken into account when deciding what happens with close RfAs like this one. In fact, I would go so far as to say that, since being an admin is supposed to be "no big deal", any WP editor who self-identifies as female should automatically be granted adminship after 4,000 edits until the ratio of admins by gender is at least 50/50. Cla68 (talk) 06:34, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As a woman, I disagree. I !voted oppose but supported MelanieN earlier in the year. People should be judged on their merits for this position, not just promoted because of their gender. I have 5000 edits myself but would make a poor administrator - it involves access to tools that are best granted to people whom the community trusts, not just were born a certain way. The emphasis should be on promoting female participation rather than handing out important tools for a few months' worth of copy-editing (in my case). LouiseS1979 (pigeonhole) 06:50, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It appears that you're saying ridiculous things in the hope that people take you seriously. Is that the intent? PeterTheFourth (talk) 07:10, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Peter, are you aware that Women's Equality Day is later this month? Somehow I doubt that most WP editors have ever even heard of it. What better way for WP to do its part to celebrate this important anniversary than by trying to correct the gender imbalance in its administration. I would be almost be willing to bet money that if 50% of WP's admins were women, that more women in general would be editing Wikipedia. Cla68 (talk) 07:33, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
So you want unequal standards towards women? I would say in the spirit of Women's Equality Day we should hold women to the exact same standards as everyone else. You see if you started handing out admin jobs to people based on their gender that would be the opposite of equality. Chillum 14:22, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure concern trolling is going to be very fruitful for you here. PeterTheFourth (talk) 07:40, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I take it from the defensive response that you weren't aware that Women's Equality Day was imminent. Anyway, because the current WP RfA process is so combative and susceptible to political gaming, the only way to ever improve the gender ratio is going be by some kind of affirmative action program. So, I stand by my suggestion. I suggest all who are labeling me a "troll" try to engage in some self-reflection and checking of their privilege and try to see things from the big picture. Cla68 (talk) 07:45, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Cla68, I think you're putting the cart before the horse here. I prefer to think that if 50% of our editors were women - THEN we might have more women admins. — Ched :  ?  07:58, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Cla68's featurette here is Poe's law (or maybe it isn't) --DHeyward (talk) 08:01, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Cla68, speaking as a woman and and a recently-promoted admin, I completely disagree with the notion (which I have seen proposed before) that there ought to be lower standards, or some kind of separate, less stringent process, for approval of women as administrators - or that women should be given the benefit of the doubt in cases where a man wouldn't get that benefit. This idea is insulting to women, who can qualify for adminship or not on their own merits. In any case it is a completely impractical idea, since there is no verification of gender here and most editors do not identify as male or female. In fact if this became a policy, you might be amazed how many more editors here suddenly decided to self-identify as female! --MelanieN (talk) 10:20, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well-said.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:18, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As usual, MelanieN hits the nail on the head. Women don't need pity or cheats, just a level playing field. Personally, I fail to see a gender issue here and the unsubstantiated claims serve only to dilute the real gender related issues here at Wikipedia, thus are a disservice to those women. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:45, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I completely agree that using lower standards for women is insulting at best. And I don't think that there was any systemic bias in this particular RfA or, in fact, in the areas of WP that I frequent. ("Systemic bias" being defined as being hostile towards an editor based on their real or perceived gender, race, sexual orientation, etc). The fact that most editors here are male is something else. If we think that it would be desirable to have more women admins (and I think that would be an excellent thing), than the solution is not to lower the bar for women, but to go out, identify good women contributors, and mentor them in policy-related areas (if they don't have much experience there already) until they are ready to go up for RfA. While lowering the bar would, in my opinion, be a negative action, I think this approach would be much more positive. --Randykitty (talk) 15:13, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Guys, Cla68 is participating in kyriarchy by recognizing an event that privileges women willing to participate in the American system of global hegemony trolling. Serious posts are troll food. Opabinia regalis (talk) 17:29, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is hard to dismiss an editor of 9 years and 45,000+ edits as a troll. While often these sorts of claims are in fact trolling, it is also not that rare that people actually believe this stuff. Regardless the idea will not gain traction and this is not the venue for it anyway, so I agree there is little benefit in discussing it here and now. Chillum 17:32, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Woulda, shoulda coulda[edit]

Had I seen this RfA I would have supported it. I have seen Liz contributing widely, and as far as I can remember, sensibly. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:38, 5 August 2015 (UTC).[reply]

Thank you[edit]

Thank you, gentlemen, for providing the ultimate example of why bureaucrats should have no decision-making responsibility with respect to desysopping. The fact that you're accepting seriously negative commentary about a candidate, many without any diffs, and several with diffs even you do not think show what the voter says they show, is a major problem in RFA alone, and would be figuratively fatal to any desysop candidate who came before you. (Of course it was going to be "no consensus to promote". Anyone who's watched you folks in action knew that two days ago.) Risker (talk) 05:00, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I was sort of thinking about that myself. If this were like an AE thread the number of diffs is so weak that I'd tell the filer to find something even remotely compelling before coming back, as argument from assertion doesn't fly and is in fact sanctioned when done enough. There are a few, but it would take a hell of a lot more to even approach the level of actionable. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 05:06, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)Hi, Risker. May I presume you are talking specifically about my conversation with Andrevan? Your implication, taken to its logical conclusion, means that opposes or supports with no explanation should be completely discarded. I do not think that is appropriate in all circumstances. I do not think that each and every one of those oppositions can be and should be thrown out, and I think that it is an accurate statement to say that a valid concern about Liz's behavior has been raised. Now, I'd agree that if behavior was the only issue this discussion probably wouldn't have even gone to chat, and if it did, all of us would have said that this alone is not sufficient to counteract the consensus of the supports. However, it is one of a number concerns, and numerous smaller concerns add up to one big concern about the trust the community has in Liz. The issue is simply "has Liz shown that she has the trust of the community" and my read at this point is "it is not clear." As I said originally, I don't see a clear consensus not to provide the tools, but I don't see a clear one either. Since this was brough to chat and not closed, I have to make the best judgement on the totality of the responses which I can, based on all of the oppositions, including behavior. I am sorry if it doesn't jibe with yours, but I've explained how I arrived at it, and I have not been convinced that the corpus oppositions should be so weakened so as to have the supports be a clear consensus. -- Avi (talk) 05:21, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You're hardly alone in the "no consensus" camp, Avi. As I said, it was entirely predictable even before the RFA closed. To expect that people who have "no concerns" about a candidate (i.e., many of the supporters) should have to give diffs is absurd: the whole point is that they couldn't find any diffs that concerned them. However, people who do express concerns should be expected to back them up with clear examples. Back during my RFA in 2008, when people expressed concerns about a candidate, the other community members pounced and insisted on diffs, examples, situations where the reason for concern was elucidated. Today, we don't see that anymore - it's one of the reasons I believe RFA is a meaner place today than it was back in the "bad old days" - and that is where the 'crats have to step up to the plate, to test the validity of the opposes. Diffs or it didn't happen, as a former colleague once said. Risker (talk) 05:34, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting comment. Interesting discussion. I am curious to read it, but from the beginning suspected that these crat discussions should be held in private. Openly discussing whether a !voter's oppose comes from bad blood? If ArbCom discussions were public, would it be more impressive? "Diffs or it didn't happen" is probably a very good idea. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:38, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
For what it is worth, I disagree with the suggestion to hold these crat discussions in private. Firstly, the last thing most of us want is to create the appearance, let alone the reality, of another cabal—being open helps to prevent the appearance of impropriety and plain old keep us honest (yes, the fools believe me muahahahahah Oh snap, did I say that outloud, pay no attention!). Secondly, the RfX discussions are open, why shouldn't the meta-discussion be open? The candidate and the respondents have the right to follow the discussion and know what was said, in my opinion. Lastly, and most importantly, we are only human as well (smiley's notwithstanding) and comments about our statements here on this talk page are important as well. How can valid concerns (like Risker's and others) be raised if we confine ourselves to cigars, brandies, and a smoke-filled room? Outside of a particularly vicious hazing ritual, there is nothing special about bureaucrats, and, I for one, value constructive criticism, both during and after these discussions. Of course we cannot please everybody, but I feel that our being open about how we reached our decision is the best way to handle what is undoubtedly a difficult situation, for the candidate most of all. Thanks. -- Avi (talk) 05:51, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Heh. Arbcom discussions are pretty much public, SmokeyJoe; unless something has drastically changed in the last 18 months, arbitrators almost never really had discussions about the outcome of cases sub rosa - but that's really not all that relevant. It does genuinely concern me that in this discussion, as well as several others recently, oppose votes that make very serious claims about candidates have gone untested, and oppose votes that aren't even vaguely rooted in policy are accepted. Risker (talk) 05:46, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think you are right, but, it being a discussion, aren't opposition claims supposed to be tested by the supporters? On a little thought, that would probably become an almighty unwieldy drama. "Negative comments *must* include diffs" might be a good rule? Should WP:BLP apply to WP:RFA? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:52, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well, supporters were actively discouraged from "testing" the oppose votes to the point that people kept telling them that they were damaging the candidate's chances of success, so supporters really cut back on it, trusting that the 'crats would know better than to accept unsupported statements. In fact, for a long time they didn't accept unsupported negative statements; that they're accepting them in 2015 is a significant change even from five years ago, and a drastic one from 10 years ago. Risker (talk) 05:57, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well, seven years ago the candidate often was the one who had to ask for clarifications; not the supporters 8-) -- Avi (talk) 06:05, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I really, really hate to say this, Avi, but I do not believe "I had an awful RFA" to be a justification for making anyone else's RFA equally as awful. In fact, I expect the 'crats to immediately and obviously discount any opinions that go along those lines. But at this point, the 'crats have pretty much shown that they are going to assume bad faith - that is, accept any kind of oppose to a candidate and give it equal weight to a support - which is pretty much contradictory to a core pillar of Wikipedia. Assuming good faith is required. At this point, the bar for succeeding at RFA is almost identical to that for succeeding at RFB. There's a problem here, and it's the bureaucrats who've made this particular one. Risker (talk) 12:27, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, no, Risker, that is not what I meant at all. It was solely a humorous comment to help defuse what is a tense situation: note the ASCII smiley at the end. I would never improperly affect someone else's RfX because of anything that happened to me. The very fact that you, someone I respect enormously, can derive the appearance of impropriety from my statement and not immediately immediately discard it based on my past on-wiki behaviour, embarrasses me deeply. The very fact that such an accusation was even levied makes me hang my head in shame, for it means that I have not comported myself well enough to have earned the assumption of good faith. Whether you, or anyone, choose to believe me or not, I will reiterate: I treat each and every one of these discussions with the gravity and dignity it deserves and would NEVER, to the best of my knowledge and ability, use the trust given to me by the project for personal or political advantage—whether that be to promote certain people, not promote others, or engage in retributive acts to balance a "perceived slight". I ask of you, and of everyone, what can I do to better ensure that such an accusation is never considered in the future. I am loathe to stup making "funny" comments, but if I have to, I will . -- Avi (talk) 13:43, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I am terribly sorry to have caused you distress, Avi; I hold you in very high regard, and it was certainly not my intention to suggest that you were making a decision based on personal experiences or were comporting yourself improperly in any way. We have, however, had a fair number of people point to their own RfAs as reasons that RfA needs to change, that RfA is awful, etc. There are very few people who find RfA to be fun, and I'm unwilling to consider that to be a goal. I regret greatly that I have embarrassed you. On re-reading, I recognize your humourous intent, and apologize for misinterpreting it as a serious comment. Please accept my apology. Risker (talk) 14:40, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much. -- Avi (talk) 14:50, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've got to say, I find myself strongly agreeing with Risker on this (to the extent that, yes, I'm re-evaluating my stance on the BARC proposal). WormTT(talk) 07:08, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That was my initial reaction, but I've given it a little more thought and reverse my own thinking. I see an important difference between the BARC proposal, in which we ask bureaucrats to determine whether editor X is suitable to be an admin versus the bureaucrat chat with the bureaucrats are asked to determine whether the community thinks editor X is suitable to be an admin. In the promotion decision, the 'crats may have to accept an oppose as valid even if they personally disagree with the conclusion. In the proposed BARC, the 'crats will review evidence provided by editors, but will have more discretion to discount weak arguments.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:39, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Risker is correct, especially with regard to Avi's discounting of supports, which, if nothing else, the supports are based in the arguments of the Nominations, and the candidate's statements - in fact, a super-majority found those more convincing than the oppose - it would seem any bureaucrat reading consensus would honor that and not disregard those supports. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:06, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Avraham, whatever your assumption at the beginning, you must admit the fact that the oppose was overwhelmingly rejected by the discussion. Were they right to reject the oppose, and to expressly contradict it with support? Are you arguing that the support's rejection of the oppose is incorrect? Would you not agree that the support was at least as well reasoned, and regardless, is the one that an incredible amount of users in numbers and in percentage found more convincing? -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:03, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Alanscottwalker: Hi. Part of the reason I wrote at such length on the discussion page, as well as this one, is to try and make my analysis as clear and open as possible. My reading of the discussion about Liz is not based primarily on the oppositions about her behaviour. I felt that of the half-dozen or so classes of opposition, they probably were the second weakest. If all the opposition to Liz was of he behavioural variety, this would not have gone to cractchat or would have been closed already, in my opinion. No one single support or single oppose was enough to move the discussion one way or another. That being said, the behavioural oppositions are not the only types of oppositions, mnor do I think that the behavioural ones can be discounted out of hand. There is a lot of support, no question. Forgive my repetitiveness, but in my read of the discussion, I see that pretty much every class of support has a corresponding opposition, some stronger some weaker, and enough opposition in each class and overall for me to understand that consensus has not been achieved. Perhaps, as per my discussion with Andrevan, it depends on the mindset of the bureaucrat as he or she enters the analysis. My mindset is that the candidate must demonstrate the achievement of a consensus to promote, not that promotion is assumed and the candidate can only fail if there is a consensus to not promote. Perhaps that is wrong, but it is how I understand my role. I am not numerically weighting various votes and constructing weighted-average support rations, running regressions or changepoint analyses on the timings, or applying unsupervised learning such as K-means clustering to group votes of similar ilk. As a statistician, part of me would prefer that. My role is to interpret the discussion as a whole and present my opinion as to what, if any, is the consensus of the discussion. And, forgive the repetition, the combined oppositions and their rationales, in my mind, is sufficient to demonstrate that the project as a whole, at this time, has enough concerns about every facet of how Liz would act as an admin, to prevent her from having achieved a consensus to promote. Thankfully, I am not the only bureaucrat, and it looks as if pretty soon a decision will be made. If it is to promote, I would support that as well, but I can only do what I believe I have been tasked to do, and do it as openly and honestly as I can, and I have not, as yet, been persuaded by the arguments of those that beleive there is consensus. I do have to catch up on some discussion on the actual cratcchat though. Thank you for your questions, and I hope I have addressed them in a matter you find satisfactory. -- Avi (talk) 14:00, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Avraham Thanks but just to be clear, my analysis covered not just "behavior" problems - all "problems" raised by in the opposes were rejected by the super-majority - expressly, with "support" - the "problems", if any, do not disqualify the candidate - that's the judgement rendered by the super-majority (again as the support is based at the least on the nominations and the candidates statements) Now, perhaps it would be different if the oppose was based on a proven socking claim, or a proven serial copvio claim, or some other illegal or grossly untoward conduct (by which I mean any edit(s)) on Wikipedia or some really shocking thing off Wikipedia, but here - it came down to this candidate's mere ordinary record in toto, does or does not qualify - and the judgement of the super majority was it does qualify. Thought experiment: take the well qualified supports and knock out one for one the well qualified opposes (then, do the same with the weak ones) -- you likely end up with 100% support, upward of 100 users. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:23, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Risker: ArbCom deliberates in secret. The discussions and debates, if any, are not public. The rationale behind decisions, if any, is not published. Decisions are made on political grounds. This RfA and BARC indicate that people are fed up with politicians. Hawkeye7 (talk) 12:58, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I can quite assure you, Hawkeye7, that at least for the 5 years I was on Arbcom, Arbcom didn't deliberate in secret. In fact, I'm not sure that anyone could really call what Arbcom does 'deliberation'. The majority of case-related emails to the private list related to sorting out who'd write the PD, pressuring the writers to actually write the PD, and pushing people to vote. It could have changed in the last 18 months but based on what I'm seeing in decisions, it looks like the same old pattern of people voting the way they believe is right. Most of the "reconsiderations" happen in the individual heads of the voting arbitrators. Risker (talk) 14:53, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Andrevan, re "couldn't find any reasonable substantiating diffs to support the comments"[edit]

Andrevan, I was surprised to see you single out Drmies' oppose as "actually prais[ing] many of the aspects that you [Avi] mention (including apparently the best noticeboard response ever) and offer[ing] little in the way of negative information about the candidate." Did you click on the diff where Drmies said "the case of an editor who removed Jews and gays from articles, which Liz called nothing worse than "a strange POV"? And "a serious error in judgment when it comes to admins taking action for off-wiki harassment that spills over on-wiki, and a refusal to drop that stick after two admins countered, causing a third admin to counter". Note, if you will, in the second of the diffs, Liz's unwarranted construction of herself as "a lone voice making an argument to a larger group of editors asking for a block", and someone who "dissent[s] from the call for editors' heads on a pike"[1] — this in preference to taking anything back, which would in that context surely have been the reasonable thing. Compare also my own RFA oppose, where I also complain about her reluctance to admit fault and tendency to heroic self-construction in its place — in that case, while she says Liz.2015 is quite different from Liz.2013, in her choice of words, I saw a loyalty to the flaws of Liz.2013. Well, that's my opinion, anyway. I'm interested in rhetoric. Others may think I study it too deeply. Bishonen | talk 06:13, 5 August 2015 (UTC).[reply]

Bishonen, do you mean the link to the following comment: The edit summary shortened, simplified and removed possible redundant content is not reflective of the edits which are often completely removing all mention of specific groups of people. How can content be redundant if you remove all of it that concerns gays or Jews? These edits definitely are imposing a strange POV where some people are just erased from the public record. Liz Read! Talk! 12:04, 15 June 2015 (UTC)? (comment from here) I would very much disagree with Drmies' characterization of what Liz actually said. Risker (talk) 06:26, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Risker, Drmies quoting out-of-context seems seems highly skewed, and quite unfair. Going back to Adrevan and Avi, the weight you give to such as that is what? -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:47, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Alanscottwalker: I believe I have addressed that above. If you have a follow-up question, it probably makes sense to ask it in the above section so that the conversation isn't fractured. Thanks. -- Avi (talk) 14:04, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Me too. I also don't agree with the characterization of a misinterpretation of NLT (884). She asked a (perhaps naiive) question, got a pointer to the policy, which she accepted. She did not misinterpret the policy. After her "suggestion to a plaintiff that they discuss something on the talk page of a troll who was subsequently indefblocked (888)", she also said, "Trash talking an administrator on ANI is not the smartest move for a 3 month old account." I don't have time to read all the discussions, but every diff I've looked at fails to convince me these are "instances of AGF gone too far".
For these opposes to carry any weight, there must be an answer to Andrevan's question, Could you link me to a diff you think is worthy of being called passive aggressive, cheap shot, rude, hostile, etc. Serious accusations require serious evidence. Burninthruthesky (talk) 12:22, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As for Bishonen's "reluctance to admit fault", argument, fine - it was just unconvincing on the whole, as the results of the RfA demonstrate. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:47, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Dweller: Thank you for your comment, "I'd also like to note that various contributors on the talk page have made comments to the extent that there ought to be an onus on people to bring diffs to support negative assertions at RfX. I think this is an important point, and should be explored properly at a suitable venue - after this RfA is closed." As far as I'm aware the policy that "Serious accusations require serious evidence" applies everywhere on Wikipedia. What further exploration is necessary? Burninthruthesky (talk) 14:22, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I like your thinking. It's worth teasing out though, in my opinion. Maybe lots of people will disagree with me, but let's find out. --Dweller (talk) 14:30, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I note that quite a few opposers cited Drmies' oppose in a "per" fashion, deferring to Drmies' research, and implicitly not having double-checked it for themselves. However, there was also a discussion between Drmies and me (after my support), where I noted that I was unable to find at least one of the cited incidents where Drmies had said that it was. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:59, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • I note that quite a few opposers cited Drmies' oppose in a "per" fashion, deferring to Drmies' research, and implicitly not having double-checked it for themselves. (emphasis mine) You don't know that. Samsara 17:08, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • You should have also bolded the word "implicitly", which answers your concern. Did any of them say, as I did, that they looked and failed to find some of it? (No.) --Tryptofish (talk) 17:11, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        • That doesn't tell you anything. You're free-wheeling in mid-air with your conjectures. Samsara 17:18, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
          • On the other hand, below you seem to know that the late supports were canvassed. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:26, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
            • Indeed I did not. Note that I said, "if". Samsara 17:37, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
              • OK, thanks, so "if" counts where "implicitly" does not. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:00, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • How do you "substantiate" to someone else's satisfaction that you don't trust someone? This particular request for substantiating diffs fundamentally just seems to be a difference of opinion about what kind of comments constitute negative information about a candidate. Insisting that opposes contain diffs and links seems to encourage cherry-picking over offering a holistic evaluation of a candidate, and will certainly have unintended negative consequences if this case is used going forward as a reason to write lengthy, bulky, "evidence"-filled opposition. Worth noting that Liz mentioned in this thread on her talk that she'd prefer briefer comments over long, diff-laden posts. Other candidates might prefer to have specific examples of problems pointed out. I don't think we really need to be institutionalizing one style over the other. Opabinia regalis (talk) 17:22, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It is about weight. If you provide evidence and have a basis in policy for your opinion you will get more weight than if you do not. Just like everywhere else on Wikipedia. Chillum 17:28, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I supported Liz and find some of the opposition unconvincing. But it is not, has never been, and should not be required that oppose votes "have a basis in policy". Until you figure out a way to make a policy about when to trust people and check for compliance, this will be literally impossible. Opabinia regalis (talk) 20:39, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am with User:Opabinia regalis on this, and I think opinions like "Diffs or it didn't happen" go too far and confuse the function of processes like arbcom (where the aim is to determine if an editor did something wrong, and if so admonish/punish them), with process like RFA (where the aim is to determine if an editor has done enough right, to be entrusted with additional tools). Turning RFA into an process where editors are required to prove to others satisfaction that a candidate is unfit for the job rather than opine with reasonable justification whether they trust them with the tools, would make the process even more toxic, and, taken to its logical conclusion (depending upon how far down the slippery slope you take it), should mean that we eliminate the support section altogether and only allow discussants to counter opposes (just as at arbcom).
To be clear, I personally do believe that, just like nomination statements, oppose votes are more credible when accompanied by diffs, and that specific charges (such as, Candidate X added copyvio/BLP-vio content; uses coarse language; tag-teamed with User Y etc) should be accompanied by diffs. But many other completely valid reasons to oppose (not enough experience; poor record at AFD; no demonstrated ability to communication clearly) require a more holistic evaluation and are not always amenable to a "Diffs or it didn't happen" approach.
FWIW, my vote at Liz's RFA included both a diff and an explanation about why I found the linked discussion concerning. When asked, I provided an even lengthier explanation at a user's talkpage, so as to not pile on the candidate who had expressed a preference for short-opposes that "offer a simple reason why without dissecting an editor in public", and whose stress I frankly sympathize with. My comment above is not really about this RFA in particular, or my personal preference for how a support/oppose vote should be composed. I am objecting to "institutionalizing one style". Abecedare (talk) 18:01, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Abecedare's link is to a discussion at my talk page, and so I will note that I said there that I, myself, very much recognize that there are two sides to this RfA, and that I have plenty of room for doubts about my own support (but I still do support). I don't envy the job the Crats have to do here. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:58, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding my Oppose #12[edit]

My Oppose !vote was made early in the proceedings when the !voting percentage in support was over 90% in favor, if I remember correctly, and I stated at the time that barring a dramatic turn in the consensus that the candidate was likely to be granted Adminship. I was profoundly surprised to return and find the !votes in favor of the nomination down to 74%. What I said at the time was based on the erroneous information, later corrected, that Liz had been editing Wikipedia for "two years." I stated that my primary rationale was a lack of raw time spent on Wikipedia. Obviously, that Oppose, based on misstated information, carries little weight.

It will be noted I praised the candidate's temperament, and that I often agreed with the candidate. I also thanked her for her service. I did not mention a lack of content creation, which I make no judgement about. None of that has changed. But I feel the need to speak out here, as the "Crat Chat" continues over the decision to grant the candidate the extra buttons or not. Subsequent opposes brought up a number of issues I found myself in agreement with, including the sentiment some subsequent opposes expressed that the overall editing pattern of the candidate indicates an unseemly desire for the admin flag. On reflection, I have to agree that that is in fact my impression as well. It's a difficult thing to have to say about a candidate I genuinely like, by and large. Nor is it quantifiable, particularly, without presenting numerous diffs. In any case, I feel that the overall trend of the Rfa downward, as a significant number of editors weighed in, indicates that the Bureaucrats should find there is no consensus. Jusdafax 06:49, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that "the candidate really wants to be an administrator," even assuming it is true in a given case, is a sensible ground for opposing or one that should be given much weight as a ground for opposing. If the candidate has the relevant experience and appropriate qualifications, it is undesirable to try to read his or her mind about why he or she has attained them. To be sure, it might sometimes be necessary to do so, such as if there were a well-founded reason to believe that the candidate is a plant from some off-wiki advocacy group, but not merely because there is allegedly reason to believe that the candidate really wants to serve Wikipedia in this way. I understand some people like candidates who can genuinely respond, when approached about an RfA, "oh my gosh... I never even thought about it... you want li'l old me to be an admin... well, okay, if you really insist...." But I don't think we should make a fetish out of insisting on it. Newyorkbrad (talk) 08:11, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'll say again it's an intangible. But you press me, and so I will give a simple example that requires no diffs: the candidate's talk page. There we find a carefully-worded statement declining to withdraw from the Rfa. Personally, had it been me (admittedly a useless declaration, but nevertheless) I would have withdrawn from consideration as the opposes piled up. Again, the trend was clear, but Liz choose to hold on as the percentage slipped into the mid-discretionary range. In my book that's not a classy move. Come on, really? Just back out and try in six months after addressing some of the concerns, like, say, content. But no, the candidate hangs on. I repeat, I like this editor. But something is not quite right, and I, and many others, oppose granting tools that, once given out, are difficult for the community to rescind. Better safe than sorry, under the current setup. Jusdafax 08:25, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, if I were a bureaucrat, I would throw any !vote with this rationale right out the window. Newyorkbrad (talk) 08:35, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well you and I can agree to disagree, and move on. I felt the need to clarify and enhance my oppose, and that's done. Jusdafax 08:47, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The RFA is in the discretionary range and it is up to the crats to use their discretion one way or the other, as I'm not a crat and I have !voted I won't try to push them either way - time for them to earn those crat bits. But I will comment re withdrawing, I think it sensible for a candidate to withdraw when it is clear that the majority is against them, or when something emerges that is justifiably tanking their RFA. But when there is a clear majority for promotion then I would consider it odd to withdraw before the 7 days, as for withdrawing during a crat chat, we've seen one candidate withdraw when there was a crat chat though they hadn't quite reached the discretionary zone. I wouldn't suggest that a candidate in the discretionary range withdraw during a cratchat, especially if the only new things emerging in the crat chat are latecomers saying they would have supported. ϢereSpielChequers 10:09, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
especially if the only new things emerging in the crat chat are latecomers saying they would have supported - this is not true, as there have been late-comers opposing also. - Sitush (talk) 10:41, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Struck that, apologies for not having noticed any late opposers ϢereSpielChequers 17:22, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I hope Newyorkbrad was joking or simply using hyperbole. The vote might be weaker than most and subject to lower weighting, but to throw it out would mean you were no longer reading consensus, and instead acting as the vote police and deciding what is and isn't allowed based on your opinion. One of the problems with RFA has been the constant barrage of comments against anyone who opposes. Opposers should have the same right to opine as a supporter. By that same logic, you would have to throw out every "per nom" and "no reason to oppose" vote instead of simply down weighing it. If you were serious, then maybe Crat isn't for you. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:57, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I was quite serious, but for clarity, I was primarily referring to a hypothetical "oppose because she hasn't withdrawn" !vote, as opposed to a "she wants to be an admin too much" !vote (although for the reasons stated, I don't think either type has much merit). Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:06, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
OK, now I'm drawn back in. For the record, my two positions (reworded and reduced as they are above by NYB) are two interlinked points. Now I notice in the 'crat chat that the 'crats themselves are currently unable to reach consensus, meaning we draw out the drama still further. I'll be blunt: there is clearly no consensus unless you start throwing !votes "right out the window" as NYB states my !vote should be. Dennis Brown, moved to protest this breathtaking bash, gets NYB to pull back the wholesale complete tossing of my !vote, which in any case is a restated rationale developed after further consideration of evolving events, and NYB's position morphs to modify the 100% rejection of my position (which deserves an apology, in my view) to not "much merit." I will additionally note that I thought long and hard about the original !vote, and the subsequent decision to !vote in the teeth of what appeared at the time to be a very solid consensus in favor, as well as my additional appearance on this page to refine my position, which I knew would be subject to deep scrutiny by those who appear to me to be increasingly determined to "win." Indeed, I note calls to reactivate retired or inactive bureaucrats, to toss out segments of the !votes as invalid, and various hostile comments from both sides. This Rfa is now a disruptive spectacle, and my comment above if anything becomes more valid with every hour that drags on: the candidate should simply withdraw for the good of the 'pedia, and if not given the extra buttons, for the good of her next Rfa. I ask the candidate and the community: how many more hours, how many more days is this open sore of an Rfa going to drag on? Jusdafax 17:38, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It will not drag on much longer. As of now, only xeno really has to weigh in. Personally, I agree that a lot of the tone of the discussions here are regretful; the same dialogue could have happened with much more courtesy. The passion that RfA inspires is a good thing in my opinion; a volunteer-run enterprise whose core members are apathetic cannot persevere. How each one of us channels that passion and presents our opinions and engages in discourse should be something we all individually work on to improve. It should not require a policy and a guideline for us to at least TRY to engage civilly with one another. -- Avi (talk) 17:52, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I appreciate your measured response. Jusdafax 18:29, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Jusdafax, my shorthand paraphrases were meant to identify the two related strands of your thinking and not to encapsulate them in full.
As has been observed elsewhere on this page, the precedent set a couple of weeks ago is that the candidate wouldn't be permitted to withdraw at this point even if she wanted to.
Beyond that, it's not up to me whether and how to weight any of the !votes or associated comments, and I suppose you think that's just as well. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:09, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

More crats[edit]

@Dweller: per "Are there other Crats who are active that we could reasonably expect to weigh in without making Liz wait too long?", Xeno indicated that they would look at the discussion in this edit. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 08:51, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yup. And I'm going to nudge a couple of others who seem to be active but have yet to participate. --Dweller (talk) 08:52, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've nudged Writ Keeper. It's only a few days that he hasn't been editing. Bishonen | talk 09:34, 5 August 2015 (UTC).[reply]
Writ Keeper did resign bureaucratship a while ago, actually. Granted, they are probably recrating-eligible. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:48, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ohh, thanks. I didn't know. Bishonen | talk 10:51, 5 August 2015 (UTC).[reply]

My thoughts[edit]

I mentioned on the main page that I'm recused, quite obviously - I'm one of the nominators, I'm clearly going to be biased. That said, I thought I'd make a few comments regarding the discussion. The arguments against fit into a number of broad categories. I would personally be giving less weight to quite a few arguments, comments where I'd expect diffs. Some examples of the sort of argument that I'd give more weight to if there were diffs attached are below. Without the diffs, they appear much closer to mud slinging.

  • "climbing the social ladder" / "treating Wikipedia as an MMORPG"
  • "A fair few of the interventions that I have seen seemed almost unnecessary and I did wonder whether they were being made simply to raise a profile for a run at RfA."
  • "I am concerned with the constant ANI drama"
  • "some of her edits do seem detrimental to the goal of an unbiased wiki"
  • "I have found her participation at AN/I unfortunate too many times"

The remaining comments seem to fall into the following areas.

  • Over half the opposes focus on the lack of content creation. I understand some of the reasons why people want to see content creation, and it's a valid oppose reason (though I generally disagree with it and specifically addressed it my nomination). The standards that people expect vary from the eminently reasonable of sourced content to the absurd requirement of an FA or multiple GAs. I certainly wouldn't disregard these oppose arguments, but the argument was rebutted strongly throughout the RfA.
  • Quarter of the opposers seemed to focus on a "vendetta against content creators". I'd probably rephrase this as "The Eric Corbett issue". Simply, we've lost a dozen admins I can think of over "The Eric Corbett issue", through either quitting or having bits removed. It is the most polarising issue on the encyclopedia that I can think of. I'm afraid I simply cannot give a lot of weight to the idea that Liz has a "vendetta" against content creators - the diffs provided specifically state that she thinks all editors should be treated the same. Without the evidence, I believe this should be given less weight.
  • A significant proportion complain about "too much time at drama boards" or "too much time at ANI". Most opposes did not state that there was anything wrong with her actions there, indeed Drmies specifically pointed out her actions were helpful and practical but too easy. The diffs provided were rebutted immediately, especially the following.
    "The edit summary shortened, simplified and removed possible redundant content is not reflective of the edits which are often completely removing all mention of specific groups of people. How can content be redundant if you remove all of it that concerns gays or Jews? These edits definitely are imposing a strange POV where some people are just erased from the public record. Liz Read! Talk! 12:04, 15 June 2015 (UTC)?" is not simply calling the actions a strange POV.
  • I'd also be putting less weight to some arguments such as "Questionable AfDs" (due to lack of diffs), being focussed on Social Justice, or wanting it too much - which would mark about half a dozen opposes.

Don't get me wrong, there are some very valid opposes - those who are unhappy with Liz's answers to questions, who have a general opinion based on their experiences with her and so on. But there's also an enormous amount of support and when looking at the weakness of some of the weak opposes, this RfA swings back towards consensus to promote.

It's a shame, because becoming an administrator is becoming harder and harder. Crat chats seem to end in no consensus over and over, so you now need over 80% support to become an administrator. WormTT(talk) 10:04, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, just as to your last it's not quite true that over 80% is needed this Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Northamerica1000 2 was also 74% support, and they made it despite worthy opposition. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:15, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that was a bit different. It was closed by a crat who had voted in the RfA, leading to a vote on whether the close was good, rather than a traditional crat chat. I feel there is a malaise sitting on RfA these days, whereby the crat group just takes the easy option. WormTT(talk) 10:24, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
One of your quotes above is of me. For clarification, I did reference diffs provided by others and I also raised one that specifically related to me. - Sitush (talk) 10:44, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As for "mud-slinging", well, Spartaz's support !vote was perhaps an extreme, albeit generalised. For the record, I !voted in support of Anna Frodesiak, for example, and I am one who has frequently been accused of misogyny. - Sitush (talk) 10:52, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Sitush: You !voted in support of me, too. If you want to develop a reputation for misogyny, you're going to have to do a lot better than that. 0;-D --MelanieN (talk) 16:01, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not surprised, MelanieN - you were a good candidate. My alleged misogyny exists only in the minds of a few people who just happen to be rather frequent repeaters of their opinions about patriarchy etc both on- and off-wiki. I couldn't care less if Liz is male, female or even the Loch Ness Monster: suitability for the role is what matters. - Sitush (talk) 16:15, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Without evidence, yes, I'd be putting less weight to Spartaz's comment. As for the diffs you raised, you pointed to diffs raised by Drmies - but gave a completely different rationale. Without explaining which diffs you were referring to, one could only assume you were referring to all of them and looking at the diffs, that doesn't make sense. The biggest problem though was the motive you put on Liz - "simply to raise profile" - that was an extremely bad faith comment, one that I felt was beneath you. WormTT(talk) 11:09, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Worm That Turned: I would AGF that all the non-diff Opposes are as valid as all the non-diff Supports. Over half the support votes occurred before 10 oppose !votes happened. This is a Request for Adminship, not ArbCom proceedings and a laundry list of diffs are rather untoward. I can provide them for my comments and choose simply to give my impression rather than a prosecutorial laundry list of wrongdoing. The bar isn't whether they commited bannable offenses, or even policy violations. It's a personal assessment of whether they are suited for the role and it's largely subjective. We try to limit participation to experienced editors and we have "Not now" closes for inexperienced candidates. Discounting oppose votes, as you propose, will lead to a more acrimonious process as "Opposes" would have to "prove" the nominee is unfit and is one sided as there are no diffs for say "policy expert" even if the support statement makes that claim. What you have here is a large number of passionate editors that participated. 270+ particpants is massive turnout. That it isn't overwhelming in one direction or the other, is by my subjective view, a polarizing nominee and no amount of discounting changes that. In fact, it's worse. It's hard to recall previous RfA's that have 200 supports and is not an obvious Successful. It's just as hard to find 70 Opposes that wasn't Unsuccessful. Trying to bend such large numbers into anything except what they are seems very problematic. --DHeyward (talk) 10:48, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Those that personally assessed the candidate and just generally opined based on their experiences, I have no issue with. I don't expect diffs for a general opinion. What I do expect strong diffs for "AfD comments made simply to improve stats" or "having a vendetta against content contributors". Maybe I've spent too long at Arbcom, but those sorts of negative commentary are by definition assuming bad faith. I expect people to back up that sort of commentary, and if they don't then I'm minded to give the opinion less weight. WormTT(talk) 11:03, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I provided diffs for that, and I expect a bureaucrat to have the ability to see that and not make false allegations to serve his purpose. Bureaucrats are expected to be above that sort of thing. Samsara 11:18, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As I said above - the diffs specifically state that Liz believes all editors should be treated the same, no different set of standards. That certainly does not imply a vendetta against one set. WormTT(talk) 11:35, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You implied I had provided no diffs, and did not even notify me. It's by chance that I was online and saw your comment. I consider this rather below the belt, and would suggest that you accept the criticism and move on. You are a bureaucrat, are you not? Samsara 11:46, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No, I pointed out that a quarter of opposers used the vendetta as a rationale, and that the diffs did not support that. This wasn't singling you out, it was pointing out that I felt that line of opposition was weak. I've added the word "strong" above in deference to the fact that you did provide diffs, as I made perfectly clear in my initial statement. I am indeed a bureaucrat, but I'm also a nominator in this RfA and therefore I'm on the talk page, not in the crat chat. WormTT(talk) 11:54, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think it a bit odd that some would let a support rationale of "fine candidate" pass at full value while subjecting any oppose to a much higher standard on an ex post facto basis. Any requirement for diffs in each statement would quickly fall to the minimum acceptable, that is, instead of saying "I find Drmies convincing", it can say "I find Drmies' arguments and diffs convincing". If necessary, we lawyers can toss in an "incorporated by reference", which works in the best courts. It's said hard cases make bad law. This matter is causing some heartburn on both sides, apparently, but the case for changing a system out of irritation at the course of this RfA seems ill advised.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:16, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Issues were raised about Drmies' vote even during the RFA but were ignored. Instead of a 'crat asking him to remove his misrepresentation (which would have been entirely appropriate, given how seriously we ought to be taking suggestions that people are racist), his vote was praised by many. That is truly frightening: if it's okay for admins to denigrate anyone this way, then we have far bigger problems than bad outcomes at RFA. Bureaucrats didn't used to accept "personal attack" type votes; just because this one is written in excellent prose doesn't make it any less of a personal attack. Risker (talk) 13:46, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Over the years, there have been some discussions about whether !votes need to be supported by a rationale and whether the standards are the same for supports versus opposes. I came away persuaded that it is reasonable to have different standards. In short, invoking Avi's Bayesian analysis, our prior assumption is that a candidate is qualified unless there is evidence to the contrary. This suggests that a bare support is acceptable, but a bare oppose can be discounted unless accompanied by specific rationale including diffs.
I thought the argument so compelling I may have mistakenly assumed that the community reached the same conclusion. I see that not everyone shares this opinion, and this is the place to reopen the discussion; perhaps we ought to revisit the discussion on the RFA page and see if we can reach the community consensus on the relative standards for supports and opposes. I'm also intrigued by Risker's observation that there has been a trend over time, with a decreasing requirement for diffs by opposes. That would trouble me if true, although, of course, it may not trouble those who do not think diffs are required. I see value in addressing both issues.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:21, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think that once this discussion closes, there will be a conversation about these particular issues either on WT:RFA or WT:B. As a fellow Bayseian, I getting clarity as to the priors of both the participants and the crats is very important. We probably have gone much too long without a revisit/reset. -- Avi (talk) 15:27, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure that these thought processes are "Bayesian" in any real sense—the qualitative assumption that someone is qualified unless proven otherwise is a bias, not a data-driven or empirical stance—but I'll play along. Let's define the prior probability that a candidate is qualified, in quantitative rather than hand-wavey terms.

Looking at the 95 RfA's that have been closed since 1/1/2014, I see that 34 were successful and 61 were unsuccessful. Thus, it would seem reasonable to set the prior probability that an RfA candidate is qualified at ~36%. So how do we justify the view that someone is "qualified until proven otherwise"? (In particular, how can anyone claim to justify it on Bayesian grounds?!?!) It seems to me that, according to prior probabilities, candidates are much more likely to be unqualified. Right?

(I'm partially playing devil's advocate here—I'm not sure we should make it any harder to pass RfA, and arguably it should be much easier, but I have a pet peeve about Wikipedians and their casual use of statistical concepts and terminology). MastCell Talk 20:00, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I used the concept as an analogy to explain where Andrevan and I argue. Of course no one is actually setting up an MCMC sampler and running 10 years of RfA history through it, nor is anyone starting off by saying "candidates are 36% likely to be admins". What I do appreciate, and wanted to convey, was that in this case, HOW the bureaucrat approached the discussion seems to have made a difference. I approached it from the tabula rasa perspective and asked myself, did the 280-some-odd responses and discussion indicate that there is a consensus among project members to allow Liz access to the tools. Andrevan, starting with his statement "… is on the edge of being an uncontroversial promote, we only need to demonstrate the minimum level of counter-weight to the oppose arguments to find a consensus here." and continuing on that page implies to me that he approached it that 200 supports indicates consensus, now is the opposition enough to derail it, which is a different perspective. I could have couched it as two-stage vs. one-stage, or support-focused vs. support-neutral. As an actuary, I was comfortable abusing the terminology of Bayesian statistics and used informed vs. uninformed priors. Analogies are useful but aren't perfect, I agree. -- Avi (talk) 20:08, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Worm That Turned:. Perhaps you'd like to explain what this issue has to do with me, and why you insist in trying to drag me into it with your "The Eric Corbett issue" characterisation? Which says a great deal more about you than it does about me. Eric Corbett 13:56, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    The only diffs provided for the "vendetta regarding content creators" were specifically related to you. Even if there was a valid argument that Liz spent her time causing issues with you, you polarise the community and are hardly typical of it. WormTT(talk) 14:03, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    So you don't have an explanation then. Fair enough. Eric Corbett 14:04, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think I had ever had any dealings with Liz but I was the one who I provided the diff from Eric's page. I should have been clearer. I don't expect anybody to create anything but I don't see how someone who dropped in on a page she knew was watched by many editors spouting little bits of "wisdom" is an asset. She admitted herself she shouldn't have done it. To put it in context Liz had been clerking at Arbcom where Eric's name was mentioned. In the interest of appearing even-handed, I think an Arbcom clerk should have been much more circumspect under the circumstances and that is why I opposed. And just to remind you, editors who create content do much more than that, copyediting, removing vandalism, etc. etc. and nobody expects them to get a free pass at anything. I am appalled that Worm that turned used the phrase "The Eric Corbett issue", that assumes no good faith and was not why I opposed. J3Mrs (talk) 14:42, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's fairly clear by now that if you oppose, you're "not of the body" and thus not worthy of consideration. Intothatdarkness 15:25, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wow. Well, this is interesting; nice low blow there. I maintain that "strange POV" is a rather odd understatement, considering the issue was the removal of gays and Jews. Drmies (talk) 16:24, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
A couple things to think about Drmies. Understatement, especially at the start of a discussion is often more effective than anything else, and also less drama inducing - Liz's comment after the "understatement" (it should be noted, that strange POV pushing can readily lead to a total block or ban from the project) -- laid bare the the reprehensible nature of the edits that needed no verbal or actual exclamation points. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:09, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I also think that "strange POV" is an understatement of what was actually said. As an admin, Drmies should know that quoting another editor out of context to give the impression they hold views they do not hold is not allowed. As it happens, this same policy was key to my previous dealing with him. Anyway, I am glad in the end the decision was not affected by false accusations. Burninthruthesky (talk) 09:21, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"Strange POV" is a completely inappropriate understatement, if that's what it was. It was a revolting POV. Risker, I didn't accuse anyone of being a racist (but thanks for the AGF!), I accused someone of lacking judgment. You all could have agreed to disagree; instead I'm being slimed afterward in a discussion that comes as mustard long after the meal, as the Dutch might say. Burninthruthesky, if you're trying to slap me with some kind of policy violation, don't do it here, do it on AN and try to get my tool revoked--funny how you come out of nowhere. That previous interaction, is that the thread on my talk page where you asked a question and I gave what you called a "thoughtful reponse"? Or is that IUC also? I find that, far from a snakepit for the candidate, this has become a witchhunt for the opponents. I'm glad it passed in the end, or all opposers would have been accused of sexism--since it did pass, I suppose sexism is now officially dead. Feel free to not ping me anymore here, unless it's for an AN notification; you all should have commented while the RfA was going on, or asked me on my talk page, or whatever. Drmies (talk) 16:34, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Worm That Turned:, @Newyorkbrad:, @Risker: I'm acutely aware that as this discussion continues, it is potentially even more hurtful to the candidate, so I am sorry to have to contribute to the dissection here, but I feel I must. I can't speak for others, but I did not include links in my oppose precisely so as not to appear to be attacking her. Drmies - who I see has now posted immediately above - stated in the first version of his vote that he was leaving out the links for that reason. It's news to me that oppose rationales carry any higher expectation of proof, as opposed to explanation; after all, this is about whether we trust the candidate enough to grant them adminship, not whether we consider them a transgressor. It's also no easier to succinctly illustrate a pattern whether it's positive - good judgement - or negative - the poor judgement that weighed heaviest in my view; but more importantly, I for one would hesitate to attempt it in the context of an RfA; I didn't want my assessment to appear like an attack, and as more than one participant in the actual crat chat has noted, several opposers said as much, that they didn't want to appear to be impugning Liz herself. In this light I'm all the more disturbed by the discounting of those links that were provided, not only in Drmies' analysis discussed negatively above, but the incident on Sitush's user talk page, discussed in the actual RfA where it emerges that Liz may have swooped in on the basis of not understanding the idiom used, and what about the list of links, with comments, in Hafspajen's vote? I personally considered the links presented by others in opposes before mine more than sufficient, and tried to be as succinct and non-specific as possible to avoid further hurting the candidate. RfA is not an adversarial process, or should not be. I don't see the argument below about gender bias as worthy of a rebuttal - there were female editors, some of us administrators, on both sides of the voting - but weighting opinions less after the fact based on their not having reached the standard of proof required in a hostile setting appears to me to be very much an assumption of bad faith. Please, for the good of the candidate as well as for collegiality, consider the alternate possibility and look again at all the people qualifying their opposes with compliments and statements of liking for the candidate herself. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:33, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect that quite a few of the "Liz is a nice person, but I oppose" (paraphrase) were done with the same basic motive. It seems, though, that some Crats may be taking those comments as a sign that an oppose is not full-hearted. That seems a bit odd to me: the same people could have stayed neutral if they had so wished. - Sitush (talk) 18:10, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Add: I can understand treating "weak opposes" as such, but discounting opposes that are fair, even-handed, and praise the praiseworthy features of a candidate would be a mistake, and create a moral hazard for future RFAs with opposers driven to state their opposition in the most stark (and consequently, unfair) terms. Coincidentally, I had commented to Liz during the RFA about "hyperbolic and polarized comments that project the candidate as a wiki-savior or wiki-destroyer", which I see as an obvious negative and which some of the opinions expressed here and in the crat-chat would only encourage.
Again, I am not overly concerned about how the bureaucrats decide this RFA, but they should be aware of future effects their comments during the crat-chat about which votes they discount are likely to have. See also Opabinia and my comment somewhere above about discounting holistic diff-less evaluations of the candiadte. Abecedare (talk) 18:29, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Pinging the same people ( @Worm That Turned:, @Newyorkbrad:, @Risker: ) for the much of the same reason as Yngvadottir has. I expressed yesterday on Dweller's page why I didn't include links and diffs (I had gathered them and spent a lot of time combing through contribs). I have to echo much of what Yngvadottir says above. It's really best at this point not add anything more. Victoria (tk) 18:26, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You know,Yngvadottir and Victoria, I was willing to move on (after all, my first post here was to point out the inevitability of the result of the 'crat chat, which was obvious long before the RFA even closed), but essentially what you two are saying is "just accept that there are too many people who don't like/trust her for reasons that are too hurtful to mention and move on". Well, geez. That's not going to improve the likelihood that people will run for RFA. That's not going to help the candidate to change patterns of behaviour that others find concerning, since the concerns aren't really clear (some of them are, I grant) or are based on erroneous information. Is the message that you want Liz to take home that it's unlikely she'll ever make enough wikifriends to get elected? I agree there's too much meta discussion that revolves around this one RfA, but the only time we can ever have these meta discussions is when stuff like this happens. Risker (talk) 18:44, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No, Risker that's not the case at all, as far as I'm concerned. You've misunderstood. I'll strike my comment. Victoria (tk) 18:48, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Risker: No, that's not a fair paraphrase, and I don't see anyone anywhere in these discussions saying "Just accept" anything. How about, "Some supported in part because they trust the candidate's judgement and/or have been impressed by her work on noticeboards, and others opposed in part because they don't trust the candidate's judgement and/or have not been impressed by her work on noticeboards, and neither should be construed as a judgement on her likeability". My rather long comment also noted that some links were provided - I am disturbed that Hafspajen's seem to have not been noted in this discussion, and mentioned another specifically. So yes, I am concerned at the overall message to opposers that we should have been (brutally or clinically) specific. But now I am even more concerned by the implication of judgement on the basis of cliquishness, and while we can of course disagree, I do not consider the "erroneous information" point well supported. Rather than belabor the point, I'll just repeat - no, Risker, that is not a fair paraphrase. Yngvadottir (talk) 20:14, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hafspajen's thoughtful comments and diffs were what actually caused me to change from support to neutral. (I thank my guardian angel I did not oppose; this after-the-fact-inquisition would send me over the edge of stress). Yngvadottir mentioned it above in this section. I know Hafs does not do well typing in English so I believe a lot of heartfelt consideration and research time went into their oppose !vote and discussion. What especially rang true for me was their concern states thusly: About the next issue, - I am not happy about splitting parts on Wiki, identifying the sides with men/women. I would like this to be toned down not amplified or exagerated even more. I really don't want to split Wikipedia into women and men editors that fight with each other because of gender issues. Hafs' entire essay in opposition of Liz echoed with me. For the sake of this discussion, I am of the female gender, but do not usually reveal it. Fylbecatulous talk 19:07, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The points I've made on this page (dealing more with types of oppose reasons) are somewhat different from Risker's point (dealing more with evidence in support of oppose reasons), which isn't to say that her point isn't valid. Yes, I can understand why an opposer might in good faith want to present a generalized assertion without too much supporting detail; but I hope others in turn can understand why this makes it much more difficult for anyone else to evaluate whether or not there is substance to the opposer's concern. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:59, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Newyorkbrad, I understand that now and have explained on my page to Risker. Given that it's necessary to evaluate whether someone is opposing for valid reasons or not depends on a display of evidence and given that I failed to do so, it's probably ok to go ahead and have my oppose stricken. Victoria (tk) 19:40, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

what happens if the crats can't reach consensus?[edit]

I hope (for Liz's sake) that the crats reach consensus one way or the other, but what happens if they are unable to reach consensus? Thryduulf (talk) 11:56, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Then it would default as "no promotion". Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 12:00, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Per the last crat-chat, a split would equate to no promotion as above. Though the fact that we're looking at two of these in a row is telling... Wizardman 12:08, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Gender-based aspects of hazing process[edit]

Once again, we have a situation where a female editor's strong and weak points become more difficult to ascertain, because she is being subjected to a hazing process with gender-related components.

Mr. Wales, a perennial target of harassment, has been targeted once again in one of the questions here. This question is reminiscent of an undergraduate hazing process, and is posed by an editor with super-human levels of contributions to the project. His sense of humor may or may not be funny, depending on your feelings about vulgarity; his user page features the Wikipetan mascot, an anime cartoon of a pre-teen girl displaying a placard with sexual vulgarity. The message is clear, that the aspiring female admin is expected to be a good sport and play along; Jimmy Wales is expected to be thick skinned enough that creating secondary trauma by discussing possible new ways to harass him shouldn't be a problem; prospective admins must accept the fact that members of the community are adamant about retaining the Wikipetan mascot displaying the placard.

The prospective admin is also being considered unsuitable by some because she asked male editors to stop using the *** word, on the basis that jumping in and making this request is inappropriate. In real life situations, women are cautioned to avoid men who won't back down when a woman asks them not to use the **** word. It doesn't speak much for a commitment to trust and safety if women who ask men to stop using the **** word are being told off by site administration. (Yes, I've been told before that it is offensive to use **** here, and that any attempts to avoid people who type this language in search engines are futile ... :)

And then we get to the question of the small group that refers to itself as the "content creators," who are clustered around a perennially controversial editor known for run-ins on gender issues. This group disparages the contributions of anyone who won't join them in the Featured Articles or Good Articles review process, on the basis that they aren't really "creating content," despite the fact that most content is contributed by non-professional volunteer writers, gnomes, and fact checkers. The valid concerns expressed by this group about the editor's experience with online content disputes are rather muddied by the fact that there has been so much posturing going on an effort to stave off further gender-related enforcement against the controversial member.

The hazing process used in this RfA has some aspects that are specific to women, and that make it more difficult for women to participate. It's not surprising to see this sort of hazing happen in a predominantly male group that runs based on consensus, and it's unfortunate that the calls to make RfA less of a hazing process for all of its participants go unanswered. --Djembayz (talk) 13:00, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, that is out of the way reasoning, even some female administrators went against Liz. You won't call them gender biased.--Aero Slicer 14:52, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at the details, you were commenting about Hawkeye7's question. Administrators and old users might tell, whether such nasty questions were asked in previous RFA process. Aero Slicer 15:24, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, please drop it, Djembayz. How many people mentioned gender? How many of participants have !voted in support of other self-identified female admin nominees. - Sitush (talk) 13:02, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a question for you, Sitush. What should we do about an administrator who misrepresents the words of an RFA candidate to the point that it makes the candidate look racist and homophobic? How should we treat that vote? Is it a good thing to praise them for making such a vote? Do you think 'crats should "count" that vote (and any that derive from it) in their calculations of "consensus"? Risker (talk) 13:10, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, that's too vague for me. Can you say who did what without all the dancing around the point? And I think your own standards would call for a full panoply of diffs. Obviously, I haven't followed it as closely as you and haven't read the Wikipediocracy thread. If you feel strongly enough to post what you did, a direct statement is only a bit further. This is not Sitush's RfA, after all, you shouldn't be asking him hypothetical questions.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:21, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a hypothetical, and if you haven't been following the RfA or this discussion then perhaps you're the one whose comment is out of place here; the specific vote is well discussed on this page. Is there a Wikipediocracy thread about this RfA, and why would you raise that point? I have no idea whether there is, I've never participated there and rarely read it. I do know that there was a groundswell of opinion that this RfA was going to close as "no consensus" pretty much right after Drmies made his vote which so seriously misrepresented the candidate's statement. At the time the candidate had approximately 85% support. There's definitely a bias here; whether it's male vs female, or "long time admin" vs. upstart, or something else, or "let's put as many obstacles in the way of any new admins" or something else, I'm not sure. I just can't understand why the 'crats are accepting votes that are based on a misrepresentation of the candidate. I do think that accepting that vote at face value is evidence of bias, though. You'd be all over it if it was a candidate you liked. Risker (talk) 13:36, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Really? I can't think of a candidate in the last five years that I felt so strongly about to "be all over it". Broad, sweeping generalizations. If you feel that Drmies misrepresented (I assume you say intentionally?) the candidate's record, and the many who agreed with him and the crats who cited it as an example of an oppose to be taken very seriously, all have had the wool pulled over their eyes.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:48, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Why don't you just read the mischaracterizations by Drmies above? Whether they were on purpose or not is almost moot(concerning the RfA), they are obviously wrong. Trying to imply the candidate is accepting of racists, with a link where that is obviously not the case, with a 'quote' taken out of context, is grounds for dismissal of said vote. Along with all the others who stated 'per Drmies'. Dave Dial (talk) 13:59, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is more representative of how far down the tubes RFA has come, that it really doesn't matter what you say in opposition to a candidate, it's going to be taken seriously and given the same (if not more) weight as a support vote that says "I've looked at this candidate's contributions and see no concerns". You can't give a diff for "no concerns", but you can for a concerning situation - however, in this case, the diff was given but the description of it is obviously wrong. It seems there is no way to have an oppose vote discounted; I'm not even sure Kurt Weber's "I view self-noms as prima facie evidence of power-hunger" (which he posted for just about every single self-nom) would be discounted in today's RFA environment. Risker (talk) 14:13, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Gosh, I'd forgotten about Kurt. And was it Kelly Martin that used to oppose anyone with a userbox on their user page? --Dweller (talk) 14:16, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) IRC, Drmies explained. You may not agree with the explanation, as is your right. I assume Djembayz is unaware that several self-identified women are among the opposers (including the first), and that several others who certainly should have been aware of the nomination simply didn't turn up. Also, that I tried to bat down a Gamergater and that various strikings were done. Not to mention that several people flipped back and forth, suggesting no prior agenda. Honestly, it becomes tiresome seeing all these various dramatic debates turned into a discussion about gender, quite frequently initiated by a small number of people.

Trying to analyse trends etc seems generally pointless also: assuming it is not a snow close situation, as happens when newbies put themselves forward, it is normally the case that the supports rack up quite quickly and then opposes begin to appear. Well, that's my limited experience of these things at any rate. - Sitush (talk) 14:27, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with that is that you have to start trying to second guess the intentions and underlying thought processes of those making such votes. I disagree with Kurt but without trying to second guess his thought process, can see no reasonable cause to invalidate or otherwise discount his votes. I'll give an example of not knowing the underlying rationale - it's possible that Kurt could be trying to bring out more support votes for all we know, it's certainly true that over the years, where he has opposed with his "prima facie evidence of power hunger" argument, more than enough votes to counter his oppose have been received along the lines of "self-nomination shows a willingness to act". It's all nonsense of course, just because you're brave enough to submit an RfA doesn't mean you're going to act in a difficult case where a slight mis-step could result in arbitration or a block, just as nominating yourself doesn't mean you're actually power hungry. I do think, if we're going to be so openly critical towards those Oppose votes we dislike, we should be equally critical of the stupid support votes we've seen - I'm sure if I had all day to go digging, I could point out hundreds of administrators who were promoted via RfAs where people supported because of the candidate's name, football team, Alma mater or editing interests, rather than their inherent suitability for the role of administrator, and I'd be surprised if there's not the occasional RfA out there where the candidate passed possibly down to the presence of slightly silly support votes. Nick (talk) 14:38, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with you as strongly as is possible. People who were self-evident RfA trolls—Boothy4433, Massiveego, Kmweber, for examples—had no place on the RfA pages and should have been expelled from them much sooner than they were. In fairness, while many of the opposes on this RfA lacked merit and several in my view should be disregarded in the !vote analysis, I will grant that none of the current regular RfA participants comes close to that level of out-and-out worthlessness of participation. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:53, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Does "out-and-out worthlessness of participation" extend to support votes too, or is it a unique concept reserved for oppose votes ? Nick (talk) 15:08, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It does not. A fundamental pillar of this project is assumption of good faith. Support votes follow that fundamental pillar; if there is nothing negative to be said, then one assumes that it is a net positive. (People can always "vote" neutral if they don't want to assume that much good faith. It's never happened, to my knowledge, that the community has ever exercised that option to the point that there are more than a handful of neutral votes at RfA.) Some types of oppose votes are blatant assumptions of bad faith (the one I quoted above is an example) and thus should not be considered absent serious evidence. Risker (talk) 15:20, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(responding to Nick) If someone routinely supported each and every RfA with a nonsensical rationale such as "User has more than 50 edits" or "user has a heartbeat," then my reaction would be the same. As it happens, all of the people I consider to have been "RfA trolls" have routinely opposed rather than routinely supported (well, I can think of one person who routinely neutralled), but in theory I suppose the opposite is possible. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:11, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Risker:@Newyorkbrad: Identifying trolls, inexperienced editors and SPA's is one thing. However, this isn't ArbCom or ANI and we aren't looking for policy violations. The presumption is that the candidates should NOT be made admins which is why change requires consensus. Discounting subjective views because "they don't bear out" is extremely presumptuous. I always, subjectively, decide on RfA candidates. They rarely have long block logs or policy violations or are problematic editors. Even the unsuccessful candidates. If we assumed that giving the bit would be a net positive, everyone would start off with the bit. Absent evidence to the contrary, a 0 edit new user should have the bit if we "assume good faith" that they are a net positive. But that's not the case. Rather we assume editors should not have the bit until they demonstrate the need and temperament for it. That's completely subjective. A one word "Oppose" should have as much validity as "Support" if we are going to assume good faith about editors that take time to participate. We had about 100 editors !vote before hearing any opposition and, save for a few, they didn't return to reflect on that (nor should they be required to). I purposely waited to oppose to see if my experience was singular and out of character. It was not. I didn't provide diffs only because it was singularly related to me and my subjective opinion. I regularly Support candidates that I think will be a net positive with the tools. I felt that promoting Cyberpower would be less controversial and easier given the numbers and comments. The reality is that regardless of whatever weighting formula you use, with this many participants on both sides of the argument, the candidate is a polarizing figure. That's really all I can conclude from the data and based on that, I don't see how promoting polarizing figures to admin helps the project. --DHeyward (talk) 23:55, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that's quite the right description; there's no reason to describe Liz herself as a polarizing figure, and even many of the opposers find her likable and pleasant. Her preferred contribution style just happens to be right on a perceptual boundary that itself generates a lot of dispute.
FWIW, although I supported Liz and considered in isolation would like to see her get the bit, I am concerned about the notion that the crats can find "consensus" here, in the face of substantive opposition about her skills in specific admin tasks, but not in the Cyberpower case, where much of the opposition was about time management and nobody was suggesting "downweighting" content-related votes. Minimally, the inconsistency in the outcome should worry anybody who is still on the fence about WP:BARC. Opabinia regalis (talk) 00:39, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Opabinia regalis: I apologize I wasn't clear enough. Her candidacy as admin is polarizing, not Liz herself. I have no reason to believe she isn't likable, quite the opposite. She's witty, bright and sarcastic. I think, from what I've seen, is that she has the type of personality traits I have and I'm the most likable person I know :). But I have no doubt an army would crawl out of the woodwork to oppose any office I ran for as well as an army of support. It's a subjective view that I opposed but mirrors a bit of what Bishonen said as well as administrators that I think Liz would be similar to in nature. Diff's would be understandable to me and persons with a similar experience but ultimately require good faith to understand and it would be inappropriate in an RfA to put the forth as "examples." This isn't ANI or ArbCom so they are not even necessarily wrongdoing, they are perceptions but forcing editors to defend perceptions as if it was an inquisition isn't fair to the candidate. --DHeyward (talk) 07:23, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Risker is hitting the target[edit]

I know I gave last-minute, lukewarm support, saying that I agreed with many of the opposing rationales, without being that specific. Hoping that this would work out OK. But now, after watching this crat chat unfold, my principles demand that I go on record. I'm in agreement with Risker here. She has accurately pointed out some of the oppose rationales which angered me. In the end, enough to push me to the support side. Please, discount or deprecate, or whatever term you want to use, those specific opposes which raise allegations that don't bear out on close examination. Then see if you're back over 80%. There will still be many reasonable oppose rationales remaining, though most are on the grounds of style and approach, e.g. a lack of sufficiently thorough analysis of an interaction, leading to criticism which wasn't softened by positive recognition of the good things that the criticized editor was doing. I supported because I'm hoping that she can step up her analysis before jumping in; its reasonable for others to be less optimistic about whether she will do that. Wbm1058 (talk) 14:26, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I hope my veritable loghorrea on this page indicates that my read of the discussion is neither solely, nor even primarily, based on the behavioural oppositions. -- Avi (talk) 14:29, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"style and approach, e.g. a lack of sufficiently thorough analysis of an interaction". I see that as a competency issue, not a stylistic one or choice of "approach". (Further, I think level of analysis is a skill or habit developed over a significant portion of a person's lifetime, not something that can be "corrected in six months then try again".) IHTS (talk)

After this closes[edit]

Regardless of the result, I'd like to try to iron out some of the meta issues that have come out during this RfA. I'd be most grateful if all those who have participated here (on whatever side of the various discussions) would bring their passion and wisdom to that conversation. When ready, I'll kick it off with a link to a nice clean page where we can discuss things in depth. I'll post the link here, at the main RfA talk page and at BN. --Dweller (talk) 15:00, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly agree. This 'crat chat and the talk page have raised a number of interesting issues, but this is clearly not the place to resolve them. I look forward to an organized discussion on those other places.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:27, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea. Count me in.- MrX 17:27, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, we will >8) -- Avi (talk) 20:57, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Discretionary range[edit]

Given the remark just posted in the 'crat chat that this is "at the higher end of the discretionary range", can somebody tell me whether this range has been changed? I thought that it was 70-80% and in that case, 74% is at the lower end of that range. This is really only a minor point (we're smack in the middle of discretionary, so I'm fine with whatever way the 'crats decide to go, just curious, is all. --Randykitty (talk) 15:21, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think its been officially 70-80 for a long time, maybe since the day RFA began, but no RFA in over a thousand has closed as unsuccessful over 75.5% so it's unofficially 70-75 or 65-75 (a few RFA's have been closed successful under 70). —Soap— 15:40, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The under 70% successes are all former admins aren't they? If so leaving aside the issue of whether it is appropriate to be softer on former admins, the discretionary range here is 70-75%. ϢereSpielChequers 17:12, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"Discretion" seems somewhat unclear. Discretion to hold a chat and assess consensus? Whatever they do, at least in theory, they do not have discretion to disregard consensus - and that's a walking on eggshell place to be when you have an evident super-majority (to perhaps disregard?). Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:38, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
To my understanding, "discretion" means that in that percentage range, a bureaucrat may or may not promote. Why the bureaucrat makes this or that choice is a function of their assessment of the consensus and is governed, de facto, by which consensus assessment philosophy is accepted at RfB - so to speak. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 22:47, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There seems to be an increasing trend for close calls at RFA to go to a crat chat rather than be closed by the first available crat, since this crat chat showed a range of methodologies that different crats are using to decide how to resolve discretionary cases it probably makes sense to continue this model and make it the default that RFAs that end in the discretionary zone go to crat chats. ϢereSpielChequers 09:26, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

More on "substantiating diffs"[edit]

I had been dreadfully afraid that my opposition vote would be interpreted as personal in nature, so I stripped anything from it that might be interpreted as such. It may not be enough to emphasize that I have never said a negative word about Liz until this RfA. Indeed I remember addressing her only once before the RfA, and it was a positive comment, long ago.

But the issue in my deleted RfA question remains: Liz was one of my harassers. While this happened over a year ago, her recent comments indicate that she still doesn't apprehend that what she did was wrong. Fortunately Bishonen linked to the relevant thread in her vote, so I didn't have to. Unfortunately there are bureaucrats saying there aren't "substantiating diffs" backing these behavior-related issues -- that's not true. Though the links are already in Bishonen's vote, I suppose this needs to be pointed out more directly. I have made a last reply to Liz here.

I am also dreadfully afraid that my experience here will be minimized or discounted. It is hard to relate what it is like watching off-wiki harassment being promoted on-wiki. Manul ~ talk 15:47, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Liz deleted my comment five minutes later.[2] Manul ~ talk 15:54, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Manul:,User:Vzaak. His talk page and User page are deleted. He was very active in that SPI. Why was his talk page deleted; Is he using some other account? Aero Slicer 17:09, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The conversation in question -- the link I gave above -- mentions that the Vzaak account was renamed to Manul. My talk page wasn't deleted, just moved without redirect as a courtesy due to off-wiki harassment. Manul ~ talk 17:34, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Canvassing has significantly tainted this RFA[edit]

Just for the bureaucrats information, there was a significant attempt at canvassing opposition from multiple locations off-wiki. I can count at least six opposes who were definitely canvassed here, and at least four more who were almost definitely canvassed. At least seven or eight more are related to "wiki-political" canvassing. I did oppose for other reasons (on day #1) before the canvassing attempt around days #4-7, but I think the bureaucrats should take into account that this RFA would most likely be above 80% if it weren't for GamerGate trolls, politics, and such showing up to oppose her. If I throw out the eighteen opposes who would almost definitely have not turned up except for canvassing, I get a percentage of 79%, which is almost to the point of a guaranteed pass. If the bureaucrats aren't going to consider the effect of canvassing, please strike my vote since I want no part of this farce. Reaper Eternal (talk) 17:03, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence? Name them? - Sitush (talk) 17:11, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There was a late influx of support. If the count needs adjustment due to canvassing, it needs downwards adjustment, in favour of opposition. See Sam Walton's data and figures further up the page. Samsara 17:14, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Late influx != canvassing. Even if we assume the trend was statistically significant and can't be explained by random fluctuation (I've not analysed it properly so can't comment), there are all kinds of oil drop effects that can make masses !vote one way or another. I think cases can be made that there was canvassing either way based on the figures, but unfortunately what would solve this issue is not data, but a link / evidence. Unfortunately, if it's off-wiki then it'll be harder to find any evidence; if it was (e.g.) canvassing via email then it could be impossible to tell what really happened. @Reaper Eternal: exactly what makes you think there was canvassing between days 4-7 and can you name any !votes you think should be thrown out? — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 17:29, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed two votes I found suspicious that both rolled in in the last few hours, but one of them was already discounted by the closing bureaucrat, and the other gave a good explanation on my talkpage for why he showed up late. However, because I only looked at the last few hours, I can't write off that there could be sixteen more, or even eighteen more, suspicious votes that arrived earlier on. Also I want to reaffirm my sentiment that a typical canvassed RFA voter is not a guy with a redlinked talkpage and an edit count of 2 ... they tend to be previously existing users who are comfortable voting on RFA's, but wouldnt have voted if they had not been prompted to do so. —Soap— 18:34, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Reaper, I think for that claim to be taken seriously, you would have to name names. Otherwise, I very much doubt that any bureaucrat will take such theories into consideration. Valenciano (talk) 17:26, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously the crats are aware of canvassing to some extent as that's why they did not extend the RfA and WJB specifically mentioned it when initiating this crat chat. Swarm ♠ 17:48, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It's possible, probable even, that one or two votes were canvassed, but Reaper's suggestion that 18 (!) of the opposes were canvassed is quite a stretch and would require evidence. Looking at the opposes, I see lots of editors I'm familiar with, many of whom participate in most RFAs, so I have my doubts that they've only appeared through canvassing, but like I say, evidence to support that would be welcome in the unlikely event it has happened. Valenciano (talk) 18:28, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I was part of the late influx of support. I was aware of the RFA but don't take part in all of them, the closer to the discretionary zone the more likely I am to participate. I may not be the only one to do this. As far as I'm aware the canvassing and off wiki mentions alleged to have taken place earlier in the RFA, before a lot of the opposes arrived. People who visit Reddit or Wikipediocracy can probably spot the dates when threads started at either of those sites. ϢereSpielChequers 18:02, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The Wikipediocracy thread linked by Andrevan started on August 1. Andrevan also mentions Reddit, presumably alluding to this from August 3. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 18:09, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The WPO thread is scarcely one-sided and it is (or was when I looked) a discussion, not canvassing. The Reddit thread at the time of closure had, IIRC, two comments (someone linked to it in the RfA itself). That thread too made no suggestion of !voting and the two comment were of opposing viewpoints. NB: there are threads about a lot of admins and RfAs at WPO - has it been an issue in previous RfAs? - Sitush (talk) 18:15, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There were other threads on Reddit/8chan. One here has 26 comments. Although there doesn't have to be a ton of comments for people who read the threads to react to them. Many readers see a thread, don't comment, but take action. That should be obvious. And you can bet the readers of those Reddit pages aren't inclined to support a supposed 'SJW' female. Someone implying that the many last day supporters were 'canvassed' should put up a link to a site were that would even be possible. I found the RfA through looking at the contribs of a supporter I just suggested be topic banned for bringing a slew of GG related articles to AfD. I almost never vote in RfAs, but saw that Liz was being falsely accused of some things and off-site canvassing by GG trolls. Trying to equate regular editors who are active in a variety of topics to those being canvassed by Reddit/8chan should be smacked down right now. Dave Dial (talk) 18:46, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The reddit thread you mentioned has 2 comments, not 26. The reddit thread with 26 comments is this one, and please note that it was started five hours after voting closed (hover your cursor over the "1 day" text to see the submission time). Manul ~ talk 19:16, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Although I'm a supporter of the RfA, I don't think much weight should be given to the thread on Wikipediocracy. It was full of bizarre and off-topic digressions (to the point that the moderators there had to try to refactor the discussion more than once) and I can't imagine that it affected anyone's opinion as to the RfA one way or the other. (I can't speak knowledgeably about Reddit.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:04, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As the person who pointed out the reddit canvassing, I feel it important to note that the wikiinaction thread was hidden from the subreddit main page as soon as I pointed it out, meaning it was only up properly for around 2 hours. The only person I strongly suspect was canvassed from that thread was the person I posted the link in response to. Brustopher (talk) 19:09, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Samsara[edit]

@Avraham: Why is Samsara's comment in the crat discussion permitted to remain? For the record, I don't believe I know Samsara or their position in any of this as I haven't been paying much attention.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:09, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. It's highly inappropriate, especially given the rather emotional tone of their comment.- MrX 18:25, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
He seems to've known what he was doing, as he used "IAR" in the summary, and one crat has already replied. —Soap— 18:28, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It's been removed by another crat.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:08, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I was not by my computer for the past hour and a half; it was taken care of so no harm done. -- Avi (talk) 19:39, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Who the opposers actually are[edit]

I did not !vote in this discussion, and I'm still not sure where I stand with regard to adminship for Liz. But I am dismayed at the many comments here attempting to dismiss or downgrade the "oppose" !votes. I see lots of complaints about the opposers "not providing diffs," or not being more specific in their complaints, or applying criteria that are not supported by policy or consensus. I haven't seen any acknowledgment that nearly a third of the opposers - by my count, 21 out of 72 - are admins, including some of the most respected and influential admins on Wikipedia. (And at least three of them are female, which should put the "gender discrimination" issue to rest.) I can't ever recall seeing so many admins, or so many highly respected people, in opposition in a contentious RfA. For the most part they gave detailed, carefully explained reasons for their opposition. In some cases it was their reputation, as well as their argument, that convinced others to oppose; that should indicate that the community gives a lot of weight to their opinions. Several of them made it clear that they were trying not to be too harsh, or wanted to temper their criticism with kindness; is that restraint now being held against them, with the demands that they should have provided more evidence?

Admins are just editors like other people, and their opinions are their own. Their !votes don't count any more than anyone else's. But their !votes should be respected. They are editors with experience, knowledge of policy, and an understanding of what it takes to be an admin. Some of the admins who !voted in opposition are widely known for their good judgment and moderation. I think a little more recognition needs to be given here to the caliber of the people in opposition. --MelanieN (talk) 18:10, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

tongue in cheek here, but if admins !votes count more than editors, there are by quick count 71 !votes to support. Personally I don't think the "admins oppose her" argument is an avenue worth pursuing. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 22:35, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
MelanieN, one of the most difficult parts of weighing the strength of the support/opposition to judge consensus is that most of the contributors to RfAs are established and respected users. I promise we do not take our jobs lightly in this regard. But I most certainly cannot accept the suggestion that comments from admins should be given greater weight (or deserve more respect) that those of non-admins. That is not what adminship is about and suggestions to the contrary fuels the suggestion (which IMO is incorrect) that admins regard one another as somehow more worthy than those who choose to contribute without the extra buttons. WJBscribe (talk) 18:42, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This. I am dismayed at that remark coming from an administrator. I agree that there are valid reasons to oppose this candidacy but strongly disagree that "the caliber of the people in opposition" is or should be remotely considered to be among them. The opinion of a good faith editor with 750 edits to their name has and and should have no less inherent weight than the opinion of a prominent and widely-respected administrator. Editors should be treated the same regardless of their status, and weight should be assigned or modified only based on the available evidence to support the claims being made. The fact that admins are amongst the opposition is utterly irrelevant and to even suggest that this in itself somehow counteracts the complaints being raised against the opposers is frankly stunning. WP:NVC and WP:NOBIGDEAL are both longstanding and widely-accepted principles, and for an admin to suggest otherwise worries me. Swarm ♠ 18:46, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
In the same regard no one is mentioning anything about support votes not providing diffs or being more emotional than factual in nature. Mrfrobinson (talk) 18:50, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's nothing more than a straw man argument. Supporters are not and never have been required to provide factual evidence to support their opinion of a candidate. Opposers are not either. That is not the issue at hand at all. If one's trying to deduce the amount of weight that should be given to hotly contested claims, the way of going about that is to see what evidence supports those claims. Obviously if a minority viewpoint is going to override the majority opinion, that viewpoint should be credible. Swarm ♠ 19:01, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
How do you reconcile "their !votes don't count any more than anyone else's" with "a little more recognition needs to be given here to the caliber of the people in opposition"? What exactly is your point? Alakzi (talk) 19:12, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That opposers are being unfairly "downgraded". Samsara 19:14, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) I take MelanieN's point as being that while we may disagree about the RfA or about the result of the RfA, the opposers (as well as the supporters) included experienced Wikipedians of long standing who have themselves been selected as worthy of the community's trust and whose analyses therefore comes with some rebuttablepresumption of sensibility. This observation doesn't change my own overall analysis of the RfA, but it's not an unfair point. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:17, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
But that's the point, isn't it? If you check the support column, you will find many respected and experienced Wikipedians as well. Melanie's comment strikes me as problematic not because admins are often - but not always(!) - well respected editors whose opinions others trust to be in good judgment but because that does not mean that all their opinions are thus more valid. A track record of good judgment means that one can assume that future comments are of the same quality but it doesn't mean their comments shouldn't be scrutinized as much as those by non-admins. Personally, I expect an experienced editor in good standing (admin or other) to be more specific when they oppose someone. Not only is it better for the discussion, it also benefits the nominee, who cannot improve on (perceived) problems when they are not given examples of such problems.
As for people being swayed by another commenter's reputation: !votes that consist of "what XXX said" are fine because they just mean "XXX already said what I think" while !votes like "per XXX, I trust their judgment" should imho be discounted because the !voting user basically admits that they didn't actually make a choice themselves. If an RfA had a dozen opposes that just said "per oppose #1, I trust their judgment", then that RfA has basically one oppose only.
PS: I feel I must stress this point because I fear someone will misunderstand me: Opposes that just point to someone else's argument are fine. There is no point to repeat something someone else said better already. But you need to show that you actually considered what was said and not just blindly agreed because of who did the commenting - be it an admin or someone else you trust. Regards SoWhy 19:43, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
To me, that sounds like a completely new idea that doesn't have any precedent. It's been alleged that someone writing "oppose per X" or (I suppose, no?) someone writing "support per X" should be discounted because they haven't pretended (let's be honest here) to have actually looked at the data. I have frequently agreed or disagreed "per X" in discussions, and I don't do so lightly or without looking at the evidence. So from personal experience, this idea has no standing. Samsara 19:49, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I had hoped to prevent exactly this kind of response with my "PS". Unfortunately, you seem to have misunderstood what I actually said, so I will repeat myself: !votes that are "per X" are completely fine because they mean "per what X said". What I did say (and mean) is that !votes that were solely cast because you trust X and not because you actually read what X said, should be discounted. Because blindly trusting someone's judgment - be they an admin or someone else - is not a useful contribution to the discussion itself. Regards SoWhy 20:07, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I considered responding to that, but I think this is the wrong venue for such a general discussion. Care to move it somewhere else - WT:RFA maybe? Samsara 20:37, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think you are parsing too closely. In so few words it can be difficult to ascertain exactly what is meant, and what is meant might not be true anyway. The same phasing can be used by those struck by what another has said, and by those too lazy to see what another has said. There is no way of knowing. Similarly, there is no way of distinguishing, on a !vote of "Support, no problems" between those who diligently check a candidate's record, and those who diligently check the email list they're a part of. Despite the airy assurances in a section above that "no problems" need not have diffs, it strikes me that if opposes should have diffs, so should supports, perhaps of diffs touching on what caused the supporter to be enthusiastic about the candidate. My view, however, is that neither should be required to. After all, we AGF, bureaucrats have read thousands of !votes, and if someone wants to risk looking like a fool by not checking out the candidate's record, well, it's their reputation they're gambling with.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:24, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) @Alakzi:, there are at least two mailing lists filled with people who might be canvassed to support. It didn't happen on one of them (there was just a vague, generalised query); the other one is private. As I said somewhere during the !voting period, we'll never know who has been canvassed, if anyone, and for which viewpoint. Unless Reaper has some firm evidence - submitted perhaps to the Crat's email address - I think this should be dropped. - Sitush (talk) 19:19, 5 August 2015 (UTC) Strike -wrong section and wrong person, sorry. - Sitush (talk) 19:20, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I am discouraged that hurdles to "Opposes" are being thrown up. Either the opinions of established editors are respected or they are not. We don't presuppose that someone is qualified for adminship or we wouldn't have RfA. We'd simply give everyone adminship and take it away after abuse. This whole notion that editors cannot decide for themselves what criteria they use for who is suitable for having the tools is simply away to engineer their preference against established norms. We can make up all sorts of rules (how about any day 1 support vote without a diff is discounted unless they addressed the "Oppose" concerns? A number of editors did just that when the reiterated their support, but most didn't. Are they less informed after all the oppose arguments came out and therefore we can discount them?) I don't think this is the intention of consensus nor is it respectful of the standard that only experienced editors comment. We already discount SPA's and IP's. If someone wants to support on day 1 without hearing a single dissenting voice, that's their opinion on the candidate and they are just as valid as anyone elses. Even a vitriolic oppose without a diff isn't discountable. If Corbett had said "per Bishonen" instead of what he said, are you really claiming it's more credible? Seriously there is no reason why milder comments are worth more than harsher comments in the oppose section just as we don't discount "Support" votes that acknoweledges areas for improvement. Looking for ways to second guess editors that have experience with WP is quite lame. tl;dr version: 'An extraordinarily large number of editors came out in support. And equally impressive numbers came out to oppose. About the only conclusion with consensus is that this is a divisive nomination. Are 'crats seriously thinking that discounting !votes removes divisiveness and justifies promoting?' --DHeyward (talk) 20:53, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

MelanieN you must know who nominated the candidate? As I assume your point is not that 'the supports are all near-do-wells', than it does not appear you really have much of a point - give them all weight and cross them out - one for one- what do you have, left -- all support. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:38, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't read Melanie's comment as having the implied elitism people seem to be seeing in it. It's just an observation that people who are familiar with a job probably have a useful and informed perspective on what kinds of behaviors are likely to be real issues, and "downweighting" that overall perspective for lack of diffs seems inappropriate. For whatever reason the dominant metaphor in crat discussions is "weight" - as if all comments can meaningfully be compared to one another in common units - but asking that opposing be read in the context of their authors' experience is not unreasonable.
Alanscottwalker, your notion of 'crossing out one for one' doesn't really make sense given the concept of a ~75% support threshold. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:45, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There is no 75% threshold. And you're not even responding to my point -- the Supports are what you and perhaps Melanie appear to be discounting by greatly weighting the opposes. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:13, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The concern raised by Melanie isn't about greatly overweighting the opposes. It's incongruous, however, to on the one hand say "Opposes that are subjective are perfectly fine." and at the same time effectively say "Opposes that are subjective but sound mean or over the top need special diffs to be counted." It's not as if the "mean or over the top" are weighted more by the 'crats anyway so it's simply another subjective opinion. This is also not ArbCom or ANI so we are not looking for policy violations. It's a simple, yet personal question: Should this editor be provided the tools? The presumption is "No, they should not." until there is a consensus that they should. It's absolutely correct that Support !votes, even without comment, are acceptable. It should be just as acceptable for "Oppose" votes. The only reason to discount oppose votes is going to be experience and/or canvassing. There is simply no reason to believe that any of the 70 or so !votes are less worthy than any of the Support !votes and consensus is determined from that. It's pretty offensive for a crat to decide a persons view of adminship is less worthy than another view based on their own subjective experience. No one is asking for "special status" of admins in the oppose section, rather it is respecting the oppose votes as much as the support votes. --DHeyward (talk) 22:32, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Alanscottwalker: Yes, the nominators are also highly respected admins, as were many of the "support" !voters. My point here (which seems to have been lost) is that the opposers were worthy of respect, and did not deserve the dismissive comments made here. Samples: "a lot of the opposition seems to be based more off personal animus than a broader evaluation of competency"; "Waiting to see if Bureaucrats are going to allow a known cabal and an off-site harassment group derail a RfA that should have passed with no problems"; "most of the 'oppose' !votes occurred because Liz made statements indicating that content creators should not be given carte blanche exemptions from most rules"; "Some examples of the sort of argument that I'd give more weight to if there were diffs attached are below. Without the diffs, they appear much closer to mud slinging." BTW at least three people have commented here that they "did not include links in my oppose precisely so as not to appear to be attacking her"; now the lack of diffs is being used to negate their votes, a brand-new standard as far as my experience goes.
I don't know what you mean by "give them all weight and cross them out one for one" - that's just wrong on multiple levels. (Or maybe you were joking? It's so hard to tell online.) First of all, RfA is not a !vote count, it's a discussion. And second, RfA is not a simple majority for approval; the usual standard is that over 80% support is clear consensus to give them the mop, under 70% is a failure of consensus, and the 70-80% range is a judgment call by the 'crats. --MelanieN (talk) 22:46, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict × ∞) [in response to Alanscottwalker] The threshold is not 50% (WP:RFA#About RfA and its process says it is ~70-80%), therefore the idea of crossing out one support and one oppose at a time is incredibly flawed, even if we were conducting a straw poll. The idea of taking weight into account is closer to consensus, but the binary concept of "well qualified supports" vs "weak supports" (which you expressed above) is still not very good. I think there are a couple of ways to apply enough caveats to your idea to make it a viable way to judge an outcome, and if I was weighing consensus I would choose either of the following: (a) assign numerical values to the weight of each !vote (taking into account the heavier weight given to each oppose given the required supermajority for promotion, and things like whether a comment had a rationale, whether someone wrote "strong support" or "weak support" and how serious an issue raised was [e.g. sockpuppeting is worse than a diff of someone swearing] etc.), sum them and see if the result is high enough to justify promotion, or low enough to result in "no consensus", or (b) list the arguments used to support and oppose and (based on the number of people agreeing with / taking issue with an argument, how serious an issue was etc.) assign values to each of those, followed by summation to see what the result should be. However, I imagine most people other than me wouldn't find such a numerical approach useful, and both approaches can just be broadly described as "judging consensus". Neither result in the "all support" conclusion you seem to be drawing, which I think is an absurd notion. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 22:51, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well, as for the "flawed idea", it was not put forward as a proposal but as a thought experiment. No one said it was a vote and no one said anything about 50 %, which would be irrelevant given the facts of this case. Nor, is it a matter of bringing it to 100%, as we all know that's not, in the least, required. It is, however, a process that uniquely, explicitly stresses percentages, and its result is binary (grant/not grant). To extend the thought experiment, bring it down to small numbers, assume you have 15 good faith, qualified, committed, who argue trust/grant, and you have 5 good faith, qualified, committed argue, don't trust/don't grant. In the end, the trust/grant is compelling to 75% - and the disregard is to the 75%, if one -- as entirely neutral -- refuses to defer to them, with respect to trust/grant. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:15, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Moved from main page[edit]

For crying out loud guys, please follow the discussion and look at the actual data. Samsara 17:45, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your contribution, Samsara. I realise you made it on the main page because you felt very strongly about it, but there are a lot of people who feel strongly about matters being raised in this discussion, and it's hard to allow one person to jump in without allowing everyone to do so. I promise we read what is said on the talkpage, and I have drawn particular attention to the statistical analysis above just in case anyone has missed it. WJBscribe (talk) 18:38, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

felt very strongly about it - Indeed this was not the reason. It was clear from Andrevan's comment that he was not reading this talk page. For about two days now, there has been a growing myth regarding canvassing, and seeing Andrevan feed that myth in spite of clear evidence to the contrary being available on the talk page for well over 12 hours now strongly suggested that nothing other than a direct response would be suited to drawing attention to this fact. I remain unsure whether Andrevan will take any of this into account as the comment has now been moved again, including Avraham's taking the actual facts on the record. has been restored Samsara 19:00, 5 August 2015 (UTC) As Soap correctly deduced, I deliberately invoked WP:IAR on this occasion. It would be good if Andrevan could confirm that he has taken note of the data collected by Sam Walton, and how he interprets this vis a vis his earlier hypothesis that canvassing had shored up the opposition. Since the assertion that canvassing had increased the number of opposes is now part of the crat chat, I suggest the re-analysis of that hypothesis should also form part of that document. Samsara 18:56, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Are you trying to imply that 'Supporters' were canvassed? Give a link for that accusation, or it doesn't mean anything. There are known off-site canvassing that would 'oppose', but none that I know of would 'support'. And editors should remember, even if there were more supporters in the end than opposes, it only takes a handful of 'oppose' votes to skew the percentages. Even if the supporters were doubled and it was 20 support and 10 oppose, with 70% of opposers being canvassed, that 66% brings the support level down. I'm sure the 'crats must realize that the above accusations are false reasoning and just pure BS. Using IAR to post to the crat chat with this should be condemned. Dave Dial (talk) 19:14, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The data do not support the hypothesis that there was a late influx of opposers due to canvassing. Regards, Samsara 19:20, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Come on DD2K. The person who pointed out the canvassing is a reader. The difference isn't that the offsite people reading it, it's that the editors here that are eligible to participate that read it aren't likely to agree with it. I saw some last day voters that would be readers but I can't say they were canvassed to be here. Even some that were struck as SPA's likely didn't read the offsite stuff and simply followed other editors of their interest. It's more likely they are simply following each other around and it doesn't take much. How many participated in the their first RfA with this case? It would be interesting question given how many have participated but I don't think any type of canvassing is significant or even determinant. --DHeyward (talk) 22:43, 5 August 2015 (UTC) --DHeyward (talk) 22:44, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@DHeyward:, your 'ping' didn't work. I see you pinged my sig, but then corrected and re-signed. That's supposed to work, but didn't. In any case, as to the substance of your disagreement with me. What you say may well be true, but even if 2 out of 3 of the people who saw the posts(on a very anti-woman sub Reddit) were incline to support Liz, that would still bring the level of support down. Since the RfA was sailing through at over 84% when the first off-site mention was made, two-thirds = 66%, which brings the support % down. Perhaps to 74%? That's really my point, each person that saw the Canvassing would take 5 supporters to equal out their oppose vote. That's something that should be taken into consideration. Dave Dial (talk) 23:34, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Post RFA Activity[edit]

I have to point out that I am extremely disappointed with Liz's post RFA activity. While the critchat is ongoing she shouldn't be addressing issues or comments regarding her RFA. Take this [[3]] for example. Mrfrobinson (talk) 18:57, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't at all see why that is the case. Without getting into the specifics of the discussion on that page, it is doubtful that any of the bureaucrats would have seen that page or given the comments there any attention had you not just called attention to them. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:00, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
True, I've only seen the thread because of Mrfrobinson's post here. I don't see the post as problematic and anyway it's not going to impact on our assessment of the consensus of a discussion that is already closed. WJBscribe (talk) 19:04, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
What? Why should she not discuss her RfA? Sam Walton (talk) 19:02, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's logic I just can't argue with... Swarm ♠ 19:06, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This is clearly a hard time to be Liz and judging her post RFA activity is bad enough; posting a message condemning it here, with no explanation of its relevance to the cratchat and the bold unsubstantiated statement "While the critchat is ongoing she shouldn't be addressing issues or comments regarding her RFA" is unfair. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 20:57, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Addressing comments isn't a problem. Heck, I think it would be perfectly acceptable to send out "thank you's" to her supporters, regardless of outcome. I do think the concerns expressed on that page are valid, just not relevant to this discussion. --DHeyward (talk) 22:57, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yep. Nonsense remark. RfAs are stressful, and this one more than many others I've seen: Liz is perfectly in her right to address it in whatever way she deems fit. Drmies (talk) 23:26, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment[edit]

I don't know why some editors think I shouldn't mention my RfA as it affected me more than anyone else. I have just let this talk page be though I hope you all realize how odd it is to be a reserved, introvert and have people have such strong opinions about me and the positive or detrimental effect I might have on the project.

It's surreal that in less than 34 hours, there have been 434 edits to this page! I see myself as just an editor, not a divisive figure. I have no halo and nor pointed pitchfork and I think it doesn't help the crats decide this by exaggerating my personal qualities (pro or con) or my impact upon Wikipedia. Whether I pass or not, I will not run amok. I haven't in the past and I won't in the future. Liz Read! Talk! 20:18, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Avoiding second generation gender bias in future RFAs[edit]

Research shows that systemic gender bias is common when evaluating women in jobs, particularly in jobs mostly filled by men. In particular, Women are more likely to be judged more harshly and counseled about their style of communication.

The large number of !votes that are based on Liz's manner of communicating rather than her lack of knowledge of policy causes me concern since that is one of the main types of systemic gender bias found in job evaluations of women. (Both men and women evaluating women do it.)

This leads me to think that the criteria for promotion needs to be less subjective and instead based on meeting a series of set objectives that the community signs off on. Until we develop some type of neutral criteria, I urge everyone to become more educated about second generation gender bias, and the way that it can hurt Wikipedia's ability to attract, retain, and promote women in our community.

Make it a point to challenge "The Likeability Penalty" and speak up when women are seen as doing something too aggressive that men commonly do.

To that end, I go on the record to say that Liz's choice of when and where to comment, and her choice of wording are being overly scrutinized. I'm proud of her for posting on announcement boards and working as a ArbCom clerk. We need more women working in these areas, and I appreciate you for going against community norms and taking on these tasks. Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥ 22:23, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

But how can you say that when the opposers have provided such strong evidence to back themselves up? Oh, wait. Swarm ♠ 23:00, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) I think that discussion of this is better suited elsewhere, but I will make a response here and try to keep it brief. As the community has never considered implementing any positive discrimination in positions like adminship (to my knowledge), treatment of anyone differently based on any demographic is wrong. If a woman cannot communicate well, she is not suited to be an administrator; the same goes with anyone who is autistic and cannot communicate effectively, or for any member of any other demographic, including neurotypical males. My point is: when mediating content disputes, or when conversing to a newbie or performing any number of admin tasks that require conversation with other editors, administrators should be able to communicate well and "I'm a woman" is not a valid reason to give someone this position of authority if the candidate will make matters worse in discussions, or cannot live up to the expectations of a sysop.
Having said that, I !voted in support of Liz, without taking her gender into account, and I think she communicates just fine. My above remark is not intended to be sexist or offensive towards anyone and I hope no-one interprets it as such. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 23:03, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If the research doesn't apply to you, it doesn't apply to you. It's more talking about how generally women with the same communication skills as men are perceived was having worse communication skills- that is, despite being equal (or in some cases better) at certain things, they are perceived as being worse due to an unconscious bias. PeterTheFourth (talk) 23:14, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict × far too many) But my issue is that I don't think one can say someone is equal in communication skills if other people judge them to be worse. I can't think of any objective standard for how well one communicates, so the only way to define it is by what people think. Unless you're saying that confirmation bias (or other subconscious psychological effects) is somehow more of an issue when judging women's communication skills, I don't think it matters. If people think someone is bad at communicating, they are bad at communicating – whether this is their own fault, or contributed to by the fact that they fall under a specific demographic, is irrelevant. It's not fair if women have a harder job of communicating well then men, but that fact is hardly going to help a female admin who makes a comment that is interpreted badly in a contentious situation. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 23:37, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Bilorv: the concern isn't with ability to communicate. The concern is that a style of communication used by men is not an acceptable style for women to engage in. An example would be swearing or cursing. Or drinking and smoking cigars. Or yelling. Behaviors and mannerisms that invoke discomfort only because the person invoking them is a specific gender is a form of bias. I waited to !vote to see if my observation was singular but I found a number of editors with the same specific experiences of behaviors and it was not gender related (at least the commenters were not all the same gender) and don't appear to be part of any systemic bias. We must be careful that we don't apply systemic observations to individual actions and on RfA is not an indicator of a pattern. It's an invalid construct. As for objective standards regarding policy vs. discounting mannerism of communication, I have three scary words for that day: "Eric Corbett's RfA". The sesysop ArbCom case might be the same day. There will always be a standard for mannerism of communication for admins and hopefully we will outgrow the gender bias trump card with enough participation that it will be ludicrous to bring it up. --DHeyward (talk) 23:25, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(when will these edit conflicts end?) That sounds like a different point to the one the OP was trying to make. But I thank you for the explanation and I will consider things more thoroughly later, not that it makes any difference to the subject of Liz's RfA. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 23:37, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) This is just more ideological stuff from a habituée of the WMF-hosted, heavily moderated gender gap mailing list, which has been described as an "echo chamber" by someone who was once involved with it. FloNight, you are entitled to your opinion but Bilorv is right in their analysis. Alanscottwalker also nails it in a comment above to Greg, where they refer to this not being the place to fight "ideological" battles, which is what this gender issue has become of late and is in part why various people (including me) have been sanctioned. MelanieN is spot on with her comments also. - Sitush (talk) 23:30, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
To emphasise the point, my bet is most people reading this page do not even know what "second generation gender bias" is. That may be a problem, sure, but if you can't even communicate the buzzwords then you have no chance, and that is nothing to do with sexism etc. - Sitush (talk) 23:34, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have time to write the piles and piles and piles of words that could be written on this topic, and think it's probably better to save the broader discussion for after the present matter is concluded and the candidate has some closure. And it is, for various reasons, almost impossible to get the point across here that observing a systemic pattern is not the same as accusing any individual participant of being personally sexist. But I wanted to make one quick comment on the idea that this problem can be solved, or at least mitigated, by the development of "neutral", "objective" criteria. It's a recurring problem that supposedly objective criteria get presented as a way to avoid subconscious bias in decision-making, but judgments about what criteria to use and how to apply them are themselves subject to the same biases. Any criteria the community developed would still be criteria that emerged from a community of mostly men, in a social environment with years' worth of tradition and norms established by mostly men, about the reality that most of the people an admin must communicate with will be men. Development of supposedly objective criteria for RfA candidacy is a perennial proposal that isn't going to become a viable option by adding another dimension of controversy to it, and I think any future conversation about this would attract more thoughtful discussion if the objective-criteria concept were dropped early on. Opabinia regalis (talk) 23:39, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Given that most candidates are treated harshly and over-scrutinized in every way at RfA, I'm not sure this particular case is one of bias. But if someone wants to go through the last 100 or so failures and finds there is an actual pattern of differing treatment, then there might be something to start working on. At the moment it seems like everyone is treated the same, ie poorly. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 23:53, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
How come female admins have been at times unanimously promoted, if there indeed are systematic bias? If gender bias accusations are thrown around this easily, be careful it won't be like for the boy who cried wolf. The consideration of actual bias deserves better. --Pudeo' 00:38, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is entirely possible that I was underscrutinized and treated too kindly in my RfA because I was one of the boys. Possible--sure. But it's all too easy to start with the premise that "women get a rougher ride at RfA" and then find the evidence for it, evidence which must have been carefully cloaked. We could pick out some old RfAs. GorillaWarfare had a rough ride, percentage-wise speaking, with "too many automated edits" and "not enough content" popping up in many comments. Writ Keeper had it easy, I admit, as did MBisanz, ScottyWong, Materialscientiest--but so did Risker. We could do an analysis of percentages for and against and divide them by gender, inasmuch as we know it, but if we were to conclude that women candidates have it harder just because they are women, we'd better have good evidence that that is indeed the reason. And we could look at the unsuccessful ones--EuroCarGT (whom I believe to be of the male persuasion) had it hard, as did Rich Farmbrough, and Cyberpower678, and GamerPro64, and Armbrust, and Makitevarata, and AlanM1. (My apologies if any of you aren't male.) I think any analysis will show, obviously, that there are not enough women editors, and that our coverage seriously suffers as a result--but to use that to invalidate the opposes here, or at least suggest that sexism is somehow a factor, I see no evidence for that at all. Now, if some diehard GamerGater, topice-banned and thus certifiably POVed, were to oppose, maybe, but I doubt that you'll find many of them among the opposers. Drmies (talk) 00:45, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Availability heuristic definitely affects our perception of events Drmies. However, let us not underestimate the empathy gap that exists on Wikipedia when it comes to these matters either. GG is tinting our perception, but when we are to give power to punish, do we really wish to psychologically create our mothers? Thereandnot (talk) 01:31, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No idea on that one! I just want people here to start being kinder and more polite to each other. The hazing process going on here isn't acceptable. This is just a website, but the way verbal abuse gets dished out you would think we were trying to toughen up green recruits to hit the beach at D-Day. I think you probably do get a secondary discrimination effect because more women drop out with hazing-- and I'm waiting for the some of the more data driven individuals here to start doing "A-B experiments on Hazing/No hazing -- can I get tenure by scientifically proving that hazing does or does not creates gender disparities?"
It is my hope that by pointing out a few of the extra ways that exist to be mean to women we can also start making some progress on not being mean to men, and also not be mean to people who decline to state or choose "other" if asked. --Djembayz (talk) 02:06, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • At Drmies: Gender should have NEVER have been brought into this; and in fact it should never be brought into ANY RfX discussion. (my reading is that is in agreement with your own thoughts) — Ched :  ?  03:06, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

64% of the !voting 'crats is consensus?[edit]

With Xeno chiming in, we now have .6363% of the !voting 'crats in favor of promotion, or over 10% less than the community !vote! Yet,I see a 'crat on the chat page is now claiming consensus. To be blunt, that's weak. Jusdafax 01:09, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It is now official. Jusdafax 01:13, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Crat interpretation of RfA consensus, like any other interpretation of consensus, is not necessarily held to the same exact arbitrary statistical benchmark that an RfA itself is. The "discretionary zone" does not automatically translate in a literal sense to a cratchat that discusses an RfA in a discretionary zone. To suggest that it does is misleading. Crats are the most trusted consensus-readers in the community. To dispute their reading of a meta cratchat that's in a majority favor of promotion is in itself weak. And to be clear, I respect your opinion more than nearly any other editor here. Swarm ♠ 01:19, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Respectfully suggest you let it go, Jusdafax. The whole process was a mess, but it's over, and the sun did not explode, so our lives shall go on. Townlake (talk) 01:23, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Jusdafax: Consensus is not a numeric vote, it is a general agreement amongst participants. Reaching an agreement among 12 people is very different than reaching an agreement amongst 280, and it should not be compared. For example, I personally may not have thought the participants showed consensus, but I can understand why others did (note the long discussions on the cratchat page) and I recognize that there is general agreement among the 'crats that there was general agreement amongst those participating in Liz's discussion. We have always shied away from, bright lines and rote arithmetic, realizing that we are dealing with people and opinions which do not always lend themselves to sterile quantization. Also, a minor point is that mathematically, with 11 people participating, each one is a lot more of a "percentage" than with 280. -- Avi (talk) 01:31, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • We're probably all doomed. There's some room in my bunker, but bring snacks. – Juliancolton | Talk 01:42, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Let the triumphalist grave dancing begin. Yet, some of us have valid concerns and snarks are not helping matters, JC. Jusdafax 01:49, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by "triumphalist grave dancing". -- Avi (talk) 01:55, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • Comment was directed to Julian, Avi. Though you and I disagree, I extend my best wishes. Jusdafax 02:06, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thank you, and likewise . -- Avi (talk) 02:08, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • (ec) Well, I didn't vote in the RfA and had scarcely heard of Liz before yesterday (apparently I've been out of the loop too long!), so I'm mostly indifferent to the outcome of the cratchat. I think my point is that what's done is done, and I doubt our newest administrator is going to cause much trouble—they seldom do. That might well be a gross oversimplification of the issue, and if so, just take my snark for what it's worth. :) – Juliancolton | Talk 01:57, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • Fair enough, Julian. My best to you. Jusdafax 02:13, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        • It was a very close call between no consensus and promote and I have to applaud the crats for making the tougher call. It would have been easier just to close as no consensus and rerun in six months. Also, spare a thought for the human element of this. Liz has volunteered to give up her time for the thankless task of dealing with Wikipedia's more troublesome editors and, as a result, has spent the last 10 days like a bug under a high powered microscope with every edit and comment of hers scrutinised, yet has generally conducted herself in a dignified way. I'm sure she'll take on board the concerns of those of us who opposed and, in the meantime, we have one more admin, which is almost always a bonus. Valenciano (talk) 13:03, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
          • I wouldn't describe promotion as the tougher call. Liz is now virtually unassailable unless the desysop rules change, and there is scant evidence that she has been learning (other than a scrambled attempt at a DYK) or even been dignified. For example, the public revelation of apparently cherry-picked excerpts from an email sent to her by Kudpung is not the sort of behaviour I want to see in an admin. I will live in hope but not expectation, sorry. - Sitush (talk) 13:22, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I want to say thank you to all of the Crats for doing a difficult job. As I said in reply to Abcedare on my talk page, I'm not even sure if my own support was correct. As for what Sitush just said, Jusdafax will well remember the work that Jusdafax and I did long ago, to try to make those desysop rules better – and I hope that the more recent effort by Kudpung and WormThatTurned (look at all the degrees of separation I was able to fit into this comment!!!) will be fruitful in that regard. In any case, I strongly agree with Townlake that the sun did not explode. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:40, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't about "enemies"[edit]

@Andrevan: Re: While clearly Liz has made a few enemies and been part of "drama," &ndash This seems to lump the opposers into a pile of "enemies", but such a view does not reflect reality. I for one had no memorable direct experience with the candidate, of any kind, and opposed based on editing history and patterns, after more than one visit to the candidacy, and several hours of consideration and reading. I'm among the editors who would have happily support the candidate again in 6-12 months if these patterns notably shifted in a positive way. I guess we cannot expect such a shift now (not in any bad-faith-assumptive way, it's just that if someone who has focused almost entirely on noticeboard disputes has been passed over objections about this, their expressed intent to focus as an admin on noticeboard disputes will surely be a self-fulfilling prophecy. I do trust that the concerns raised by the opposers will be taken to heart and that judgement in such situations will be adjusted).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:22, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you assume that comment applies to everyone who opposed? How exactly does it seem to you to lump all the opposition into one pile? It seems like you have added those words to the idea yourself. Chillum 04:26, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


RfX discussions[edit]

As promised at the end of Liz's RfA, I've started a page for community discussion of RfX. Please read the really short, simple rules carefully. Thanks. Wikipedia:Reflections on RfX. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dweller (talk • contribs) 05:43, 7 August 2015‎ (UTC)[reply]

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