Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Rich Farmbrough 2/Bureaucrat discussion

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.

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Thanks and something that might be worth considering

Thanks for opening this discussion, Maxim. One thing that might be worth considering (everything else can be taken from the comments) is that the RfA started with percentages around 50% but has over its course steadily increased in the support ratio with a minor plateau yesterday. (Disclaimer: I did opine "Neutral, leaning support" in the RfA) Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 13:18, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I wonder if that's anything to do with some editors watchlisting the RfA before it was created to be sure that they notice it and have a chance to opine. When Arbcom cases and clarifications and appeals are involved, it's bound to be divisive in a subsequent RfA, and the earlier !votes might reflect that. As the RfA progresses, you get more editors involved that were not involved at the time of the Arbcom drama(s). (Just to clarify: I'm not casting aspersions on anyone's motives here; we're all free to oppose or support as we please, and I see nothing wrong with lining up to oppose. :p That said, such a situation could well explain the trend seen in this RfA and many other controversial RfAs before it.) Maxim_(talk) 13:33, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) (Disclosure: I !voted support) Another perhaps related point is that several people have argued that the well was poisoned by Silktork's comment which was later moved to the talk page. This may have caused a larger number of opposes at the beginning, although this could be used as an argument either for or against promotion. Perhaps late supporters were blissfully unaware of the issues with the nomination and were misled by it; perhaps early opposers were overreacting to one person's opinion because it was placed so prominently on the page, just responding to authority or !voting before anyone had time to argue with and contest Silktork's claims. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 13:35, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Bilorv. I was all over the place on this one—neutral leaning oppose at first, influenced largely by the comment referred to above. After a lot of thought, though, I ended up supporting. Perhaps a factor in promotion should be which way the RfA is going; in this one, I think more voters moved from neutral to support than to oppose. Anyway, thanks for making a tough call whichever way it goes. All the best, Miniapolis 13:43, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

(ec) Noting my iterated position about the well being poisoned by an editor asserting that his knowledge from being an Arb in the past gave him special knowledge which could not be specified about the case, and insisting on his extended comments being on the main page of the RfA, and asserting

"Essentially, there is evidence that Rich Farmbrough was a problematic user for years before the ArbCom case, and continued to push the boundaries of acceptable behaviour after the case. I assume the nominator was unaware of the history of Rich Farmbrough and the full details of the case, otherwise they would not have proceeded with a nomination and a misleading statement that could potentially harm their reputation in future RfA nominations."

Where any process is thus tainted, it is reasonable for those closing it to note that fact. See WP:False consensus for some of the ArbCom dicta from the past thereon. The former Arb iterated his "special knowledge" at [1], [2], [3] and so on, and should have known that deliberately poisoning a well is improper.

Note especially the ArbCom dictum: It is not a place to hold grudges, import personal conflicts, or nurture hatred or fear. Making personal battles out of Wikipedia discussions goes directly against our policies and goals. In particular, making list of "opponents" or coordinating actions in order to drive off or punish perceived "adversaries" goes counter to the necessary collegial atmosphere required to write an encyclopedia. and the case for disregarding !votes based on such posts is clear. The fact the former Arb then said (essentially) "but I am not voting" is not relevant - several of those who did vote specifically cited the argument that arbs are in a special position, and the fact that the ArbCom did not officially and completely exonerate RF means there must be something which they know about but did not state.

Only two solutions - disregard the !votes made before the moving of the poisonous comments, or officially start it anew and bar such comments from being made again.

The moving of most - but not all the poison - was done at 16:45 2 July by Bishonen. 41 of the entire "oppose" !votes were made before that time (and note that several "opposes" were changed to "support" after the poisoning was noted - which makes clear that such editors did, in fact, feel misled by the prominent nature of the "comments"). 8 opposes were made after the offending material was moved. Most of the supports complained about the arsenic from the "get-go" and so we would have a consensus of 95 to 8 barring it.

If we eliminated all the supports from the same time period as we should the opposes, we still have 31 supports in a time period when only 8 opposes were made. To call this a "failure" of the RfA would be a tad disingenuous - it looks to me like almost 80% support among those who read the discussion about the poorly chosen "comments" which were given extreme prominence on the main page for far too long. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:02, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

"Only two solutions - disregard the !votes made before the moving of the poisonous comments, or officially start it anew and bar such comments from being made again." — But this does not simply remove !votes by users who were influenced by the comments. How will supports made solely to balance out this 'well poisoning' issue be removed? How can we tell who might have !voted "strong support" instead of "support" if it hadn't been for the comment? How many of the later opposers had read the comment when it was still at the top of the RfA, and only came to !vote later? How many early opposers ignored Silktork's comment, or didn't even read it (choosing to investigate the case independently / search through RF's contributions rather than read people's arguments)? I don't think there's any way to remove votes which were 'tainted', short of asking 200 people for detailed responses to "Did you see this comment and how did affect you?", and even then many would choose not to reply or wouldn't be able to reply truthfully or accurately. And while I disagree with Silktork's authoritative tone and expression of opinion as if it were fact, you can't ban comments: this isn't a straw poll and people should be encouraged to give reasons for their !votes and to discuss other's reasoning. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 15:45, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

• I think that all this philosophizing about why some people !voted what is really just speculation. My impression was that several "support" !votes came in as a protest to the "well poisoning". Whatever may be the case, this speculation doesn't lead anywhere as there is no way to determine how this RfA would have gone if those comments hadn't been posted. As an aside, I did not !vote in this RfA, because I did not have time to look into any of these issues myself (so I am not even "neutral", because that is an opinion, too....) --Randykitty (talk) 14:14, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
• An issue the Crats should take into account is the likely impact of users deciding not to pile onto a RFA that on face value appeared to be failing. I'm opposed to editors subject to live arbcom restrictions being granted adminship but forbore from voting because the discussion looked like it was not succeeding and out of respect for RF's long standing commitment to the project. Had it be clear that a crat chat was on the cards I would probably have voted. I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one in this boat. Spartaz ^Humbug! 15:30, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

The RFA had a huge turn-around that lasted several days. If opposed editors were restraining their response to avoid piling on to a RFA that on face value appeared to be failing, they still had every opportunity to watch the progress of the RFA and posit an opposed opinion after it stopped appearing on face value to be failing. Italick (talk) 15:39, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Deciding not to vote means you don't have any say in the matter. It's like refusing to vote for the Republicans because you're pretty sure they're going to win, and then demanding you should be able to vote retroactively when you discover the Democrats have won. In any case, there's no easy way for any bureaucrat to gauge silent consensus because the number of people who chose not to oppose out of respect for RF could be anywhere between 1 and 25 million odd [number of registered users]. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 15:50, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

That's not really the same thing. In political elections, you don't have accurate up-to-date counts of the vote totals available to you at any point throughout the day. If we did, and I was trying to decide whether I needed to go vote just before the polls closed, and I saw that one candidate was well ahead, I might decide that there was no point. If it turns out that I was wrong and the other side got a mad rush of votes in the end, then so be it and it's my loss. But in this case, the candidate in question still finished with below the discretionary threshold. If, back to the political example, Obama had been leading Romney heavily all day, but Romney gets a mad rush of votes right at the end and finishes just 4% below Obama, we wouldn't declare Romney to be the winner. --B (talk) 16:19, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

The numbers are not below the discretionary threshold, and the crats know that, hence the crat-chat. If you look at past RFAs, you will see that some RFAs have succeeded with a non-neutral !vote ratio in the 60s like this one. The decision is fully at the discretion of the crats. The !votes are simply persuasive evidence for them to make one decision or another. Italick (talk) 16:23, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

What RFAs have been successful in the 60s??? The only ones I can think of were Ryulong (closed successfully at 69.4% and that was highly highly highly controversial, and, of course, Ryulong is now banned so I wouldn't use this one as a great model) and someone whose name now escapes me, but he was a former admin who had resigned not under a cloud and could have reclaimed his adminship without an RFA anyway. I went through Wikipedia:Successful requests for adminship back to 2010 and the only two I could find below 75% were Trappist the monk (71.0%) and SarekOfVulcan (72.5%). --B (talk) 17:10, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

The lowest successful RfA was this one in 2006: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Carnildo 3. 112/72/11 means 61% of non-neutral comments were supports. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 17:13, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I had forgotten about that one. The was a reprehensible decision and, I'd like to think, one that would never be made nowadays. Both sysops under 70% seem to have been very very very bad ideas. --B (talk) 17:38, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Davemeistermoab closed as successful with 67.6% support and he is doing quite well. —Soap— 18:16, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

@B – I believe the editor you're thinking of is ^demon. Kurtis ^(talk) 08:18, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Another thing that editors often do if they restrain from piling on as opposed is !vote with a "neutral" opinion. Italick (talk) 15:52, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

2 neutrals in this RfA were justified by "because I don't want to pile on" verbatim and I count up to three more which might possibly have been neutrals because of that reasoning. They should probably be !counted as opposes. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 15:58, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

"Neutral because I don't want to pile on" suggests to me that as below a very weak oppose at best. If there was genuine concerns I don't think a neutral !vote would be appropriate. There seemed to be more a sense of "please close this as he is bound to fail" sort of sentiment, and indeed that's what one stated. Also some neutral votes were for reasons like "waiting for pending questions". If neutral votes are considered then the "positive" neutral votes as well as the "negative" neutral votes must be considered. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 16:07, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

If the trend had continued the result likely would have got above 70%. Whether that matters or not partly depends on whether you see RFA as a discussion or a vote, if its a vote then the trend doesn't matter, but for a discussion it does matter. If things had been in the opposite direction, and the RFA was not quite in the discretionary zone but had been steadily dropping then would we be comfortable with a pass? My guess is that the trend was too gentle and over too many days to make enough difference on this occasion, but I'd hope in more than reverse circumstances if an RFA went from 95% to 85% in the 24 hours before closing the crats would have sufficient sense to fail it or leave it open long enough for the percentage to stabilise or drop to a level it could be failed at. ϢereSpielChequers 17:01, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Did new information come out that resulted in the trend? If so, then that should be considered. But if not, then you're suggesting a system wherein later !votes have more weight than earlier ones. --B (talk) 17:14, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

The difference is that !voting was quite different during the period that Silk Tork's message was displayed on the page (from 07:47 on the 28 to 16:45 on the 2nd).

• Prior to his post: !votes cast in this period were 4-10-4 (28.5%)
• While his post was on the page: 60-33-10 (64.5%)
• After Bishonen removed it to the talk page: 31-6-(1) (83.7%). -- Diannaa (talk) 18:08, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Um -- two if the early opposes were later withdrawn. Moreover - the issue is whether the extensive and iterated argument from a position of authority (referring to the editor being an Arb with knowledge of internal ArbCom discussions) poisoned the RfA nearly irreparably. IMHO, it did. And also IMHO no one associated with ArbCom or bureaucrat should !vote at any RfA as they may end up being arbiters thereon. Meanwhile, there is darn little doubt that the clear intent of the posts were to attack the persons involved - including an apparent attack on the nominator as well including a threat that his future nominations would be opposed. So far I have seen no one here defend such behaviour at all. The choice is to either pass the RfA or to initiate a new one with clear estoppal of such attacks. Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:07, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

RFAs are at their base a discussion, so I don't think individuals should be prohibited from commenting on a nomination statement if they feel the statement contains inaccurate remarks. If they do not wish to take a numbered position in Support, Oppose, or Neutral, the "General comments" or "Discussion" section is the only place for them to place their comments on the project page. Perhaps it would be best for a section to be added at the end for such comments, rather than the beginning (to assuage concerns of this section being "of greater prominence" than the comments made in numbered lists below it). –xeno^talk 21:04, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

• @B There was a lot of discussion debate and changes in position during that RFA. I don't see a single turning point on a par with Panyd's first run or Pastor Theo and I don't agree that Silktork was that influential - if anything that intervention was sufficiently over the top that the early rush of opposes started to level out. But a lot of people made points - supports 56, 60, 66 and 67 are examples of how the debate progressed and involved multiple people reassessing their votes. I think for the future where the support ratio is changing in a direction that could cross the discretionary zone there is a case for extending the RFA to see if it stabilises. I'm not sure that this particular one would have settled out below the discretionary zone if it had continued to run. clearly there are some people who never want RF back as an admin, some for whom the past events are too recent and some who don't want any admins with active sanctions. ϢereSpielChequers 19:37, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
  • @WereSpielChequers: I would rather see the bureaucrats re-open the RFA for a couple of days rather than pretend that the !vote total was something other than what it was. --B (talk) 20:52, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

• • I'd agree that in future extending RFAs would make sense when the support level is changing and heading for the discretionary zone. As I said above "My guess is that the trend was too gentle and over too many days to make enough difference on this occasion". I'm aware that some RFAs have been closed as successful at lower support levels than this, I haven't checked to see whether those decisions were based on extrapolating a trend or judging former admins by a lower standard. I'm assuming that the most likely result for this one will be a no consensus close, and providing Rich is still here and willing to run again, a successful run in early 2016. In the meantime it might help if he were to seek clarification re automated tools and maybe an amendment of the sanction. Hopefully Arbcom would now let him edit using tools such as twinkle and hotcat, and maybe even run reports in his own userspace. ϢereSpielChequers 12:52, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Question

Should Handpolk's "!vote" of 28 June 22:39 be allowed to stand? Oppose on ideological grounds. Wikipedia has enough admins, the last thing we need is more oversight, more blocks and more topic bans.. NB they are currently blocked for incivility. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 13:34, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

It is likely being given no weight by reviewing bureaucrats. I recall a previous editor who used the oppose reason "Too many admins currently", I don't believe they are around anymore. –xeno^talk 13:37, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

What Xeno said. Striking through votes is not the greatest practice, but as Xeno said, if the numbers do matter at the end (i.e. it's not a clear pass or fail), in principle, such !votes get ignored when assessing consensus. Maxim_(talk) 13:40, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks and (of course) some comments

I am most appreciative that (at least) one 'crat considers this RfA worth discussion, I had not expected any such further consideration, simply hoped for a nicely worded "no consensus".

It seems to me that !votes based on "I had a quick look at your block log/arb findings and didn't like what I saw" are completely legitimate, even if my contentions about the arb case and subsequent blocks are correct. I am a little disappointed in !votes on the basis of solely the last (year long) block, as a) it would have been fairly simple to have investigated this block, and seen that it was in error (or not) b) the length is not related to perceived severity but to an escalating length.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:01, 5 July 2015 (UTC).

So close

Disclaimer: I !voted support. I like Rich's activity such as helping newcomers at the Teahouse and the Co-op. I was hoping to see a clear two-thirds supermajority, two support !votes for every oppose. I would prefer 66 percent support as the bottom number for the discretionary range rather than seventy. Even though the bot says 66%, 95/49 is three supports short of a two-thirds supermajority.

I looked for obvious revenge in the oppose area so that I might argue some should be thrown out. Any administrator doing the mop work actively will make enemies. I found no obvious revenges. The other flaws are already dealt with above. Still no supermajority. I accept a simple 'No consensus'.

Rich, you are a valued member of the community. I hope you'll continue to support newcomers and the community as a whole. Wishing you and all the best, DocTree (ʞlɐʇ·ʇuoɔ) WER 15:52, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Basis for treating ex-admins differently?

What is the basis for treating RFAs of ex-admins differently? I can only think of one - if the oppose is along the lines of "he deleted my article about (non-notable person)" or "he deleted my gallery of fair use images" or "he blocked me for 3RR". In other words, the !voter is complaining that the admin did their job. Beyond discounting such !votes, I don't see why ex-admins are any different. By my math, in order to get into the discretionary range, 9 opposes would need to be thrown out, while at the same time preserving all of the supports. I don't see any basis for that. I did not !vote in this RFA and am not sure how I would have !voted if I had, but I don't believe this should be considered passing. --B (talk) 16:01, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I though I'd try to answer this one. RF was an admin from 8 feb 2005 until to 15 May 2012, over seven years. Through this time there was no lasting ArbCom or community consensus that he had misused his tools. So in a sense it suggests that the removal of his tools was unjustified. The reason for the removal was that part of the ArbCom case was allegations of tool misuse, but that was later rescinded. Hence the controversy over the desysop. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 16:28, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

There is nothing "controversial" about the decision. Unblocking his own bots was never the reason for desysopping him. --B (talk) 17:22, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps. But the 'crat has mentioned this as a possible factor in assessing consensus, which suggests at least one other feels this to be relevant. Also look at some of the support comments. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 17:31, 5 July 2015 (UTC).

The full desysopping remedy says "Rich Farmbrough's administrator status is revoked." (And a caveat about RfA.) There is no linkage given between the findings and the remedies. The only findings that mention my administrative status are finding 1 - which states that I was one since 2005, and the stricken finding. What was in the mind of the drafting or voting Arbitrators, only they knew (and have probably forgotten), but on its face it is not unreasonable state that finding is the cause of the remedy.

While I have not claimed that this is the case, I don't think the opposite can be advanced with any credibility. The decision as a document needs to stand on its own, and in places where it it is weak (and there are many) it should be acknowledged to be weak.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:01, 5 July 2015 (UTC).

Further, there is more of a record of previous conduct to go on, when a former administrator comes up at RfA. You know how they used the tools because they had them already. In a regular RfA, one has to guess how the candidate will use them, which makes commenters more cautious. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:31, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

There's also the consideration of neutral !votes being "added" to support or oppose. Kharkiv07 (T) 19:41, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

If the !voter intended to support or oppose, wouldn't they be able to choose that for themselves? Unless it's a passive-aggressive neutral ("I would not deign to oppose this person, but here are 500 reasons he/she is unfit to be an admin"), a neutral shouldn't really have an effect on the final outcome. It's just a comment with a number in front of it. --B (talk) 21:19, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

On further review, two neutral !voters said that they only opposed so as to not pile on (at a time that it looked like the RFA would fail overwhelmingly. Obviously, these should be considered to be oppose votes in headcounting. --B (talk) 21:26, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

There is absolutely NO REASON to consider the situation of a miscreant former Admin who has failed to attain the lower limit norm. for consideration as a different situation to a standard candidate who has not attained the accepted lower limit. 'Crat has made a very serious error of judgement and opened up several cans of worms with long lasting consequences. Leaky Caldron 21:20, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Well that's just an opinion. Without reasoning it holds little weight. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 21:25, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

He didn't reach the level where discretion comes into play. He his a candidate for RfA, nothing makes him a case for special consideration. If you are reassessing the strength of !votes mine, #14, is a strong oppose for the same reasons expressed by the most articulate of the other opposes. Leaky Caldron 21:44, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I find it interesting how different people have different approaches to personal interaction on Wikipedia. During the Arb case you said something to the effect that I was running multiple socks. I asked you to retract, you apologised and I said "no problem". While I remember that clearly I don't hold it against you.

Conversely you describe me as "miscreant", an editor I apologise to switches from neutral to oppose, and a guy I helped avoid a block for editwarring, by providing a technical solution to a confrontation, leads the charge against me. It is, as they say, a funny old world. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:11, 5 July 2015 (UTC).

Funny or not, my gripe here is with a 'Crat attempting to extend you special treatment not afforded, AFAIK, to any candidate failing to achieve the recognised 70% marker for discretion. So I would be here in your case, Joe Bloggs case or anyone else singled out for special consideration without justification. I see no special pleading, circumstances or anything that stands your RfA out from the crowd apart from the notariety of your Arbcom. battles. That seems a scant reason for a 'Crat to afford greater, in depth consideration of !votes or even, as now suggested, a re-run. If you had any sense of respect for the community you would just say, "you know what, I didn't get the backing a normal candidate requires, drop it this time". You appear to be clinging on in hope, which is not edifying. Leaky Caldron 06:47, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Restart the RFA from scratch?

Maxim had an interesting idea on the main page - what if they were to restart the RFA from scratch, the idea being that you would get a clearer view of consensus with all !voters having full access to the opinions expressed so far. My view is that I would be fine with extending the RFA (simply pick up where we left off and put two days on the clock). (I would not be okay with simply promoting him on the basis of the discussion so far for the reasons that I have given above.) I had not considered, though, and am not sure how I feel about, restarting it from scratch and the new !vote total is the answer. (If you !voted before and want your !vote considered, you would need to !vote again.) This is an interesting idea and worthy of consideration. --B (talk) 22:43, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

(Said in my capacity as an editor) Wouldn't it be cleaner to render a no consensus result with the invitation to immediate file a subsequent request (perhaps with a fresh nomination statement)? Certainly we wouldn't want to "run it again" if the candidate wasn't interested in "do-over" of the same RFA. Also, scrubbing the current RFA's discussion would make it harder to reference. –xeno^talk 23:10, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm assuming that if it were restarted, then the old discussion would be hatted or we would start Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Rich Farmbrough 2½, but we wouldn't blank out the existing discussion. --B (talk) 23:28, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

The idea of calling it "2½" certainly appeals to me! All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:44, 5 July 2015 (UTC).

@Rich Farmbrough: Should the need for a third one ever arise, I suggest the name Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Rich Farmbrough 33⅓ (homage to Naked Gun). --B (talk) 23:58, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm curious if Rich Farmbrough would want an immediate restart in the first place... Kharkiv07 (T) 23:21, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

It's a difficult question, and I appreciate the thought that has gone into these ideas. I have considered several possible courses of action after the RfA, for example I just noticed earlier today that the AE block which was a stumbling point for many editors, seems to contain a fundamental flaw (it assumes that ‘ and ' are the same character) - so possibly I could get that rescinded. Presenting new data to the same constituency might well change a few minds.

I would have thought a "do over" might be considered rather odd and out of process. Many editors would, I think, simply re-instate their previous !vote.

An extension might move the percentages, but those percentages are stubborn things!

So on balance I would welcome an extension, as providing more data, even though it might not change the final outcome. I would not want to cause procedural difficulties, disruption or division.

Those are my thoughts I will leave the matter in the hands of the 'crats.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:43, 5 July 2015 (UTC).

@Rich Farmbrough: I just looked at this AE. Are you saying it "seems to contain a fundamental flaw", solely because it describes a global replace of ''' to '' instead of saying ' ‘' to ' '? Are you saying your global replace of every single occurrence of ' ‘' (i.e. space, followed by opening single quote) in that article was manually typed by accident? Burninthruthesky (talk) 15:48, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

• You could withdraw & accept a re-nom in 3-6 months. Might turn a few opposes into supports & avoid the "hanging chad" stigma. Rgrds. --64.85.216.248 (talk) 01:44, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
• I'm inclined to think that that some form of do-over or restart is the best resolution here. (+1 on the Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Rich Farmbrough 2½, too). Stuartyeates (talk) 08:30, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Evaluation of consensus

The discussion above contains a lot of speculation about voter motives. I don't believe it is fair to the interested parties to guess if their opinion should be taken at less than face value: an evaluation of community consensus should be based on what was written. If a determination of support cannot be made on this basis, then by definition consensus approval has not been achieved. I appreciate that, as with any sampling of opinion, there may be influencing factors that biased the results, but to arbitrarily assume that some viewpoints can be ignored is not an appropriate remedy. If candidates feel that the process did not accurately reflect general opinion, they retain the option of requesting another evaluation of support. isaacl (talk) 00:07, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

That sort of goes against Wikipedia:Consensus, I quote Here editors try to persuade others, using reasons based in policy, sources, and common sense; they can also suggest alternative solutions or compromises that may satisfy all concerns.. It generally recognized that strength of arguments needs to be appreciated in building consensus, otherwise it would turn into a straight vote, and wouldn't be consensus at all. As consensus requires persuasion, you also need to persuade the closer(s) as to the merits of your arguments. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 00:23, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't see the disagreement: I believe closers should be reading the statement of the commenters and using this as a basis for their determination of consensus. I don't think they should be looking at trends in voting, or wondering if person A would have commented differently after person B commented. If person A had been persuaded otherwise, it's up to person A to say so. isaacl (talk) 00:36, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

I think the immediate long opening statement by a non-voting participant was inadmissible, even if made in good faith, and coming from a sitting Arb. It also may also have given the impression of imparting some special authority . Such non-votes can indeed exerta huge influence over the way the rest of the voting goes. It's the trick IP users employ and also somtimes with devastating effect. REgular RfA voters tend to ignore such comments and trusttheir own research and judgement, but inexperieced voters and drive-by voters certainly pile on without further reflection. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:05, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Be that as it may, I don't believe it is fair to ignore people's written statements under the assumption that they were given out of inexperience or inattention. A different discussion format would avoid problems with early statements having undue influence, but that's a different topic (and as you've pointed out before, there is no general support for a different format at this time). isaacl (talk) 02:45, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

RFA is not a vote. We cannot have a frank and open discussion by ruling certain comments "inadmissible" or preventing editors from calling into question potentially inaccurate remarks. –xeno^talk 03:24, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, until we arrive at the deadlock we have now, RfA is indeed a poll. It might be one where participants try to change each others' minds, but it's still a poll nevertheless and we all know that some comments and votes can well be inadmissible.. To have a frank and open discussion, rules are needed for the discussion. Unfortunately, because we never had a case like this before, it's not covered by a rule. Now is the time, as much as we loathe instruction creep, to set a precedent. Worm has made the closest observation as to the legitimacy of 'non-vote' voting. I supported Rich's RfA but frankly I don't care which way it goes as long as the decision is made by people we trust and respect and who are not participating out of process. And that's why we have you, the Bureaucrats. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:06, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

So where would you suggest someone place their comments if they wish to respond to a nomination statement to point out what they feel are inaccuracies? –xeno^talk 11:00, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Good manners would suggest the first place is the talk page of the nominator. A little judicious rephrasing would probably have satisfied the commentator in this case. If not then, as many suggested, in the "neutral" section, if they do not want to !vote. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 11:46, 6 July 2015 (UTC).

I think the approach suggested by Rich above comes near. There is certainly significant consensus from established users/admins that SilkTork's placement and timing were not appropriate. It's good I know Rich personally and that he can remain stoic, but if it were any other candidate, we would probably have lost them for good, and that's not the purpose of RfA. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:15, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

I think it's reasonable to ask that an opinionated statement be placed into one of the opinion sections. In such cases, if the commenter did not want to be counted in the tally, they could choose not to precede their comment with a "#", taking an indented position chronologically in the neutral section.

In this case, I believe the user placed their comment where they did because they felt they were only addressing remarks in the nomination statement and not taking a position on the candidacy.

Perhaps all discussion should occur in a single section, with a simply tally (free of comments) kept below. –xeno^talk 13:51, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

I for one would find it a complete pain having such a separation between vote and reasoning, it would also be sufficiently complex and different to other processes to become another complexity that would befuddle and deter newish editors. Especially if on their first visit to RFA they got bitten for not spotting the unwritten rule about Oppose !votes needing a rationale. ϢereSpielChequers 16:34, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Comment to the 'crats

I simply want to remind you that the purpose of the RfA is to determine if the applicant has the trust of the community. It's easy to get caught up in "hanging chad"-type argumentation, but, really, this should not be about that, it should be about the very basic question: Has this nominee shown that they have the trust of the community? BMK (talk) 01:02, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

How is that different from consensus? I don't support somebody who I don't trust as admin. Italick (talk) 01:05, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

See WP:BUREAUCRAT: "Determine whether there is a consensus that the person should be promoted using the traditional rules of thumb and your best judgement" --Dweller (talk) 11:13, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Would have voted in favor

I came to this too late; I was gone off project for real world activities. Had I known of the RfA, I would have voted unequivocal support. I'm not sure the bureaucrats are reading this though. :( --Hammersoft (talk) 03:12, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm certain at least one of us is. --Dweller (talk) 11:11, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Withdraw/No consensus

Given that extraordinary measures seem unwarranted can a 'Crat either:

1. Withdraw the RfA on my behalf (preferred) or
2. Close as "No consensus"

I appreciate the creative and considerate thought that has been given, possibly looking a little deeper than is usual in these matters, but I am concerned that any extension, and particularly any re-run would taint an adminship, in addition to possibly being divisive.

Since I am free to run again at any point, I do not consider this a significant obstacle, and the support (including moral support from neutrals and opposes) is certainly very heartening, as indeed was the general tenor of the RfA.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 11:58, 6 July 2015 (UTC).

Note to the bureaucrats

I want to thank the bureaucrats for their discussion here. I really appreciate these comments.

I'd like to give notice that should this RfA fail, which is a reasonable, albeit disappointing result to me, I am likely to bring a case to the Arbitration Committee (which would be my first time to do such a thing). Per my Q. 14 in the RfA, we have many items which have been in the history merge backlog, because of Rich's automated editing with WP:AWB, for going on six years now. That seems to be long enough to wait for another Admin to clean up issues that Rich is responsible for. I believe there are more items in this backlog that Rich is responsible for, beyond the ones I cited, but I haven't done a thorough study of the situation. I'm disappointed that the focus of sanctions on Rich has been excessively punitive limits on his "automated" editing, where the definition of that is unduly broad. I'm also disappointed to see that some of his leading detractors in this RfA were among the leading cheerleaders for implementation and enforcement of these excessive sanctions. Perhaps there were legitimate reasons for some of the initial sanctions, but I find it hard to get past the more recent sanctions to see that. I short, the dubious legitimacy of the more recent sanctions calls into question the legitimacy of all the sanctions, in my mind. I thought that the focus of disciplinary actions was supposed to be on protecting and improving the encyclopedia. How do we allow Rich to earn back lour trust? Perhaps, give him the bit, on a probationary basis, so that he can finish cleaning up these histmerge pages, which have been flagged for repair by a bot. If he sticks to using the tools for that one single purpose, that would be a substantial step towards showing that he deserves our trust again. Thank you. Wbm1058 (talk) 12:19, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: Quick FYI, requests of this sort (that seek to amend a previous ruling of the Committee) should be directed to WP:ARCA. Also FYI, the Committee does not have the authority to grant adminship, and will especially not do so right after a failed RfA. (This comment is made in my personal capacity, as someone who is familiar with previous ArbCom decisions, and explicitly neither in my capacity as an ArbCom clerk nor a statement on behalf of the Committee or any arbitrator.) L235 (t / c / ping in reply) 15:31, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, L235. So, for clarification, if I wanted to ask the Committee to not simply amend a previous decision, but to rescind it entirely, would I still go to the same page? Also, are you saying that ArbCom, once having removed an administrator's privileges, does not have authority to reverse their own decision and restore adminship? That would put this in a strange zone, considering how some feel that the Committee does have authority to refuse to allow restoration of rights to an admin who was never under a cloud. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:56, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

• The standard way on-wiki is to file an "amendment" request and ask that a finding or remedy (or more than one) be struck. The Committee, if they decide to act, will probably do so by motion.
• Whether the committee has the power to revoke a desysopping may not have been tested. The current re-sysopping that is injuncted is new territory, and some of us are uneasy about either outcome.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:06, 6 July 2015 (UTC).

(edit conflict)@Wbm1058: Yes, requests to amend or reverse a previous case should go to WP:ARCA. Administrator tools are a special case here; it is usually controversial among the community when ArbCom reverses desysoppings where they were understood to be permanent (e.g. final decisions in a case, rather than, for example, emergency desysoppings under WP:LEVEL1 or WP:LEVEL2). As far as I can remember, the last time ArbCom reinstated administrator tools that way was eight or nine (?) years ago. (Again, all in my personal capacity, not as a clerk.) L235 (t / c / ping in reply) 16:17, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think it is appropriate for the ArbCom to make an injunction that explicitly takes a resysop decision out of the province of the bureaucrats. That said, I think it is OK for the ArbCom to make a nulla osta so that bureaucrat hands are not tied in regards to sysoping or resysoping a certain editor. Italick (talk) 16:51, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Nulla Osta? That redirects to Marriage law, with no explanation why. Wikt:nulla osta: "An official declaration not to be against something or someone." I had to look it up. Is that legalese that ArbCom has actually used?

I'm glad to see that the injunction was lifted, and the admin has his tools again, in that other recent "unusual" case.

So I'm feeling a bit hand-tied by the procedural rules, here, in that it seems like neither the bureaucrats nor ArbCom wants to claim the authority to implement my "compromise" solution. And I realize it hasn't gained any traction in the comments section.

This is a case where, I think WP:IAR could be invoked. But, my view of that is that there would need to be a consensus to ignore the rules.

The first person I want to ask whether they support this idea is Rich. I suppose, if you're willing to wait six months or a year, we can drop this. But I fear you will need to wait until a sufficient number of opposing editors retire from the project, until you would be successful.

On the other hand, we have a task that no one else wants to do. I'm feeling uncomfortable about bugging one of the handful of admins who work with history merging to take this on. I usually end up doing maintenance that nobody else does myself, but this one I don't have the privileges to do. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:13, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

I like your suggestion Wbm1058. The ArbCom is the "Arbitration Committee". It exists for dispute resolution, not to be a court or the center of government here. So the ArbCom should not be bypassing the bureaucrats, although the ArbCom could even express the desire for an editor to be resysoped, while still deferring the decision to the right department. Italick (talk) 17:35, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

I redirected nulla osta to consent. Italick (talk) 17:58, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Comment by SilkTork

My comments on the RfA have not been helpful to anyone, so I had decided not to comment further on the matter, but this has been drawn to my attention, with the note that my comments are a central part of the discussion, so it seems appropriate to explain myself, and make myself available for questions.

My initial comment was very poorly worded. I had intended to make a neutral and factual statement, but something in the situation had irked me more than I was aware, and the statement came out very negative. My subsequent statements also did not help matters.

I have the RfA template on my userpage, so I am aware of RfAs as they come up. When this one came I noted the nomination statement was worded inaccurately, but thought people would be aware of that, and ivote accordingly. Later I noted that the nomination statement was being taken at face value - in essence that Rich Farmbrough had been desysopped on a point which was later overturned, so should have his mop back, but it had got overlooked. The second support comment says: "Desysopping for the smackbot thing was absurd". I didn't wish to ivote either in support or oppose, so felt a neutral statement indicating the inaccuracy of the nomination statement would be apt. Somehow the statement came out very badly, and I apologise to everyone concerned that it did. I haven't looked back through the RfA, but I do see that my comment became a central issue, and the RfA was revolving around that.

It's difficult now to roll the clock back and wonder how the RfA would have unfolded without my input. I think moving my statement to the talkpage was a good idea, but was probably already too late. I will watch this page in case anyone wishes to ask me questions about this matter. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 16:37, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Once again, I did not take the comment at face value. I looked at the arbcom case in question and saw the smackbot issue being discussed in the decision to desysop. Stop using my quote as evidence that it was being taken at face value. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:42, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

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.