This page contains a bureaucrat discussion about the result of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Money emoji and is only for comments by bureaucrats. All other editors are welcome to comment on the talk page. |
I’m increasingly hesitant to put any stock into "trendlines", as this may have the unintended consequence of encouraging strategic voting rather than consensus-building discussion.
One thing they did stick out to me was that despite the volume of opposition, there were no threads moved to the talk page. I’m not sure if that speaks to the climate improving at RfA (which would be nice), or if that bolsters the opposition (the argument being that well-founded opposes don’t generate acrimonious threads that drift off-topic).
I’ll revisit within about 12 hours (if still open) to expand on my reasoning, and take any additional community comments on these and other factors into consideration. – xeno talk 06:17, 20 February 2020 (UTC) reply
It's not surprising that a greater percentage of supports are made at the beginning of a candidacy, having prior knowledge of the candidate or following the participant's review of the candidate at the outset.
Conversely, opposition will typically build towards the end of the candidacy - after the initially submitted oppose rationales have been tested by the rigor of discussion.
RfAs are well-advertised and always run for about 168 hours. To consider what might happen if the RfA were to run longer is irrelevant to our decision, and no 11th hour revelations were involved in this candidacy.
Having had another look, I still see consensus to promote as the oppositional base - some of which was not well-grounded - does not outweigh the support arguments.
As a personal side note, I think it's unfair to say that resolving copyright issues is not content creation: the candidate took unsuitable non-free content and created free content via their efforts. (That being said, this objection need not be sustained for me to still find consensus.)
More later if necessary, but don't wait on me if consensus is reached. – xeno talk 18:49, 20 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Anyway, here goes. The opposes are solid remarks; practically all of them mention weighty matters about the candidate. (Note to the reader: I don't make judgment calls in my bureaucrat capacity regarding whether I agree or disagree with the reason the !voter came to their conclusion). I did find it interesting that among the 66 opposers, not a single one used the term "Strong Oppose." Not sure I've seen that happen before on an RFA with so many opposes. Obviously, that's just the label on the comment; the actual meat of the comment can absolutely be considered "strong" without that label (and vice versa, for that matter). And, to be clear, there are strongly passionate opposes in this very RFA. Meanwhile, a number of supports came back to reaffirm and/or strengthen their support, but many supports also acknowledged a level of concern with some of the same things that opposers were opposing for. But, on the flip side, a number of supporters were pretty enthusiastic, too. And, to top it all off, one of the most passionate opposes was actually in the neutral section. It all made for a difficult time indeed. In the end, my assessment is that there is, by a razor-thin margin, consensus. And I don't mean that as hyperbole. There's a reason I had to agonize over this one for a couple of days, losing sleep in exchange for repeatedly reading all the !votes, and it's probably why bureaucrat comments in this chat have been a slow trickle (apologies to the candidate for the delay). This is literally the toughest thing I've had to do in my wiki-career. Useight ( talk) 17:38, 20 February 2020 (UTC) reply
”The change in the numerical boundaries means that - although consensus is not numbers - the expectation is that RfAs with 70%+ support will be successful absent a strong balance of argument in favour of the opposition. I don’t see that here. The opposition is valid and of the sort that can lead RfAs to be well outside the discretionary range, but that has not happened here, the opposition is balanced by a supermajority of supporters. It is not the kind of opposition with diffs showing behavioural issues, policy misapplication, editing contrary to policy etc that would make the opposition strong. The opposition is more broad - lack of contributions, too soon, temperament. The latter is important, but appears to be a concern based largely on a single incident retirement message.”– xeno talk 07:44, 21 February 2020 (UTC) reply
in practice, most RfAs above 75% support pass. Also, I wouldn't necessarily see 31% opposes as being "strong balance" of opposition. Practically, we don't need to determine if the RfA was actually a "fail", only if it isn't a "pass" - and the murky area in between is not a pass. I did see this specific case as rising above the grey area, but just barely. — xaosflux Talk 18:25, 21 February 2020 (UTC) reply
We must also find that such sizable and well-founded opposition was enough to counter the weight of the similarly sizable and well-founded support, I do not agree, as such analysis implies an even threshold where any support percentage over 50% could be seen as a "consensus to promote" if the comments were equally well-founded. Uninvited Company 20:34, 21 February 2020 (UTC) reply
This is tight. It would be good to hear from more Crats. We have 17 and 10 have opined so far. Pinging: Avraham, Bibliomaniac15, Cecropia, Maxim and MBisanz. Encouraging Nihonjoe to return and give a view when they can and I think it's worth waiting, with apologies to the candidate for the delay. Primefac, as initiator, am I reading you correctly that you plan to hold off on stating a view and then ultimately close the discussion? -- Dweller ( talk) Become old fashioned! 11:45, 21 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I've given a gentle nudge to all the outstanding Crats. If Maxim is going to comment soon, that's worth waiting for. Nihonjoe is clearly busy IRL but I'm hoping I read into their comment that they might find some time for this. -- Dweller ( talk) Become old fashioned! 20:44, 22 February 2020 (UTC) reply
There is a consensus to promote Money emoji to the role of administrator. In watching both the RFA and this chat, the time to process was not so much due to volume (such as with Floquenbeam 2) but in parsing out just how much trust the community is giving to administrators (with two recent sysops at ArbCom I can certainly see how users may be concerned with a potentially immature or hotheaded user getting the mop). The crats (by a decent margin) find that while it is a very reasonable concern – and one that Money emoji should be taking into consideration going forward – there are enough users who feel that they have matured past the PRAM retirement from a few years ago to merit promotion. Primefac ( talk) 23:46, 22 February 2020 (UTC) reply
This page contains a bureaucrat discussion about the result of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Money emoji and is only for comments by bureaucrats. All other editors are welcome to comment on the talk page. |
I’m increasingly hesitant to put any stock into "trendlines", as this may have the unintended consequence of encouraging strategic voting rather than consensus-building discussion.
One thing they did stick out to me was that despite the volume of opposition, there were no threads moved to the talk page. I’m not sure if that speaks to the climate improving at RfA (which would be nice), or if that bolsters the opposition (the argument being that well-founded opposes don’t generate acrimonious threads that drift off-topic).
I’ll revisit within about 12 hours (if still open) to expand on my reasoning, and take any additional community comments on these and other factors into consideration. – xeno talk 06:17, 20 February 2020 (UTC) reply
It's not surprising that a greater percentage of supports are made at the beginning of a candidacy, having prior knowledge of the candidate or following the participant's review of the candidate at the outset.
Conversely, opposition will typically build towards the end of the candidacy - after the initially submitted oppose rationales have been tested by the rigor of discussion.
RfAs are well-advertised and always run for about 168 hours. To consider what might happen if the RfA were to run longer is irrelevant to our decision, and no 11th hour revelations were involved in this candidacy.
Having had another look, I still see consensus to promote as the oppositional base - some of which was not well-grounded - does not outweigh the support arguments.
As a personal side note, I think it's unfair to say that resolving copyright issues is not content creation: the candidate took unsuitable non-free content and created free content via their efforts. (That being said, this objection need not be sustained for me to still find consensus.)
More later if necessary, but don't wait on me if consensus is reached. – xeno talk 18:49, 20 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Anyway, here goes. The opposes are solid remarks; practically all of them mention weighty matters about the candidate. (Note to the reader: I don't make judgment calls in my bureaucrat capacity regarding whether I agree or disagree with the reason the !voter came to their conclusion). I did find it interesting that among the 66 opposers, not a single one used the term "Strong Oppose." Not sure I've seen that happen before on an RFA with so many opposes. Obviously, that's just the label on the comment; the actual meat of the comment can absolutely be considered "strong" without that label (and vice versa, for that matter). And, to be clear, there are strongly passionate opposes in this very RFA. Meanwhile, a number of supports came back to reaffirm and/or strengthen their support, but many supports also acknowledged a level of concern with some of the same things that opposers were opposing for. But, on the flip side, a number of supporters were pretty enthusiastic, too. And, to top it all off, one of the most passionate opposes was actually in the neutral section. It all made for a difficult time indeed. In the end, my assessment is that there is, by a razor-thin margin, consensus. And I don't mean that as hyperbole. There's a reason I had to agonize over this one for a couple of days, losing sleep in exchange for repeatedly reading all the !votes, and it's probably why bureaucrat comments in this chat have been a slow trickle (apologies to the candidate for the delay). This is literally the toughest thing I've had to do in my wiki-career. Useight ( talk) 17:38, 20 February 2020 (UTC) reply
”The change in the numerical boundaries means that - although consensus is not numbers - the expectation is that RfAs with 70%+ support will be successful absent a strong balance of argument in favour of the opposition. I don’t see that here. The opposition is valid and of the sort that can lead RfAs to be well outside the discretionary range, but that has not happened here, the opposition is balanced by a supermajority of supporters. It is not the kind of opposition with diffs showing behavioural issues, policy misapplication, editing contrary to policy etc that would make the opposition strong. The opposition is more broad - lack of contributions, too soon, temperament. The latter is important, but appears to be a concern based largely on a single incident retirement message.”– xeno talk 07:44, 21 February 2020 (UTC) reply
in practice, most RfAs above 75% support pass. Also, I wouldn't necessarily see 31% opposes as being "strong balance" of opposition. Practically, we don't need to determine if the RfA was actually a "fail", only if it isn't a "pass" - and the murky area in between is not a pass. I did see this specific case as rising above the grey area, but just barely. — xaosflux Talk 18:25, 21 February 2020 (UTC) reply
We must also find that such sizable and well-founded opposition was enough to counter the weight of the similarly sizable and well-founded support, I do not agree, as such analysis implies an even threshold where any support percentage over 50% could be seen as a "consensus to promote" if the comments were equally well-founded. Uninvited Company 20:34, 21 February 2020 (UTC) reply
This is tight. It would be good to hear from more Crats. We have 17 and 10 have opined so far. Pinging: Avraham, Bibliomaniac15, Cecropia, Maxim and MBisanz. Encouraging Nihonjoe to return and give a view when they can and I think it's worth waiting, with apologies to the candidate for the delay. Primefac, as initiator, am I reading you correctly that you plan to hold off on stating a view and then ultimately close the discussion? -- Dweller ( talk) Become old fashioned! 11:45, 21 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I've given a gentle nudge to all the outstanding Crats. If Maxim is going to comment soon, that's worth waiting for. Nihonjoe is clearly busy IRL but I'm hoping I read into their comment that they might find some time for this. -- Dweller ( talk) Become old fashioned! 20:44, 22 February 2020 (UTC) reply
There is a consensus to promote Money emoji to the role of administrator. In watching both the RFA and this chat, the time to process was not so much due to volume (such as with Floquenbeam 2) but in parsing out just how much trust the community is giving to administrators (with two recent sysops at ArbCom I can certainly see how users may be concerned with a potentially immature or hotheaded user getting the mop). The crats (by a decent margin) find that while it is a very reasonable concern – and one that Money emoji should be taking into consideration going forward – there are enough users who feel that they have matured past the PRAM retirement from a few years ago to merit promotion. Primefac ( talk) 23:46, 22 February 2020 (UTC) reply