Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Trappist the monk/Bureaucrat discussion

Whilst the discussion page is reserved for comments by bureaucrats, all users are welcome to comment on this talk page. Note that the focus of a bureaucrat discussion such as this one is not whether the candidate should be promoted, but whether that is the consensus reached in the closed Request for Adminship.

Alternative

I know this is kind of a one man crusade, but I wonder if there is any appetite yet in the Crat corps to provide a conditional sysop; you sysop on the condition that the only use of the tools would be to edit protected templates, and that any Crat can remove the flag if any other admin tool is used. You could similarly sysop with the understanding that if the protected template editor right is ever created, you will give him that right and remove sysop. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:28, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Yep, like Category:Administrators open to recall. It would, at least, give 'crats something to do! The Rambling Man (talk) 16:13, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I like the idea, perhaps if it was just if he abuses the tools. If the protected template editor right is created, he may be one of the ideal people to review who has this new right.Martin451 (talk) 22:33, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Single-purpose admin

I see no problem at all with a single-purpose admin. Way back when I got the flag, I was frank enough to admit that I wouldn't be able to assess WP:BAG requests with any level of expertise. I'm not sure why we'd expect a template editor to be able to assess bot suitability (for instance). The Rambling Man (talk) 16:13, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I think of admin skills as core vs specialist. "Core" is broad knowledge of policy, some content and referencing savvy, a bit of participation at AfD, AIV, etc., and a reasonable behavioural track record. That's the minimum we usually want to see in admins. "Specialist" stuff is optional: e.g. experience with UAA, COPYVIO, BLP, or Third opinions etc. I'd put BAG and Templates into the specialist set. I don't have a problem with someone saying they'll be single-purpose doing just their specialism, but they have to demonstrate core skills too. - Pointillist (talk) 16:28, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Sure, but if the admin-in-waiting in question has said they only need to use tools for a specific purpose, there's no need for AfD, AIV, they won't be going there. If they do, and do it incorrectly too often, then the community would be at liberty to request the desysop based on abuse of position. And, after all, we're in the fortunate position that we have someone volunteering to do a (sometimes) very intricate and important job, with other qualifications (e.g. the ability to code complex templates). That's far harder than determining whether someone who continually adds "poop" to a page is a vandal. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:39, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate that template editing is a specialized business and I'm happy to support Equazcion's Template editor initiative. But I firmly believe that all admin candidates should show some evidence of the core skills/experience/behavior. My definition of "core" is little more than being a well-rounded collaborative editor, after all. I'm particularly concerned about the idea of giving broad powers to people who've never tried to improve an article—that could easily lead to "us" vs "them" mentality. Maybe single-purpose admin is the sort of discussion that needs its own RfC? - Pointillist (talk) 16:51, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, it's already happening. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:53, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Aren't we talking about different things? The Template editor idea is about unbundling: assigned a narrow permission for a specific activity in a single namespace—whereas "single-purpose admin" is about relaxing RfA standards to grant broad powers to people who don't demonstrate core skills because they say they won't need these skills in their intended work. - Pointillist (talk) 17:00, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

We're talking about different solutions for the same thing. I see no issue with an admin whose sole purpose is to fix templates, or service BAG requests, as long as the community are happy to review his/her contributions in that vein. What we have here is a community who cannot see the wood the trees, a distrustful community who think that an admin who can't close an AfD (or who has said they don't wish to do so) will suddenly go rogue and destroy Wikipedia from within. What I see is an editor who has a particular expertise and one who is prepared to invest time in the project, but one who is being rejected because he/she won't block a vandal, despite suggesting that they would only go near template edits. I'm not talking about "relaxing RfA standards", just specialising RfA standards, and perhaps that's why the new "template editor" position will come in. We'll get a few more in due course, I'm sure, because the community are so hell-bent on rejecting competent editors for adminship for the most trivial of reasons. People have forgotten (or don't know) that adminship is transient and can be removed at a second's notice. No harm done. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:07, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for making the point I also came here to make. Unlike in the early days, it's now extremely difficult to do any serious damage to the project with the toolkit, because anything of the kind would be stopped in short order. If anything, adminship is less of a "big deal" than it ever was. And as 28bytes comments overleaf, admins tend to work in specific areas. That's completely natural; people gravitate to the tasks that suit them. Discussing unbundling is a distraction from this very basic reality, a good thing of which we need more, much more. As the old saw has it, the jack of all trades is the master of none. Rather than seeking some Platonic ideal of the admin that can and does do everything, the RfA system should recognize that people will work on specific tasks and learn the rest of the skills by themselves over time - or not at all. (I'm an admin and barely touch huge swathes of the things admins can do, because I don't feel comfortable in doing them. I even acknowledged the fact that I had no solid plans of work to do in my successful RfA in 2007, which I don't imagine would have passed in today's climate.) Either way, no harm will come to the project. That's the point of the essay WP:Net positive, which I wish everyone would read before voting on an RfA. — Scott • talk 11:18, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

We didn't ask the right questions

I think I've got it clear in my head now. If this was truly an RfA, we should have asked RfA-type questions, e.g. (taken from Singularity42's recent RfA):

• Please describe the criteria you use to determine whether an inappropriate article is better handled with a proposed deletion as opposed to a speedy deletion nomination.
• What criteria listed at WP:BEFORE do you feel apply to editors making speedy deletion nominations? Do these also apply to admins reviewing speedy deletion candidates?
• Please explain our current civility policy as you see it, including sharing your personal opinion of how it is currently being enforced, and/or how it could be clarified.
• Do you use the new notifications -– do you like/dislike them and why?
• An editor 'X' you have collaborated with before complains to you about an editor 'Y' that is a complete PITA. A. Would you get involved? B. How would you address Y? C. What would you say to your colleague X?

I didn't ask those questions because I got distracted by the single-purpose admin issue. I now wish that we'd had an opportunity to see how the candidate felt about issues like those. - Pointillist (talk) 17:41, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

This was my concern throughout the RFA. Was this actually a request for an adminship, or was it to discuss whether Trappist the monk was going to be a responsible editor of protected templates? Much of the 'single purpose RFA' arguments on both sides I think missed the point. Many of the supports said they trusted Trappist the monk to do the template editing job and were happy to support him on that point as there was no other way for him to do it. I.e. not that they were supporting him be an administrator, they were supporting his ability to do a single activity that, as it stands, non administrators cannot do (edit a protected template). Trappist the monk stated quite clearly he has no interest in being an admin beyond doing this function, does not intended to fulfil admin duties outside of it, and would not have sought adminship had the ability to perform this function already existed. Far too many of the supports simply agreed that he would do an excellent job editing these templates (for what it's worth, I agree as well), and either did not consider the possibility of the candidate working outside these roles, or simply stated that they trusted him not to.

Therefore they are trusting at this early stage that Trappist the monk will not act in many of the areas he might do. My oppose was based on how in work outside the template space (and yes, Trappist does edit outside that area) he ran up against another user, and in his brusque dealings, drove him from the page. In fact both editors walked away in disgust, Trappist because he assumed the editor was wilfully ignoring him, and the other editor because he felt patronized and belittled. This took place only a month ago. On wikipedia, trouble tends to find you whether or not you want it to. While many editors opposed or supported based on what they thought of single purpose RFAs and how the candidate would perform that single purpose, key issues of core competency and behaviour were overlooked. Benea (talk) 18:59, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I was not previously aware of those brusque conversations, but I looked at the edit-counts for template and module edits as a measure of experience (see: WT:Requests for adminship/Trappist_the_monk). In fact, although Trappist had edited the sandbox versions of modules (80 times), he had never edited an actual live Lua script page, nor even created a small Lua module as a user-space experiment. So, you tell me, would a person who never edited a live Lua module, nor created a user-space module, make a good admin to alter highly-visible protected Lua modules? Would we approve a person as full admin who had never created a user-space article nor edited even one live article, only posted suggested updates in various talk-pages? This shows a critical need for suggested requirements: n prior live Lua edits to become a Lua admin, or m live template edits to become a template admin. Otherwise, we are dumping the candidate into a trial-by-fire nightmare of people asking for {editprotected} updates to Lua modules by a designated "Lua admin" who never edited even one live Lua module. It is too risky, too frustrating for everyone involved. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:53, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Closing time

When I checked in just after the closing time I noticed that it was 69%. There also appears to have been a flurry of votes after that time. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:14, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Comments are welcome after the stated end time, which is in effect the earliest that an RfA will be closed. WJBscribe (talk) 16:23, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I'd not use 00:00 as closing time as some people have not read 24-hour clock article and might mistake it as 24:00 of the same day. jni (talk) 08:10, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

The closing time should actually have been 01:45 (i.e. 7 days after the nomination was listed at WP:RFA). WJBscribe (talk) 13:25, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Votes influenced by the RFC

I just wanted to point out the several neutral votes and at least one oppose making reference to the RFC, that with varying degrees of apparentness, exhibit a possibly premature anticipation of it being the option to wait for in place of considering adminship. There is no telling if or when the new user right will become practically viable to facilitate the candidate's work. I'm not sure if there is actually any weight that can be applied based on this in either direction (I leave that to the bureaucrats), but I wanted to mention this as another unique aspect of this RfA not listed on the main page. equazcion ^(talk) 16:20, 16 Sep 2013 (UTC)

Response to 28bytes

I just wanted to note that several supporters did address the curtness concern via responses given directly in the oppose section. equazcion ^(talk) 16:38, 16 Sep 2013 (UTC)

Thanks; I see your comment there in the oppose section; did I miss another one? 28bytes (talk) 17:17, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

It looks like you didn't :) I thought there were more aside from myself, but apparently the only other one was from the candidate himself. Others only addressed the single-purpose concerns. So I stand corrected. equazcion ^(talk) 17:21, 16 Sep 2013 (UTC)

While I didn't mention the civility concerns directly, it was the ultimate reason why I asked question 12. Because I might have been neutral otherwise over them, but that answer reassured me were less of an issue with how he would be using the tools. PaleAqua (talk) 17:44, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Comments from User:Hammersoft

Frankly, I find the whole point of single focus adminship opposition to be ridiculously absurd. Let's say you promote Trappist, and he proceeds to do what he said he was going to do. Ok, so you trust him to be able to do that, but you won't trust him with having the ability to do something he said he wouldn't focus on? That's nonsensical. Either you trust the editor or you do not. If you can trust them to edit a protected template, certainly you can trust him enough to not do something they don't want to do/feel they are ill equipped to do.

Furthermore, this sets an absolutely horrible precedent. NOT promoting this candidacy is equivalent to telling all future candidates they need to be experts in all knowledge areas where admins could potentially work. Ok, pop quiz time, how many admins even KNOW what a history merge is? I'd be willing to bet most of them have never done one or even heard of one being done, much less know how to do one. Well, I guess since they aren't doing that we can't trust them to do anything else either?

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Template editor user right is passing 91-12 right now, and it is exceedingly unlikely that it will not pass. You, the bureaucrats, could just punt this issue over the wall, deny this RfA, and claim no foul because Trappist will most likely be able to get the new template editor right. Or, you could be courageous, take responsibility where it needs to be taken, and send a clear message to RfA that this sort of severe ratcheting up on the requirements to be an admin is not acceptable. Discount the single purpose opposition, and this RfA passes with flying colors. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:50, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Comment by Leaky caldron

Intentional or not, single purpose RfAs are "Trogan Horses" that can manage to defeat detailed scrutiny of a candidate's suitability by (a) reducing full examination due to the seemingly purely technical nature of the intended use and (b) negating the opposes that relate to the single purpose issue. The initial lack of scrutiny and the relatively late swing based on the civility issue would not have occurred in a standard all rights RfA and shows the weakness in the argument that this RfA should ever pass with as little as 70% approval. Leaky Caldron 17:19, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I dunno... The civility thing seems to have been front and center right out of the gate. See Kudpung's #1 Oppose vote (arguably the most read vote on the entire RfA) that mentions that specifically, with diffs. Also, I'd expect a borderline candidate like this to get more scrutiny than a candidate who breezes through with 100% support. ~Adjwilley (talk) 21:29, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

• That is why I raised the issue of "opposing the consensus" as a concern, so other admins would be ready to revert non-consensus changes by the new admin. Suppose a person thinks 5-20 opponents are "noise" to be ignored unless 30 people state a disliked opinion. It is sometimes difficult to understand how 9 dissenting opinions might represent the views of 900 people who read the page but did not !vote a final opinion. I think the "wp:silent majority" of Wikipedia editors is over 74% non-talkers who edit pages (per month), but almost never any talk-pages. Anyway, I would, in retrospect, ask each candidate to explain how consensus applies in various scenarios, and perhaps judge a hypothetical case to seek a tangible example of seeking consensus about an issue, rather than ignoring 10 other people as "noise" clutter. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:53, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Some small comments from buffbills7701

I believe that if this RfA fails, we should make a few adjustments with RfA to discourage single-use RfAs. It doesn't have to happen, it's just my opinion on things. buffbills7701 21:50, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure it would be wise to extrapolate general trends from this particular RfA. It's true that some candidates with a narrow focus do not have a successful RfA, but there are plenty whose RfAs go quite smoothly: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jimp is one example that sticks out in my mind since the candidate was requesting adminship at the same time I was. I wouldn't want to discourage such folks from offering to help with admin tasks. 28bytes (talk) 22:14, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

In Jimp's RfA the candidate was asked – and successfully answered – questions 4, 5, and 6 around core admin competencies. I think one of the problems with Trappist the monk's RfA is that we failed to ask general questions. Of course this isn't the candidate's fault, but with hindsight I feel that in any future single-purpose RfA we should ask the usual questions. - Pointillist (talk) 22:26, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

• Perhaps write or expand an essay to warn people which questions to ask in a single-use RfA, so that the RfA process is not unprepared to discuss the important key issues, such as specific edit-counts within the single-use area. Consider if an admin promotion could be based on "zero" live edits in the area, or under what special circumstances to allow no experience when granting access to the tools. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:53, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

  And/or include within the default questions, to make it easier to determine consensus. -- Trevj (talk) 09:49, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Consensus

Bearing in mind the notice at the top of this page that the object of a bureaucrat's review (or 'crat chat) is not to decide whether or not the candidate should be 'promoted' or not, but to assess as accurately as possible what the consensus is. This is clearly a case where not only the strength of the arguments in the the oppose and support sections should be taken into account, but also the comments in the neutral section should be given due consideration. The individual votes in all sections should be closely examined too: it is possible that some voters may be less theoretically qualified to vote.

Disregarding the notice at the top of this page for a moment, there is strategic value involved with the question concerning a pass or a fail for a single purpose candidate, and how it would affect Wikipêdia. Those who oppose the notion are possibly aware that a pass could cause an increase in the number of single purpose candidacies based on 'All I have to do to get the bit is to say I won't work in Foo areas' . I think it would be unwise to assume that candidacies never come from users who are power hungry, simply hat-collectors, or who believe that Wikipedia is a meritocracy.

Changes in policy should be made through official disscussion, and not through processes such as RfA, AfD etc,; while there may indeed be some precedents cited, precedent has to be extremely well founded and not based on a few isolated instances. The current discussion on the possibility of creating a 'template editor' user right is an excellent example of how policy should be changed, but when running concurrently, should probably not be a deciding factor in the outcome of an RfA. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:30, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

It would be sad and dare I say entirely wrong to cave to a desire to make possible illegitimate candidacies less likely in the future by denying a legitimate one. Besides which, this candidate has a long and clear history of working and being knowledgeable in the specific area they promised to focus on, and the lack of doubt that resulted from his resume was instrumental in garnering the support he got at this RfA; and even given that, the result is too close to call. If a candidate wished to pass RfA under similar but false pretenses, they'll likely need to put a lot of work into their facade for an extended period in order to look legit enough to pass muster here. In other words, the "All I have to do is say..." theory wouldn't work in practice. It only worked here because this guy also has the chops and the history to back it up. equazcion ^(talk) 01:52, 17 Sep 2013 (UTC)

@Equazcion: I don't think my comment above personally concerns the candidate currently under review - having voted, I kept it as neutral as possible. I have based my comment above however, on the hundreds of RfA I have participated on, dozens of email requests for nominations, my work over the past two years or so at WP:PERM, and the users in the category 'I want to be an admin someday'. I have expressed the realities of creating non-procedural precedents. denying a legitimate one is your personal view of the candidate actually under review and a reinforcement of the vote you may already have cast.

Put more simply (there was once a discussion - or several - about this), I see the 'danger' of single purpose applications for the use of the block, delete, and page protection buttons to remove hoaxes, COPYVIO, and attack pages, coming from recent changes or vandalism reporters who have racked up thousands of reverts but who may have contributed very little to content and/or other meta areas. Again, official RfCs about unbundling these tools is the way to go. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:28, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting your comment reflects your view of the candidate, nor was my "denying a legitimate..." wording any similar reflection. It was a hypothetical in answer to your similarly hypothetical "strategic value" comment; which would only seem to logically apply in cases where the candidate were otherwise viewed as passable by consensus. Under those circumstances (whether they wind up applying here or not), it is a path that runs contrary to honest assessment of the outcome. I'll also add that you seem to view passing single-purpose candidacies as a change in policy, and I think that's debatable itself. equazcion ^(talk) 02:37, 17 Sep 2013 (UTC)

I don't see it as being a change in policy - consensus is determined by those who participate in the RfA. What I do see is a possible use of such a pass, particularly bearing in mind that this particular RfA is an extremely close call at the bottom of the discretionary range, as being used as a precedent of the wrong kind. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:54, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

• No consensus this time, so ask key questions on re-RfA: I think what people here have noted was the lack of crucial questions, up front, to help people make informed !votes, as an obvious shift to a 64%/76% level, not ~70% on the fence. The discovery of brusque dialog, during the past month, should have led to more searches for incivility. Meanwhile, I was not aware a candidate can get a "free pass" on typical tough admin questions, so I checked the related module edit-history about experience and found "zero" live edits to Lua script modules and zero created Lua modules, for a person who wants to be a "Lua admin". Anyway, the strategy, to reach a clear consensus, is to ask more key questions in a single-purpose RfA, to focus consensus either up above 76% or below 64%, when more crucial facts are revealed. For example, I would ask:

• "What are the 3 most common causes of "Script error" in Lua coding?" or
• "Since the wp:CS1 cites are used in 2.1 million pages, how long does Wikipedia grind to reformat those pages if the cite Module:Citation/CS1 is incorrectly changed in error?" or
• "What could be re-structured, in the Lua cite modules, to allow some changes to cite formats, without reformatting all 2.1 million articles?"

Bottom line: if we knew the typical admin questions would be omitted, then people should, instead, ask crucial questions about the single-purpose use and stated intent of the candidate's planned area. Without that data, no wonder people could not reach a consensus beyond the ~70% middle ground, at the edge of failure. However, IMHO when asking the right questions, then some forms of single-purpose admin could be safely decided in an RfA discussion. -Wikid77 (talk) 03:07, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Reopening and extending

As far as I recall, and I don't have time right now to check back, bureaucrats have the discretion to extend the RfA period in order to attract more participation in an attempt to establish consensus in a deadlocked situation. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:58, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe that an extension is needed. If my reading of the cratchat is correct, the bureaucrats are leaning to agree that a consensus to promote exists with the RfA as it stands. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 04:25, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I see limited benefit in prolonging the pain by extending the RfA. The absence of certain questions which could have been asked indicates consensus that asking them wasn't necessary in order for people to make their decisions. The consensus doesn't seem to be that the request should simply not succeed. So the question is whether consensus exists to provide the full toolset or not, based on the limited use case presented and evaluated. If it's judged that there's no consensus, then the candidate could consider reapplying or possibly requesting the template editor user right (if the RfC results in its creation). Alternatively, if it's judged that the consensus is that of support, then we get on with it but consider formally providing words of caution regarding the candidate's "bedside manner" suggested by Nihonjoe.-- Trevj (talk) 10:12, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

• Omitting questions led to decisions based on partial data: It is likely many people thought the questions were adequate, but they did not realize how most candidates have tough questions to answer, and lacking those, the key questions about single-purpose use were not asked. Many oppose votes indicated they did not trust "the future" would allow the candidate to ignore other admin duties, rather than "distrust the candidate" and instead disagreed with the candidate's plans for the future. Meanwhile, the ongoing WT:CS1#RfC, with rough consensus to suppress Trappist's extra red-error messages in wp:CS1, is a consensus against Trappist's stated intentions. So a key question: "Why become admin to change a protected Lua module in ways which go against the consensus of involved editors?" or "Why not submit an {editprotected} request and discuss proposed changes with a Lua admin?". Meanwhile, more details needed to be studied about recent user disputes, and questions asked about those issues. A marginal consensus, at the ~70% low end, based on partial data to some questions, does not seem like a clear consensus at all. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:00, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

• There are only three standard questions, all three were answered, any candidate ignoring those "optional" questions would be unlikely to succeed. Other questions are down to the community, if people had spotted things in the candidates edits that merited a question then presumably they would have asked relevant questions. It is not the candidate's problem if after 7.5 days people have not asked something. But remember the questions are not the most important data used to assess candidates - the important data is the candidate's own edits. If a candidate was to reveal a recently active alt account after the end of the RFA then it would be fair to say we had assessed them based on "partial data". But that wasn't the case here. Many RFAs are cluttered with irrelevant questions such as about the candidate's favourite colour, or almost as irrelevant their views about hypothetical policy changes or the policy in an area where they are not active nor have indicated they might become active. This candidate had 9 optional questions, and most of them seemed relevant to their RFA rather than generic ones where I sometimes wonder why that particular candidate was asked that question. True it was a shorter question section than many recent RFAs have seen, but hopefully it means people spent more time properly assessing this candidate and didn't see the need for more questions. I don't accept that a shorter question section means that !voters had "partial data", but then I regard most optional RFA questions as soapboxing or irrelevance. There is an argument that non-admin !voters usually have to assess candidates with only partial data as they rely on admins to check the candidates deleted edits, but in this case we have a candidate where only about 1% of their edits had been deleted, so this candidate was more open to meaningful assessment than is normal. ϢereSpielChequers 19:45, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not unhappy that Trappist the monk achieved admin status. However, I don't think his editing history received the usual scrutiny and I wish we had asked questions around adding reliably sourced content (a basic skill that all admins should have), civility and maybe consensus. Those are all factors in your personal qualifications list too, and they would have been relevant to the RfA. We might also have investigated the candidate's perspective about warning and blocking apparent vandals e.g. in the template space. Of course, it's my fault I didn't think of this before. The next time there's a single-purpose admin RfA, I think we should do due diligence on the usual core skills and knowledge. - Pointillist (talk) 22:23, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

There were over a hundred participants in that RFA, so I see no reason to think that he didn't receive sufficient scrutiny. My criteria certainly were relevant to the RFA, and one reason that I supported was that when I checked some of his edits I found examples of him adding reliably sourced information. I didn't look at his AIV reports, but as his main focus was on editing protected templates I wasn't particularly looking for anti vandal work. But I wouldn't worry whether or not particular questions were asked, what really matters is whether people checked the edits, remember that apart from the first three the questions are rarely of any value; Sometimes I fear they encourage people to approve those who've studied how to pass an RFA instead of looking at their edits to see if they are ready for adminship. As for future single purpose candidates, I hope they realise that for some reason part of the community prefers to hear them say "I intend to start using my admin tools in area X and feel qualified for that for reason Y, I will be cautious about further use of the tools" instead of "I will only use my admin tools in area X and feel qualified for that for reason Y, I will will not make further use of the tools". My experience is that single purpose candidates are a "safer" bet in that I don't remember any who subsequently had to be desysopped, on the other hand I suspect that admins who are willing to work in more areas will ultimately do more with their mops. ϢereSpielChequers 23:37, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Comments by Technical 13

 Note: Moved from parent page. — Scott • talk 12:41, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Scott, I was just about to move it myself as I noticed my error. Technical 13 (talk) 12:43, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

(Non-bureaucrat comment) I have two points to bring up quickly.

1. Please also consider this SPI where the user investigated admits to double voting.
2. I believe that it should be Trappist the monk's option to not have a user page. However, if that is the choice that he makes, then he should just set a custom signature so that the redlink goes to his talk page (without a redirect, since that would make it blue). Something like [[User talk:Trappist the monk|<span style="color: #D20000;">Trappist the monk</span>]] ([[User talk:Trappist the monk|talk]]) which would render as: Trappist the monk (talk)

Thank you for your time. Technical 13 (talk) 12:38, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

T13, a bit of friendly advice - back in April it was suggested to you that you not involve yourself in the area of discussing custom signatures. I'd counsel you to follow that suggestion. — Scott • talk 12:47, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

While I appreciate your advice Scott, the suggestion was that I did not engage in disputes about signatures, as I recall. All of my requests since then asking others to fix signature issues have been successful, and I've even received a few requests for assistance in fixing signatures. So, considering the positive nature of my signature related discussions, and the fact that the issue before was just shy of six months ago, I think it is safe to say that there is any issue in that department. That all being said, I thank you for your concern, but I'll continue to offer my advice in this "technical" matter involving the coding of signatures. Happy wiki-ing, and let's please try and keep this page on topic. I'd be more than happy to discuss this tangent elsewhere. Technical 13 (talk) 13:06, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Closing

I congratulate all the bureaucrats involved, for their careful and thoughtful analysis, and for reaching what I believe is the appropriate conclusion regarding this challenging case. --MelanieN (talk) 21:37, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

1 user likes this.

I concur and feel the 'crats made the right call here. — -dainomite   22:26, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I guess that's why they earn the big bucks, right? 0;-D --MelanieN (talk) 23:35, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Not sure about the right call part :) but the discussion was thoughtful and open and that's what makes decisions that are easily accepted. Good work! --regentspark (comment) 00:02, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

I feel it was the right call, as it agreed with my vote. I base this on the fact that I'm generally right about most things, so logically, we can all agree this was the best outcome. equazcion ^(talk) 00:06, 18 Sep 2013 (UTC)

• I also feel it was the right call. In spite of my own 'oppose' !vote, if I were a 'crat and been uninvolved I would have had to weigh in with a very close promotion. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:39, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

• I am still unsure if it was the right call, and I felt as if many of the detailed Oppose !votes were too easily dismissed, or discounted, by claiming a fear of a single-purpose admin (with "brusque" dialogues) is not a real Oppose. Instead, I saw how users had decided this particular single-purpose was not actually needed, as they were *unconvinced* that a person could not request further admin help to update Lua modules/templates which rarely need to be changed (as meaning to use "{editprotected}" to do the work). They were not just opposing the concept of "single-purpose" but rather, they were not persuaded how this case was justified. However, by discounting the Opposes who thought the single-purpose was not needed (or not a safe power), and strongly counting I-support-too ("why not?") in pile-on !votes, then a likely 65% sub-par decision was perceived as being above the technical 71%, as perhaps a 78%(?) actual level. Hint: Any Support which says "why not?" with 35 Opposes is not a "strong" informed Support. Hey, I think we are learning how to better recount the !votes now, and during another single-purpose RfA, count the Opposes who were not convinced by the single-purpose claim. Ironically, the willingness to ignore Opposes who felt the single-purpose was not justified or not proven, sounds just like a brusque admin who thinks many opposing opinions "do not really count" in determining consensus to update Lua modules. Oh by the way, I am the one who wrote the massive Lua Module:Citation/CS1 which this candidate wants to single-purpose update and my opinions have been previously ignored in "seeking" consensus for major Lua changes. At least we have the advice now, the warning of many people in the RfA, to beware temperament problems in this single-purpose case, which I did not realize had been so widespread in recent months. That aspect I see as a success and agree that is a valuable result of this 'crat discussion which I thank everyone for clarifying. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:15, 19 September 2013 (UTC)