Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Floquenbeam 2/Bureaucrat chat

Due Weight

I have only one request of you folks (crats). Please remember to separate the Floq RfA from Framgate and WMFgate. I know that there are unavoidably going to be areas of intersection - but please remember to put weight where it belongs. Just a reminder - not a "you need to do this or that" post, I'll trust you folks to know what to do, that's why we picked you for that hat. — Ched :  ?  — 19:38, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Unnecessary. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 00:35, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Who the hell are you? You only seem to have a little over 6000 edits to the mainspace in more than a decade! I don't think you're in a position to be demanding anything. MPS1992 (talk) 23:36, 29 July 2019 (UTC) Easy there GMGtalk 23:49, 29 July 2019 (UTC) @MPS1992: Please remain WP:CIVIL. There's no reason for you to be using that tone with anyone here. Thanks. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 23:50, 29 July 2019 (UTC) MPS1992, and you are certainly in no position to claim he isn't. You are just as unknown to me as he is to you. The only difference, Ched and I are admins and have been here longer than you. Everyone's opinion is equally valid. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 23:50, 29 July 2019 (UTC) Hey User:Cyberpower678, thank you for educating me about the importance of being administrators and being around for longer than anyone else. It's surely important to many of the people involved here. MPS1992 (talk) 00:03, 30 July 2019 (UTC) If you want to get into a pissing contest about content creation, jump in the ring with me. You're being a jerk. Stop it. GMGtalk 00:09, 30 July 2019 (UTC) MPS1992, I’ll just remind you that WP:CIVIL is a policy and continuously violating it will lead to a block. So knock it off. I have no beef with you. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 00:13, 30 July 2019 (UTC) Just to be quite clear, 100% clear, your being an administrator means, well, I don't wish to be rude, but, some might. Your having been a registered editor for a long time, means about the same. I don't wish to be rude to you, but the smell is exactly what you're spouting. No, you're not important. Get over yourself. MPS1992 (talk) 00:12, 30 July 2019 (UTC)  Bureaucrat note: @MPS1992: If you have nothing productive to contribute here, you are welcome to leave. I strongly suggest you tone down your rhetoric or you will be blocked. Thank you for your cooperation. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:15, 30 July 2019 (UTC) Sure, buddy, I'll step back. You keep on doing what you're doing. I'll not stop you. Go right ahead. Just mentioning, Ched and I are admins and have been here longer than you is not a good look. You can suppress that all you like... keep going. MPS1992 (talk) 00:29, 30 July 2019 (UTC) For the record, it should be noted that Ched's initial post is a request, not a demand. Lepricavark (talk) 00:32, 30 July 2019 (UTC) And also to note that MPS1992 has been blocked for 48 hours by Cyberpower678. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:37, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I am in agreement with what Ched said and would take his comments a step further. Floquenbeam's work to this time as an administrator was never in question, on the contrary. His recent single action which cost him his admin tools is under consideration in my mind and not whether Fram deserved a sanction-this is not about Fram or about whether Fram deserved a sanction, but about the way Fram was sanctioned and by whom. While Floquenbeam's action must be taken in context of his work as an admin as a whole, that is, the quality of his work and his reputation this was not a forum to investigate his specific admin actions over the years. His admin work to date was not in question. For example, he was not being formally recalled as an admin. He took a strong position and action in the recent debacle which angered some and was applauded by others. This too is not what was under consideration. Admins take actions all the time which please some and anger others. What is important was whether this last single action was motivated with what was best for Wikipedia. That is the question and only question seems to me. Did Floquenbeam act with what he thought was best for Wikipedia when an action was created outside of our own processes? Did he think he'd get his admin tools back easily? Not important. Was he deliberately creating drama? Evidence says he thought pretty deeply about what he was doing. So no. Did he put a brake on WMF? Maybe. But again not the issue. Did Floquenbeam do what he did because he believed the action would serve Wikipedia? That's the only question we have to ask. Littleolive oil (talk) 15:08, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Mass ping

Pinging @Acalamari, Avraham, Bibliomaniac15, Cecropia, DeltaQuad, Deskana, Dweller, Maxim, MBisanz, Nihonjoe, Pakaran, Primefac, UninvitedCompany, Useight, Warofdreams, Worm That Turned, Xaosflux, and Xeno: bureaucrats. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:41, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

T/p msgs are probably necessary per precedents. Do we email, too? ~ Winged Blades^Godric 19:43, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, but I am not certain if that is something any editor/admin should do. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:47, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Normally the closing crat will send a note to the Wikipedia:Bureaucrats/Message list on this. Email is not necessary. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:52, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

...which I've just done (MMS, not email, btw). Primefac (talk) 19:53, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

I am still not aware of any email list, nor have been subscribed to it, so onwiki posts are best. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 03:48, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

DQ we don't have one anymore. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:57, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Can't wait to hear from User:Pakaran. ——SerialNumber54129 09:49, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

And me, from Cecropia. ∯WBG^converse 12:29, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Primefac do you plan to give an opinion or were you planning to hold back and then close the Cratchat? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:43, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Other than what Primefac may do, I don't expect to hear from any of the 'crats that haven't already edits the chat, we certainly won't keep this open indefinitely in case they show up. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:12, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

(rbo) Should probably close soon- 66 hours is a little long in the tooth (second longest RfA cratchat at time of writing). –xeno^talk 13:51, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

I think that we should maintain our usual commitment to keep our deliberations brief, as a kindness to the candidate. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 14:09, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

@Dweller and Xeno: for perspective, while CratChats are rare, the last four averaged a processing rate of 1 hour per 6 !votes; at that rate this one should run about 75 hours - which would put it on average if it was done right about now. I expect this should get resolved in the next day - if some of our fellow 'crats can't make it, they can't make it - I don't think we will be deadlocked on this one based on the initial responses. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:18, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

There are three 'crats that have indicated that they will be shortly providing their input. I feel that it is only courteous to allow them to respond before closing this. As for the time, I'm not surprised - highest participation, highest supports, third-highest opposes of all time. Not much of a stretch that it would be the longest (or close to it) discussion. Primefac (talk) 17:01, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Hey all

No matter what happens in this chat; let's keep our cool and all stay friends. Deal? *group hug* –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 19:41, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

• And I won't hesitate to close any discussion down that spirals out of control.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 19:45, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Given some crats' comments, it looks like this won't be resolved for at least a day or two. I know what that is like and I feel for Floq. Like the song says, "Waiting is the hardest part". Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:58, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Support votes

May I ask why support votes require no further discussion? Support votes should be subjected to the same scrutiny that oppose votes get. Weak supporting arguments should be treated differently. You never see admins and well-established users attack supports, but they sure do attack the opposition. Happens on every RfA. Noah^Talk 20:17, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

• Indeed they should. Not entirely sure why @Dweller: thinks that is not the case. This is what is says at WP:RFA "...numbered Support and Oppose comments are considered. Neutral comments are ignored for calculating an RfA's percentage, but they (and other relevant information) are considered for determining consensus by the closing bureaucrat. In nominations where consensus is unclear, detailed explanations behind Support or Oppose comments will have more impact than positions with no explanations or simple comments such as "yep" and "no way"." Leaky caldron (talk) 20:19, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Additionally, I would specifically observe that Dweller says, "the "per XXXX" comments, which we should weigh as heavily as XXXX's comment" and "support, which, remember, means supporting the nomination". Both of these seem to imply that an unexplained support should be treated as if it were "per Floq". I think that the 'crats should then assess the strength and quality of the nomination statement and question answers. StudiesWorld (talk) 20:26, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Conventionally, support votes are interpreted as "I agree with the nom statement" while opposes are expected to give rationales. It's not a "policy" or "guideline" but there you go. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:27, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Jo-Jo Eumerus, even by that logic, which I agree is the accepted procedure that should be followed, the 'crats should look at the nomination statement in assessing the quality of unexplained supports. StudiesWorld (talk) 20:28, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

and it isn't as easy "per" to follow. It's more a confessional than anything. Leaky caldron (talk) 20:33, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

The 'crats do have the freedom to weigh supports and opposes based on the strength of the argument, but a support per the nomination statement should certainly be given full weight as a legitimate argument. After all, it is our role as a community to determine if the nomination statement is a valid reason to promote the candidate. We assess the nomination statement as a community; that is not the special purview of the 'crats. Lepricavark (talk) 20:39, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

As I interpret it, the statement the "per XXXX" comments, which we should weigh as heavily as XXXX's comment refers specifically to Oppose votes, not Support votes. --Hecato (talk) 20:31, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

You are correct. But there is another issue at play. Leaky caldron (talk) 20:42, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

When I support without leaving a comment, part of the reason for that is that I don't wish to campaign for others to vote the same way I did. (Here it was that I found nothing intelligent to add to the discussion, and I missed out on saying "confirming support per Boing"). —Kusma (t·c) 20:28, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

If that is the case, then the RfA wording needs to be changed to say that unexplained supports are treated equally to an explained oppose. Noah^Talk 20:31, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

• (edit conflict × 3) This has been somewhat made up. In any situation where a bureaucrat is not vote-counting, they must weigh the arguments on both sides. The sense and strength of opposing votes are weighed against the same qualities of the supporting votes. Bureaucrats have never applied the rule only to the oppose votes and I strongly question Dweller's decision to do so. AGK ■ 20:33, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't see this as relevant to this RFA as there were arguments put forward by the earliest opposers, but in other RFAs I have seen the first oppose not having a rationale. In such circumstances it is hard to know whether it is a thought out oppose or a personal attack. However once there is an oppose with an argued rationale I don't see much of a problem in interpreting subsequent opposes without rationales as being per the opposes above. Of course that does make things difficult when some of the above strike their opposes, which is why per xxx is better, or is at least as long as xxx doesn't switch to support. I note a bit of movement in this RFA - but I haven't noticed if anyone is supporting or opposing per an editor who has subsequently changed position. I consider such !votes to be tricky to give the right weight to. ϢereSpielChequers 20:44, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

• There's lengthy precedent that support votes require little or no justification to be counted. I have long disagreed with this precedent but here is not the place to dispute this. I see a support and an oppose that should be discounted due to suspicious behaviour by the editors (i.e. not having edited otherwise for years). Other than that, I don't see anything that should be discounted outright, but in both the support and oppose sections (perhaps even the neutral one), some !votes need to be assigned more weight than others. — Bilorv (// W A K E U P //) 21:29, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

  There's precedent for it in the case that the nomination itself contains powerful arguments to promote. This one does not, though. It's a self-nom and doesn't really give much rationale as to why promotion should happen. Indeed it even omits the three compulsory questions. Support per XXX is fine, but I don't think it's automatic that "per nom" is a valid one. Dweller should probably amend their assertion to be simply a statement of their own opinion rather than something binding on the crafts as a whole.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:48, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

• A slight correction: there are no "compulsory" questions, only "standard" questions. No candidate is required to answer any question -- although, realistically speaking, they have little or no chance of being promoted if they don't. In any case, the implication that Floq didn't do something that he was required to do is incorrect. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:52, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
• You're also incorrect about "powerful arguments". Plains "Support" votes were just taken as being "per nom", whether or not the nomination was convincing or "powerful". Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:54, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

  That's just it, though. If person X casts a !vote that the crats decide is invalid, and five other people say "per X", then logically the crats should also discard those five. Similarly, if they determine that the nom itself is weak, then any votes that rely solely on that are also themselves weak. Anyway, it's probably all a moot point. Floq has been a great admin over the years, almost nobody disputed that, so it's no big deal if they get the tools back... Only that personally I think it's a shame that they approached the RFA the way they did. Failure to answer the questions or file this as a vanilla RFA, and the tone used in the nom statement, gave rise to a lot of opposes that would have been avoided with a little more effort.  — Amakuru (talk) 00:17, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• It's a self-nom and doesn't really give much rationale as to why promotion should happen. You might as well say that self-noms are prima facie evidence of power-hunger. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:58, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

• I am not a big fan of self-noms, but in this case, given the circumstances, it was really the only way this could happen. The community needed to know that Floq really wanted the bit back, and wasn't being influenced by an outside force. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:05, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

• Well this is where the idea of assigning !votes lesser or stronger weight come in. (That's what the "!" in "!vote" is for.) — Bilorv (// W A K E U P //) 22:08, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

• What about the support votes who gave invalid reasons? The support voters who cited their dislike of certain people in the oppose camp as their reason should be discounted out of hand. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 23:56, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

As one of the subjects of such, including pings which I ignored, I concur. Jusdafax (talk) 12:40, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

There's a difference between not liking you and not liking your arguments. ∯WBG^converse 12:49, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• Support votes are counted as "per nom", per longstanding precedent. I'd say in a reconfirmation RfA such as this, they can be additionally interpreted as "per their track record as an admin". But as to why a different standard is applied to opposes, it's the simple principle of AGF and NPA and ASPERSIONS that exist everywhere else on the project. I know some people might be surprised by this, but these policies apply at RfA. Shocking! Opposing an RfA is a negative commentary about a user. Just like in any other forum where negative personal commentary is a factor, it needs to be credibly rationalized and substantiated, or else it is nothing more than a personal attack. This really isn't rocket science. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 23:43, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

  True, you're not wrong there. Promotion should actually be the default, since for the most part everyone editing wants the best for the encyclopedia, has a clue, adding more admins is a good thing, etc. etc. Opposing (for reasons other than simple longevity) means you're going out of your way to highlight some aspect of a person's record or character which you deem a poor fit for the wiki, which should of course be the exception rather than the rule.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:53, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Guidance

I would like to suggest that the 'crats look to the RexxS chat -- where RexxS was promoted with only 64% support -- for guidance in coming to their decision in this case. In particular, this statement by Maxim seems pertinent: "It has also been somewhat customary, for better or worse, to extend somewhat of a leniency with respect to the numbers, for editors with a longer history on the project," as does the discussion about what type of !votes should be discounted. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:47, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

One other thing: Having been on the other side of the aisle on several occasions in the past, as an "oppose" voter, it was my experience then that uncommented "Support" votes were taken as meaning "per nom", while uncommented "Oppose" votes were frequently pestered to give specific reasoning. I felt then that this was unfair, and I still do, but that was -- and as far as I know -- remains the precedent, that "Support" votes are not scrutinized nearly as closely as "Oppose" votes are. If the 'crats decide to break with precedent in this case, I can only hope that the new precedent will carry forward into the future. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:47, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

If the 'crats decide to break with precedent in this case, I can only hope that the new precedent will carry forward into the future. Put differently: If you are going to make new precedent, you need to justify your departure from precedent and craft a rule or standard of general applicability going forward. Treating this as a one-off case under different rules is honestly no better than promoting or refusing to promote because you feel like it. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:54, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

(ec) Of course, they could always do a Bush v. Gore and make a decision while simultaneously saying that it doesn't set a precedent. I wouldn't advise it, though. I trust that the 'crats will not do anything as silly as that. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:57, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

The community recently reaffirmed that RfX is a consensus discussion not a vote so perhaps that suggests that RexxS is not a precedent and instead Crats need to give new thought to how they handle unsupported participants. Of course this was a reaffirmation and as such would suggest that perhaps precedent would hold. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:56, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

(ec) If they're of a mind to change precedent, I think that might want to hold back and do it on a non-controversial case. "Hard cases make bad law." Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:00, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

What would the circumstances be where they could change precedent where it is also non-controversial? Like open a crat chat on some RfA that finishes at 55% support and change the precedent there? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:09, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There's no such thing as a "non-controversial case" in which the numbers are close. But I'd rather crats do nothing to change precedent, which is neither "64%+ is consensus when the editor is long-established" nor "65-75% is no consensus", but "evaluate the strength of the arguments and the support behind them and determine whether they believe the community has faith in the editor using admin tools". — Bilorv (// W A K E U P //) 22:17, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

I take your point, but it could be done, let's say on a case at 70%. The 'crats discuss, and agree on a general formula for weighing votes that's slightly different from the one in use now, and they apply that new formula, creating a new precedent. Chances are the new formula isn't gong to make that much of a difference, and the case is going to stay in the discretionary range. Of course whether the 'crats should be changing precedent at all without the community telling them to is another matter, but it could be done. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:54, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

The existing WP:RFA guidance seems clear enough: In nominations where consensus is unclear, detailed explanations behind Support or Oppose comments will have more impact than positions with no explanations or simple comments such as "yep" and "no way". Leaky caldron (talk) 21:58, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Leaky Cauldron you didn’t quote the footnote, that says Historically, there has not been the same obligation on supporters to explain their reasons for supporting (assumed to be "per nom" or a confirmation that the candidate is regarded as fully qualified) as there has been on opposers.Pawnkingthree (talk) 22:53, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

@Pawnkingthree: Yes. I didn't because it is, as you say, a footnote highlighting an historical approach which I assume has been replaced by the substantive text. Both cannot apply and the primary text is there for all to see. Such is my reading of it, anyway! Leaky caldron (talk) 09:37, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

With the discretionary range set at 65-75%, it's very hard to argue that at 74% support the consensus is in any significant way "unclear". Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:01, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

No it's not. Here's such an argument: 74% lies within 65% and 75%. We don't set a strict bar at 70% for a reason. — Bilorv (// W A K E U P //) 22:17, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

That's not a particular good argument. The range is 65-75%, so 'crats look at anything within that range. Are you honestly arguing that the case for a RfA which sits at 74% isn't inherently stronger than the case for an RfA which sits at 66%? Are you saying that 'crats should treat them both equally as if they were both supported equally by the community? That everything in the discretionary range is equal to everything else in the discretionary range? I don't buy that, and I doubt many others do either. The range tells the 'crats that they need to discuss, it doesn't tell them not to weigh cases differently, according to the differing specifics of the !vote. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:46, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Obviously I said nothing of the sort. Of course the 74% is stronger evidence than 66% but neither are ipso facto reasons for an outcome (nor is 64%, as we know—it's your own argument, taken symmetrically, which fails to account for the crat chat of RexxS). I argued that the matter is not a clear consensus—your wording, not mine. The only time I will ever argue that "everything is equal to everything else" is when I am made of straw. — Bilorv (// W A K E U P //) 22:54, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, that was exactly my point, that at 74% consensus is not "unclear", it's just a bit under what gets you in automatically. As for RexxS, I simply wanted the 'crats to be reminded of the precedent they set at that time. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:58, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

And I'm still in disagreement. There's no "automatic" getting in (or failing) unless consensus is clear. (And even then that's hardly automatic—it's just a crat's judgement that is relatively straightforward.) Most RfAs within 65% and 75% are unclear (hence crat chat is advised) and some RfAs that fall outside it are unclear (e.g. 64% for RexxS, and by symmetry, this means 76% is not an automatic pass). Though I wonder if we perhaps mean different things by "clear consensus"—what I mean is that the crats can't simply go off the numbers, and instead need to look at the strength of the arguments and amount of support behind them. — Bilorv (// W A K E U P //) 06:36, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Reconfirmation RfAs will naturally tend toward lower support percentages than first-time requests, for the very simple fact that admins have more opportunities to piss people off. (In fact, while I may be mis-remembering or thinking of another project, I seem to recall that we toyed with codifying this axiom in policy during one of the term limit/reconfirmation RfCs.) This being the case, I don't consider 74% to be within the discretionary range for a long-standing admin. I understand why the 'crats are going through the motions here, but it's plain to me that this was a successful request. – Juliancolton | ^Talk 22:46, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Yup. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:49, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree. Miniapolis 02:10, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing. Even with 100+ opposes, there still appears to be a clear consensus in favor of restoring adminship to Floquenbeam. I personally wouldn't have objected to a bureaucrat closing it with some kind of explanatory statement. Then again, a bureaucrat chat can have the effect of making the end result appear as less of a unilateral decision than if someone closed it outright. I respect Primefac's reasoning for bringing this to a discussion. Kurtis ^(talk) 16:46, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

@Juliancolton: I don't particularly agree with that analysis. This, at least in part, became framed around Floq's decision to unblock Fram without knowing all the facts and for forgoing the standard processes in asking for resysop (be it through the quirky self-nom statement or by simply having an RFA). I seriously hope the crats do more than go through the motions tbh. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 05:43, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. "Everyone should be judged equally" is a pretty strong argument for not doing so. Additionally, it is just as equally arguable that people should be more likely to re-confirm someone who had previously done the job of being an admin, particularly when they are riding on a wave of popularity due to their involvement in drama. Where is the evidence that the oppose voters, in this case, were simply enemies of Floq?

Finally, a vote that falls within the discretionary range ... is a vote that falls with the discretionary range. It's still discretionary. There is no consensus that a vote of 74% HAS to be treated as though it were basically automatic. Had the community wanted to give Floq the typical 90-95% automatic pass, they would have done so. They didn't. FOARP (talk) 07:59, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

@FOARP: Well, though I concur with most of what you said; I gotta push back on something. For a normal reconfirmation RFA, the admin under reconfirmation is almost guaranteed to get oppose !votes from users who resent them for taking certain admin actions they just disagree with. This isn't a normal reconfirmation RFA, though. It's an RFA for one of the most popular admins on this project who specifically asked us to review his recent actions. The fact that this fell into the discretionary range at all was a surprise to many for good reason. Users who actually personally like Floq opposed his RFA. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 00:17, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Evaluating the Fram controversy

One of the aspects of the RfA that the Crats will probably need to evaluate is the context of the Fram controversy, which obviously was looming conspicuously in the background. In that way, the RfA was an atypical one. To some extent, the RfA was a referendum on how the community feels about what en-wiki policy should be about overturning office actions. It occurs to me (maybe I'm right about this, or maybe I'm wrong) that, if this were instead an RfC about policy, a 74% support !vote with a very high level of community participation would probably be closed as a consensus of "support", but with a few caveats about taking the opposition concerns into account. (In this case, perhaps the candidate's stated commitment never to overturn an office action again would be an example of taking opposition concerns into account.) I suggest that this way of looking at the raw numbers may be useful. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:18, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

it's nothing of the sort. Most of the votes specifically excluded the Fram events from their rationales. This is purely a decision on whether to regrant Floq the tools. Nothing to do with a referendum on office actions.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:08, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps, but my impression was that only some of the editors excluded that. (And in case I didn't make it clear enough, I'm not saying that the entire analysis should be done this way, more like something to consider, in part.) --Tryptofish (talk) 23:12, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I suppose so. But given how difficult "consensus" is to read, even when the votes are in black and white, I think trying to gain insight into a tangential and not explicitly linked issue, on the back of this plebiscite, would be a stretch. I can easily imagine people supporting Floq's resysop, but also supporting the right of the WMF to carry out office bans. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 00:00, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

You don't seem to understand what I was saying. I'm not asking anyone to decide what the community feels about the office actions, nor to infer editors' views of the WMF from their RfA !votes, nor to base the decision of the Crat Chat on what editors might think about the office action. Of course, they should base it on the RfA itself, as they certainly will do. I'm pointing out a way to consider the 74% number in the context of an atypical RfA. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:07, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

(ec) I can't see how you can say that the Fram situation didn't affect this RfA, Amakuru. Most of the Opposes stated they were unhappy with Floq overturning an office action. And some of them even agreed that they didn't agree with the Fram ban but they thought office actions should not be undone. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:11, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Agree with you. ∯WBG^converse 10:41, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Adding onto what Liz said (and reiterating what I'd implied a few days ago), I strongly believe that the WMF controversy is the reason for Floquenbeam's reconfirmation becoming the most participated-in RfA of all time. To suggest that it did not influence a majority of the supports and opposes, even if only on a subconscious level, is demonstrably incorrect. Kurtis ^(talk) 12:40, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Reminder - don't edit the 'crat chat page please

Anyone who isn't a 'crat shouldn't be editing the actual 'crat chat - no, not even to fix formatting. We're in sad shape if our bureaucrats can't fix their own formatting, and non-'crats imposing their personal formatting preferences, preferred spelling, etc., is not appropriate in these circumstances. "But it wasn't a comment, I was just tweaking..." isn't an excuse. Let's leave the 'crats to do their work. We might want to consider all sitting down to a hot beverage or something similar, since there's nothing more for most of us to do here. Risker (talk) 23:06, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Mea culpa [1] - I won't do it again, now, or in the future. My apologies. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:26, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

I blame the heat <g> Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:29, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Beyond My Ken, how about I force the ice bucket challenge on you then? ;-) —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 23:58, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Umm... I'd rather not, I'll be good! Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:59, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Risker hands Beyond My Ken a nice glass of iced tea in lieu of the standard hot beverage, in deference to the temperature. Risker (talk) 01:01, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Just the way I like it, too, with sugar and lemon. Thanks! Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:42, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I remember when this was a wiki... Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:19, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

"We're in sad shape if our bureaucrats can't fix their own formatting" – Indeed. If the formatting error is an eyesore, and some non-crat picks up on it and fixes it before the 'crats notice, I don't think they should be called out or penalized for doing so. Kurtis ^(talk) 12:49, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

On the one hand I would agree, but when a bunch of people rush to fix a missing bracket (check the edit history of the main RFA) when someone puts [/Bureaucrat]] instead of [[/Bureaucrat]] it becomes a bit silly. Give us a second to fix our own mistakes! At the end of the day, though, the formatting doesn't really matter as long as it's readable/legible. Primefac (talk) 14:44, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Regardless - the world is not going to end, WP is not going to fall over and it isn't that precious to give horrendous condescending "advice" over. It's formatting, that's all. Leaky caldron (talk) 14:50, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Well, I think Risker meant well; but she probably shouldn't have picked out BMK, one of the sweeter guys I've come across; nevertheless, what BMK did was good-faith common sense, exactly what my man Tony followed when he protected the page despite not being a 'crat. Common sense usually trumps these bright line rules. Lourdes 16:03, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

I'd say he was enforcing the bright-line rule; not only was he not actually "editing" the page, but he was preventing (some) others from doing so. Still, I agree about common sense. This page, in particular, could do with a MASSIVE injection of it, especially the further one descends... ——SerialNumber54129 16:07, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

I know this is in small text, @Serial Number 54129:, and perhaps you're just speaking tongue in cheek, but barbs like this suggesting that those who don't share your POV are lacking in common sense, coupled with your accusation in the RFA itself that opponents of the promotion showed an egregious lack of judgement is below the belt, IMHO. People are entitled to their opinions and you should respect that, just as I respect yours. Anyway, rant over, let's all be friends again - this little sideshow here should be over soon!  — Amakuru (talk) 16:50, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

a) I was deliberately non-sectarian in my call for more common sense down below; both 'sides'' arguments were increasingly provocative, not only here but on a myriad of other talk pages too. Irrespective of whether they shared my opinion.

b) When I said the opposing !votes lacked judgement, I was the 118th supporter, and at that point there were ten oppose !votes, one of which was superficially based in policy, and the rest of which were diffless hand waves based seemingly on personal opinion. I grant you that many of the later opposes from more seasoned editors were excellent: policy-based, nuanced and holistic. But at 08:36 on 23 July 2019, the oppose section was about as far from those qualities as I am likely to supplant the pope.

Cheers, ——SerialNumber54129 17:27, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129: ah, I see. That's fine then, thanks for the clarification and apologies for leaping to the wrong conclusion.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:07, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

I posted this section immediately after *two* edits in a row by *two* different accounts that were not 'crats, not just BMK. As it turns out, the other account was a sock - the CUs were alerted to the suspicious behaviour of the other account at about the same time - and that in turn led to the identification of a sock vote on the RFA as well, which is noted elsewhere. These 'crat chats don't happen so often that we've codified rules of behaviour here, but they have historically been treated in the same way as arbcom pages; that is, that nobody who isn't directly involved in the discussion ('crats here, arbs/arbcom clerks on PD pages) should be touching the page even for little things. Risker (talk) 16:14, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

(Except superclerk Bishzilla, of course. Bishonen | talk 16:22, 2 August 2019 (UTC).)

It might be worth just admin-protecting the 'crat chats when they're created... but that's an issue for another time. Primefac (talk) 16:44, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Enterprisey, ok, time to apologise for your deeds :D Lourdes 11:07, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Ah yes, sorry about that. Can someone refresh me on why we have this rule again? There's a difference between "imposing personal formatting preferences" and fixing typos, I think. Seems like something that would actively invite IAR applications. Enterprisey (talk!) 19:58, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Near as I can tell it's not a rule; it is reasonable to let a crat fix their own mistakes but barring an egregious error (such as not actually linking to the right place... whoops) it's not strictly necessary to fix said error. Primefac (talk) 23:13, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. What about (at the risk of making this conversation go off-topic) the arbcom rule? Enterprisey (talk!) 23:32, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

That's because they do have rules. Someone mentioned elsewhere on this page that 'crat chats happen infrequently enough that we've just never really codified the rules for how the pages should be treated. Primefac (talk) 23:41, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Additional recusals

Since, among other bureaucrats, Xaosflux has elsewhere [I can't readily find the diff(s) in the mass of polls/discussion] made it clear he sides with WMF and against persons like Floq who defied them, I believe he and any other bureaucrat who has made any statements pro or con during FRAMgate should recuse. Softlavender (talk) 23:20, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Find the diffs first, demand the recusals afterwards, please, there's a good fellow. MPS1992 (talk) 23:24, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

btw, are you sure that you mean defied and not deified? MPS1992 (talk) 23:25, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

I considered advocating this as a general thing (specific recusal requests need diffs), but I think some level of significance and with specific regard to Floq is going to be needed here, or we risk dropping to a very low number of participating 'Crats. However, in a similar vein, firm good/bad Floq commments in the "did they resign under a cloud" RfC could also be recuse-worthy. Nosebagbear (talk) 23:27, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, Xaosflux's position was more nuanced. (Also, Softlavender is not a fellow.) El_C 23:30, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Hello @Softlavender: I don't recall getting much in to "sides". I have discussed the current standards for blocks vs bans, and did say early on in the Fram situation that "it is not "time to go bonkers". It is time for civil discourse and possibly straw polls of actionable statements."¹ I also opposed using the copyright warning message as a banner message (a discussion that was snow closed to the opposition). I was one of the first to post at BN about the Floquenbeam foundation action and would have at that time been opposed to summary reinstatement at BN, but immediately identified that RfA was a clear avenue to reinstatement.² As I supported that using the RfA process was acceptable, and the RfA process was used I'm not seeing a conflict of interest here. Regarding a "resigning under a cloud" situation as mentioned by Nosebagbear, I don't see that as very relevant to the RfA for the same reason: such determination is unnecessary as a RfA was filed. It is completely acceptable for someone to have resigned "under a cloud" and then go through RfA - as the cloud isn't a determination of wrongdoing - it is the fact that spending time determining if there was a sanctionable wrongdoing is mooted if the sanction (i.e. desysoping) is irrelevant. If I'm overlooking something here, please let me know - and please do include a diff. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:03, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

If every crat who expressed an opinion on the Fram situation, pro or con, was recused, we won't be left with more than a couple of bureaucrats. I trust them to be objective. It's the nature of crathood to be level-headed. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:16, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I didn't say "expressed an opinion", Liz; I said "made it clear [the bureaucrat] sides with WMF and against persons like Floq who defied them" and I believe ... any bureaucrat who has made any statements pro or con during FRAMgate should recuse". -- Softlavender (talk) 00:35, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

That's a false dichotomy. Personally, I was (am) appalled by WMF's actions, and also disagreed with what Floq did. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:04, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• NOTE: I've skimmed through Xaosflux's contribs, and I can't find the diff, so I may be thinking of the wrong bureaucrat (if so, apologies to Xaosflux). My recollection is a !vote in Survey or Poll, in which a bureaucrat took a stand for the WMF's actions and/or ability to continue such actions, or against anyone who reverted such actions. So I would like to reiterate my original point: Any bureaucrat who has made any such statement or !vote (or, on the other hand, clearly taken the reverse position), should recuse themselves from this particular 'crat chat. Softlavender (talk) 00:22, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

  I disagree. As I already said above, this is not a referendum on the validity of the office action, and the crats are well capable of assessing arguments for of against Fram's reinstatement whatever their view on that tangential issue.  — Amakuru (talk) 00:26, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

  I disagree as well (and I supported Floq's re-adminning). I think it's time to just let the crats do the job they were elected for (with the highest electoral threshold for WP-functions, as far as I know). I'm not just referring to this thread, but to a number of threads on this page. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:33, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

  I don't think just having made comments about the FRAM situation is in itself disqualifying (especially since the original notice was at the bureaucrats' noticeboard, so it's likely many of the crats were involved from the very beginning). If any of the crats made specific comments about whether Floq should be granted the tools again, I could see that as disqualifying. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:41, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• WTT raises a good point. I would advise a recusal either here or in the arbitration case. Or both, if desired. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 00:52, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
  • As would I, yes. If the recusal is an either/or situation, I would much rather WTT recuse here than there. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 00:55, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• I trust WTT, I would leave the question of recusal up to her him. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:00, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• Of course. By no means did I mean to remove that prerogative. (Apologies, Worm That Turned, didn't mean to give you unsolicited advice there.) —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 01:03, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

  Javert2113, Don't worry, the advice was solicited in my comment on the main page. I specifically brought up recusal as I was thinking about it. I do that quite a lot, when I believe a recusal is a reaasonable option, I'll declare that and let others opine. I'm not sure I quite agree with the "additional information", side of things, but I definitely can see things falling flat on their face at the arb case, had I not recused - especially since we're in such an unusual case. So thanks to everyone who's commented here, above and below. Worm^TT(talk) 07:13, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• Beyond My Ken, WTT is a guy. ;-) —CYBERPOWER (Around) 01:12, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• Oops! Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:44, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Agree with above if we have all the crats (who have commented in some ways) who have commented in the noticeboards ,RFC , arb com case ,Fram Page we will left with less than half of the crats and over a third of them are inactive and less likely to comment here.Hence do think User:Xaosflux is not involved and so the others who commented either way on this issue.If someone wishes to voluntarily recuse it is fine.Only those who have voted in this RFA should recuse atleast in the case given the manitude of this issue .Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 01:23, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Let's not twist this recommendation into a slippery slope. It's on the basis of WTT being an arbitrator and one involved in a very specialized situation. Just having commented someplace isn't meaningful or relevant. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 01:47, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm pleased to see the recommendation of DeltaQuad as well, and I agree with every point she makes. Though I would also note that my concern would be more that participating here might necessitate (for the appearance of propriety's sake) recusing from the arbitration case. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 06:32, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

One standard for recusals?

Should there be a single standard for recusals applicable to all crats? I'm confused by some crats who !voted or expressed opinions at WP:FRAM re: Floq/Fram recusing, while others who did the same thing are not recusing. – Levivich 05:29, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Disagree, as to a common standard.

Any crat shall be able to recuse on any ground they personally deem fit enough, as long as the rule of necessity does not come into play.

If anyone seeks the recusal of any crat, that ought to proceed per the equivalent procedures of arbitrator-recusal. ∯WBG^converse 09:20, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Math

User:Acalamari says "326/116/15 would be 163/58/8 if halved and would not be an issue" but that's not true; both work out to 73.7%. It doesn't change the proportions whatsoever. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 03:40, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that was his point. Killiondude (talk) 03:42, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

(Math pedant here) User:Dweller's statement "In an RfX with lower participation, a net of 200 (say 212-12 or 250-50) would be a cakewalk." is seriously flawed. Subtracting an equal number of !votes from each "side" changes the % support, and 212-12 or 250-50 would be cakewalks precisely because of the strong support percentage. By the same reasoning, one could subtract 112 !votes from each side and there would be a unanimous 209 !votes in support. Or one could add 200 !votes to each side to get a 62.5% support, which would be below the discretionary range.--Wikimedes (talk) 04:48, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Even though the proportions are the same, I don't think it scales particularly well. Put differently, I have a hard time slicing and dicing the numbers without imagining the context which might produce each hypothetical breakdown. One might envision 163/58/8 attached to an established but not fantastically prominent user whose bid for adminship has garnered serious concerns about their suitability for the role. It's easy to rack up 20 or 30 opposes if you haven't kissed enough feet, but approaching 60 means real problems are perceived, and 163 supports is nothing special by any means; the permanent "why not?" contingent could account for a significant share of those votes. Dweller's general point about the sheer volume of support in this real-world scenario is well-taken – that a sharp-tongued admin could work in the most contentious forums on the project for most of a decade, then get desysopped by office action, and still blow past 300 supports is a small miracle. Here exists a much stronger case for promotion than JoeTheEditor's 163/58/8, in my view... and mine was one of the most impassioned, long-winded opposes of the week. – Juliancolton | ^Talk 04:54, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Juliancolton, I agree with your viewpoint, and in my opinion that is exactly what Dweller was intending with his comments. Both 300 supports and 100 opposes are extremely unusual, and indicate a great deal of strong opinions on both sides. I agree that it requires much more considered thought than a simple percentage comparison. CThomas³ (talk) 05:28, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I think the record attendance in the RfA is more to do with the broader context of Framgate rather than anything relating to unprecedented levels of opinion on the user themselves. I'm rather confused by Dweller's comments because at face value they seem to argue more based on the circumstance of the RfA than anything to do with the content of it. (I imagine if Kanye West signed up for an account and immediately started an RfA he'd get well over 300 !votes even if we ECP'd the page, assuming the RfA ran for a week, but that's no reason to give him the tools.) But I assume Dweller has more detailed and nuanced reasoning than what they wrote. — Bilorv (// W A K E U P //) 06:53, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

More than 100 editors came out to oppose the confirmation of Floq, an editor riding on a wave of popularity as a result of the FRAM drama which was behind a lot of the 300+ support votes. It's up to the 'crats to decide how they want to weigh that. FOARP (talk) 08:03, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Nope, he did not get 300+ support !votes because of Framgate, but because of all of his years of very good adminning here, the effect of Framgate was quite the opposite, with a large part of the oppose !votes being because of him standing up to WMF. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 11:21, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

He evidently did get 300+ support !votes - as well as 100+ oppose !votes - as a direct consequence of Framgate, without which there would not be an RfA on which to comment. Leaky caldron (talk) 11:33, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Faulty logic. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 11:54, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Actually, in my view Leaky caldron has been extremely and correctly logical, which is why I cited him in my oppose. Jusdafax (talk) 12:47, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

It is faulty logic. Floquenbeam wasn't forced to run the gauntlet a second time because of Framgate, it was his own choice to do so, and he would have gotten a huge number of support !votes also if he had chosen to get "reconfirmed" through a new RfA (which is an option that is open to any and all admins), even if it hadn't been for Framgate. The only difference between this RfA and a hypothetical "normal reconfirmation RfA" is that we now have a large number of oppose !votes that are directly related to Framgate, and that we wouldn't have had in a hypothetical "normal reconfirmation RfA". - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 13:16, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

FOARP, your opinion is bad and you should feel bad. It's complete horseshit to invalidate the support as the result of "riding on a wave of popularity as a result of the FRAM drama". Floq was already well known, popular and widely respected within the community when they originally ran for RfA a decade ago, attaining WP:100 support with a mere 3500 edits to their name. Since then, Floq has been consistently active within the community and was probably one of the most popular and well-known and least controversial admins. The fact that this is at a 74% does not show that Floq was a bad admin who's now riding a wave of support. It shows the opposite. There is not a single fucking diff in the oppose section demonstrating inappropriate behavior unrelated to the Fram drama, and yet this is in the discretionary range. It's astounding that you have the audacity to invalidate 3/4's of the community when the opposition could not present a single problematic diff across a decade of adminship. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 00:13, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

From what I see FOARP is right. Also heck I had a diff in my oppose about inappropriate behavior. So did several others so you a flat wrong there as well. What is astounding though is given his fuckup with the office action he got this far. But is seems 3 out of 4 people agree with breaking the bright line rule for no apparent rule to accomplish basically nothing. Who'd of guessed? PackMecEng (talk) 02:05, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Nah. My !vote was about Floq as an administrator, not another 'Fram-vote'. Others may have supported or opposed because of Framgate, but the larger proportion voted on the basis of his admin history (going by the comments made). FOARP is wide of the mark with their comment. - SchroCat (talk) 05:45, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

So, Black Kite speaks out against personal attacks in this RfA, you take the side of those making personal attacks, and Floq obviously takes Black’s side, you then diff that and claim that it is an example of why there are behavioral problems, directly ignoring the fact that none of the opposes themselves were substantiated to begin with? Unconvincing argument, PME. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 12:23, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Is that what you see? I saw it as Floq supporting the kind of behavior Black Kite was doing. Which no one should be doing. You notice other opposes liked that as well. PackMecEng (talk) 14:31, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

I mean, Black Kite made it clear that he was sardonically commenting on unsubstaniated opposition, I.e. personal attacks. That’s not “problematic behavior”, and agreeing with it as Floq did is not problematic behavior either. You’d think once that situation developed we’d start seeing diffs, but no, all we have is the bizarre retroactive “offense” that is Floq agreeing that aspersions were being cast, which they objectively were. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 15:14, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

They were valid concerns that are common to RFA. That is not what a personal attack or aspersion is. What Black Kit did was a support per these jerks kind of statement, even pinging them to nicely rub it in. Then when called on it proceeded to act like they did. Things like I presume it's the Trump thing with people like you, isn't it? or This isn't turning into a learning experience for you, is it? are not really appropriate anywhere, let alone a RFA. Then Floq went to Black Kit's talk and said good job on all that. Even including the bizarre "people who count" comment which gained him more oppose votes. So yeah it is hard not to take what he said as an endorsement of the unsubstantiated harassment and civility issues Black Kite was doing. That is all a big red flag. PackMecEng (talk) 18:33, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks User:PackMecEng for backing me up. User talk:Swarm, your comment is an example of why so many people were hesitant to vote oppose knowing they were going to get attacked for doing so, because many of the supporters seemingly were of the opinion that there was no valid basis on which anyone could oppose FLoq's nomination and therefore they didn't need to assume good faith and could use swearing and uncivil language to attack them. This page isn't for rehashing the RFA but in answer to your point about no-one citing diffs of Floq's bad behaviour, Floq admitted to bad behaviour in his nom so they didn't have to. FOARP (talk) 15:29, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Who'd of guessed? Literally anybody who didnt buy the silent majority nonsense. nableezy - 18:40, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Previous experience

"I will be taking the previous experience supports into account, but with less weight than those who explained themselves."

Would very much like some clarification on what User:DeltaQuad means by this comment. There is surely no better metric by which to judge a candidate for adminship than their previous tenure as an administrator; have those of us who voted based on this reasoning "not explained ourselves"? And finally why delegitimise only support voters when there are "previous experience" based rationales in the oppose section too? – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 06:40, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

(+1) - That's a very weird comment, in my eyes. ~ Winged Blades^Godric 07:33, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

(+1) - I was tempted to explain myself more when others did, but resisted, thinking what if all did that, we have plenty to read anyway. I explained myself more on a talk page, which is meantioned in #1 oppose. I also provided a link in my RfA statement to where I explained myself more. Actually I think the crats could shorten their work not looking at what I wrote but Opabinia regalis. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:01, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

(-1) If all you said was "support per experience" (or words to that effect) then you did not explain what about his experience led you to support him, and so your vote will naturally carry less weight that a detailed support or oppose explaining what it was about his experience that led you to vote the way you did. FOARP (talk) 08:08, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

(+1) FOARP, your interpretation would be fine if that is how it is usually done, and I'm sure many people would have then expounded on their rationales (I certainly would have said much more). However, it is not how things are usually done. - Sitush (talk) 08:47, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

"support per experience" is not "support per nom" and cannot fall under the same rule that they are agreeing with the nom. FOARP (talk) 08:50, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I think that should have been made clear as a requirement since, effectively, it is support per nom. - Sitush (talk) 08:55, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Is it? Because a number of support votes disagreed with the self-nom (or at least its tone), but stated that Floq's experience was enough to pass them (e.g., support no. 27, 132). I think reading a vote based on experience (e.g., support no. 28) as necessarily an endorsement of the nom is reading something into it which isn't there. FOARP (talk) 09:01, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

It has never been the case that extended rationales have been considered a requirement. It has long been the case that opposes need some sort of rationale. I'm not saying this is ideal but it is how it is and Amanda seems to be unilaterally adjusting that convention. - Sitush (talk) 09:09, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

You're trying to apply a rule intended for a single situation - where the supporter didn't give a reason for supporting - to a very different situation in which the supporter did give a reason, it just wasn't a well-thought-out one. Not all bad support arguments can claim the benefit of the nom, if that were the case then every support vote would be read as "per nom" which can hardly be right when so many Support-votes disagreed with the nom in this case. FOARP (talk) 11:12, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• This was a real concern. I'd be perfectly game for a policy change to require at least some explanation of support (!)votes. But at the moment it says they don't need to, so changing after the votes are in is unfair. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:34, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
• As Dweller notes in his own crat-argument, support !voters have been traditionally spared with the liberty of writing extensive rationales and it's not upon Amanda to change that. Also, the experience of someone who has been an ex-arbitrator, had nearly no valid/actionable complaints in his years of adminning over highly volatile territories and remained entirely in good standing prior to Framgate, does not need any detailed clarification apart from a mild nod. Floq's body of work speaks for itself and choosing to describe the benefits of it, is an exercise in futility for the mere sake of it.∯WBG^converse 10:36, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

(+1) RfA is essentially asking the community, "Do you think this person would make a good administrator, enough so that we should make them one?" In most RfAs, we use all sorts of proxy measures to try to assess this question. In this one, we have direct proof of their qualities as an admin. Discounting those opinions relying on direct proof in favour of ones that try to use the traditional proxy measures is weird. GoldenRing (talk) 13:04, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

(+1) Pretty much what GoldenRing (and others above) say. If we were to translate this line of thinking to "article space" we would refute the original declaration of intent with WP:CRYSTAL. "previous experience supports" are tangibles we can see; in that we have seen how Floq admins. I could be one of those who explained themselves. til I was blue in the face - it's still hypothetical vs. reality. I prefer my 'crats to deal in reality please. Now I don't mean to be insulting to Amanda in the least (I think she's one of our best assets to the project), but I am confused by that line of thinking. (if she would have replace "less" with "more" - THEN I would understand it .. and agree) — Ched :  ?  — 14:54, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Per GoldenRing and everyone else. If we're going to change the rules on what needs to be said to make a support count, then we need to let people know what the expectations are. But I haven't seen evidence that anyone wants to change the rules. OTOH, I would have no problem if Amanda had said something slightly different, along the lines that crats have traditionally been trusted to use their own judgment for those relatively rare RfAs that wind up in the discretionary zone. - Dank (push to talk) 15:21, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes this is a rather concerning comment from Amanda and I'd appreciate some clarification.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 15:23, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

In fact I would go further, thinking about this some more. A few of the opposes essentially said, "Well, I don't see any reason to treat this RfA any differently to any others and I'm sticking to my usual RfA criteria." These opposes should be discounted, IMO (I mean weighed less heavily, not discarded); they are essentially saying, "We might have a decade of performance as an admin to assess this person's ability on, but I'm going to ignore that and stick to my not-very-good proxies for admin ability instead." I'm thinking of opposes such as #16 and #18. I actually have a lot more sympathy for those who oppose because they didn't like Floq's FRAM-related actions: I disagree with them, but I think that is opposition based on clearly observable facts relevant to administration. I think the crats will need to be very careful here not to discount these types of opposes because they disagree with their view of WP:FRAM. GoldenRing (talk) 15:44, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

The way I read it is more along the lines of if you voted "I like how they work" vs "I like how they work because of X". The one giving an explanation should be given more weight. Also the no rational needed is generally a support + sig vote, which is understood to be per nom. The votes she is talking about is not that, at least that is my impression. PackMecEng (talk) 15:57, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• Hey, I'd like to weigh on on something here. I voted Support and didn't add anything to it and I will tell you all why. Because I didn't want for my reasons to get dissected and/or attacked in this particular high-visibility RFA. I just wanted to vote. Has anyone considered the possibility that maybe voters just don't want to have to explain themselves? I just wanted to say "yeah, Floq has my vote to be an admin." - that is all. Maybe I didn't want to slay more pixels, maybe I thought I couldn't add anything more to the mountains of text, maybe whatever. Geez, if I had realized my vote could actually mean less than others who supported or opposed with sentences/paragraphs added to their vote maybe I would have added some specificity.

You know...sometimes an RFA can be uncomfortable for Opposers/Supporters as other folks jump in to question your judgement. I've seen it happen and that's one reason why I don't participate in RFAs very much. Shearonink (talk) 16:44, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

What I am trying to say here is that in my case it actually took me a lot of personal courage to post my vote thoughts to this particular RfA-discussion because of the fireworks/jumping on posts/general mayhem I have seen erupt on other RfAs. Gee, if only I had realized my vote thoughts distilled down into a single word might be discounted/could be discounted/would probably be discounted because it perhaps wasn't detailed enough I might have added a "per [whomever]" to my post. Shearonink (talk) 00:07, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Except that we, as a community, recently reaffirmed that it's not a vote. It's a discussion. If you don't want to explain yourself, that's your prerogative, but striking the balance between making things comfortable for participants, as you suggest it should be (and I agree), and making it a discussion is what the crats are attempting to balance. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:12, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Barkeep49, just for the sake of clarity, could you post the link to that discussion? Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 18:04, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

SchroCat, Sure it's here (and I'll note that I've indeed actually already linked to this discussion on this page but this page has had a lot of discussion in a relatively short period of time). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:07, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

That's great, thanks very much. (And yes, I missed the link above) Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 18:26, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Yep, exactly. It's the same thing when I close an AfD. If someone just says "Keep" or "Delete", I barely even notice that they participated at all. If they provided a rationale behind why they think the article should be kept or deleted, that gives me something to consider when evaluating the discussion, not the vote. And yes, that means that your rationale may be disputed. That's part of the consensus-building process; your participation is not required in that discussion beyond the initial statement. But the closer will want to know "Why do you think that should be the result?". Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:21, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't think AfDs are comparable to RfAs in that regard. In AfDs every participant is expected to give a rationale based on established content policies governing whatever reason the article is being proposed for deletion. No such policies and guidelines really exist detailing the criteria a user has to meet to become an admin; everyone is allowed to have their own opinion on that. I once got called out for a bare RfA support vote in one of these crat chats, and since then I made this subpage which I link to whenever typing out a rationale seems tediously awkward, and I consider that as good a rationale as any other. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 19:58, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I have sympathy for this perspective but it's not the way RfA currently works. All different ways we could run RfAs have pros and cons but I do feel that it may be worth having discussion about rethinking our approach to !voting. I have to say that our real issue is that (in all RfAs, not just this one) there's a real chilling effect that discourages people from opposing because so many of the opposes get badgered—either for not explaining in excruciating detail, or for saying it in enough detail that someone can cherry-pick a line out of context and mock the user for it. I personally hate registering comments in fora like these because it makes me anxious that I'll get a ping notification and attached to it is a nasty comment. (Indeed that happened in this case, with someone saying "support per [my oppose, and others]", and when I then gave what was a clearly solicited reply—albeit one I regret—I was told off as an example of "all that is rotten with the process". No-one criticised the person for deliberately antagonising opposers.) — Bilorv (// W A K E U P //) 20:09, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Let's not pretend that "badgering" doesn't go both ways - because it surly does. Personally I've always felt that once you've made your vote, any and ALL comments should go to the talk page. It is better now than it once was - but it could be a hard and fast rule too. You can always ping someone if you want them to explain themselves. @Filelakeshoe: (<-- see). Just wanted to say that I've seen a lot of folks who had pre-made pages (usually x-number of edits, no blocks etc) and vote with "per my requirements" with a link back to that page. But yours is unique, I like it a lot. — Ched :  ?  — 22:09, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Badgering can go both ways but it rarely does. It's usually targetted at opposers. I have no personal vendetta here as I'm talking about all RfAs in general, not just this one, and I think I support at least as many RfAs as I oppose. — Bilorv (// W A K E U P //) 22:58, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

In my experience, Bilorv is historically correct. Support !voters are rarely pressed to explain the meaning of their !vote. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:05, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Indeed, and that's largely the way things work in real life; if you go apply for a marriage license and the clerk says "here you go," there's no reason to ask them "why?" If, on the other hand they say "no, I don't believe you should have one," it's quite reasonable to ask them what the problem is, much as they might prefer you to just shrug and go away so they don't feel "badgered." 28bytes (talk) 00:37, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

This isn't going anywhere good. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:33, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
A terrible, invalid, bogus, & even ridiculously low-quality analogy. (Is this the level WP-thinking has devolved to??) --IHTS (talk) 00:45, 31 July 2019 (UTC) How so? What could you possibly disagree with? ~Swarm~ {sting} 01:03, 31 July 2019 (UTC) I found the analogy quite clever actually – actually much better than bearing the responses of someone whose username starts with Ihardlythinkso? Lourdes 01:08, 31 July 2019 (UTC) Absolutely hilarious. Loved it. Dr. K. 01:21, 31 July 2019 (UTC) Oh plz. --IHTS (talk) 01:17, 31 July 2019 (UTC) Well, if you're going to claim on your user page that you are a Wikifairy, then at least talk to Santa once before leaving these comments. Lourdes 01:25, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

It's not a great analogy, since there are specific requirements for a marriage license that are pretty cut-and-dried. A building permit might be a little more fitting, since there can be more leeway for interpretation there, but again it falls down because it's up to the petitioner to make the case that all of the requirements are met. For requests for administrative privileges, there are no fixed requirements to be evaluated. Something like a promotion board is probably a better analogy. When determining promotions, supporters do indeed have to make their case to convince others of the worthiness of the candidate. isaacl (talk) 01:40, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

RFA is more like a job interview, or perhaps an interview for suitability as a volunteer(!). The licence analogy is not helpful: Floquenbeam is not asking for a procedural issuance via WP:BN. Fair, 28bytes? AGK ■ 07:22, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

@AGK: Sure, we can use an interview analogy. As a real-life member of a non-profit board, from time to time we have to bring in new board members. When a current board member says "I agree that this person would be a good fit," that tells us what we need to know about where that board member stands. If instead they say "no, we should absolutely not add this person," then of course we will ask for further elaboration; we need to know what their concern is. That said, RfA is such a strange beast that no analogy will be able to capture it perfectly. The broader point is that when someone requests something and is told "no", it's human nature to ask "well, why not?" 28bytes (talk) 14:01, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

I think the broader points are 1. your personal experience notwithstanding, there are certainly cases in the real world where supporters will be queried for their rationales; and 2. consensus doesn't scale upwards, as it's impossible for tens of people, never mind hundreds, to have a discussion. If everyone posted a full rationale, it would be highly redundant, and just add more words to slog through without truly adding value. By focusing on individual voters, rather than determining a consensus view on pros and cons of granting administrative privileges, the RfA process encourages arguing with each voter one by one. This results in confrontations and animosity. (But I appreciate my views on this have not garnered much support, as evidenced by the most recent big request for comments on reforming the RfA process.) isaacl (talk) 15:55, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

FYI: Blocked Sock

One !vote from Rong Qiqi has been discounted as being placed from a now blocked, confirmed sock puppet account. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:50, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

"Absolutely"

Just on the off chance that the 'crats have any concern about the meaning of my support !vote, which was expressed as "Absolutely, and with pleasure", what I intended it to signify was something on the order of

Support - In my experience Floq has been one of the best admins on Wikipedia, but in addition to that, he stood up for the community at a time when its ability to regulate itself was threatened by actions taken by the WMF bureaucracy. I believe I said at the time that his action more then merited a !vote from me if he should need to stand again for admin, but even without his courageous act in the Fram mess, he would merit re-confirmation as a matter of course, based on his record, in my opinion. I support his reconfirmation absolutely, and with great pleasure.

Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:02, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Beyond My Ken, sorry your clarification has been acknowledged and denied and your !vote shall be discounted. Please file all appeals and complaints to the circular filing cabinet over there. Thank you. --> 🗑️. JK of course. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 00:42, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Ah, durn it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:55, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

A brief note to our crats

For clarification my support was based on Floq's record as an admin, which I continue to believe is outstanding. While I remain ambivalent about their actions during Framgate, I also note that it was an incredibly difficult moment in the history of the project. In the end we all had to do what we thought right under the circumstances. In almost any other situation his actions would have caused me to seriously question his continued qualification for the bit. And some, understandably, have taken that line. All I can say is review the RfA and do what you think is right. I have confidence in your judgement and will respect your decision however it goes down. I will have no further comment on this subject. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:10, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Struck part of my comment per MJL's very cogent point of order below. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:45, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

@Ad Orientem: Thank you for that. I'm actually really humbled now... –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 07:54, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

A briefer note to our crats

What Ad Orientem said. Especially the confidence in your good judgement and respect for the decisions you make parts. It's a tough job, and that's why you get the big bucks!>) Paine Ellsworth, ed. ^put'r there  01:40, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

All in favor of doubling their pay, say "aye"! CThomas³ (talk) 04:06, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Double pay is still nothing, so aye –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 07:51, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Point of Order

I really don't want to see this talk page to start becoming the place where people clarify their support !votes. The RFA ended, and this isn't the place to rehash it. It's unfair to the crats to have to make them read additional comments outside the RFA. Further, I don't think it is fair out of mere sake of form. I sat on the fence for a majority of this nomination. Why should I be told the things that could've convinced me now? –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 02:09, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

@Ad Orientem: That goes double for you!! You're someone whose opinion I highly respect. If you had provided any rationale, I know my participation in the RFA would have been different. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 02:21, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

People wouldn't clarify their supports without having been told that if unexplained they might not "count". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:00, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

RFA is a discussion and consensus building process (Per recent RFC). I really don't know what to say to that. Unexplained !votes (literally not-votes) count full well until we get into the discretionary range. Then they become useless to weighing consensus.
This system preceded me joining Wikipedia, and it'll likely be around after I'm gone. I don't even particularly agree with it. It's just what we have, I guess. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 07:51, 31 July 2019 (UTC) Stricken: 02:55, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

This whole system of "consensus" in RfAs and cratchat supervotes to determine whether "consensus" exists in a binary yes/no choice with a large amount of opposition is just weird. Nobody sane would ever design a system like that. And anyway, trust (which is what RfA is about) is personal, not something that can be determined by arguments leading to a consensus. But we can't change this system because people tend to believe it will be replaced by something even worse. Back to the point: I think explaining your reasoning here (or anywhere else) is totally fine, and the crats are free to ignore it and look only at the RfA page itself. —Kusma (t·c) 09:26, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

FWIW I'm reading every word here, as I do every time there's a CratChat. I think I've shown plenty of times that I'm persuadable by good argument and I'm watching this page for good arguments about interpreting the RfA. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:08, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Hmmm. I don't think you'll find them here, Dweller. ——SerialNumber54129 09:21, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, what actually IS the purpose of this page? I think a header with instructions/advice would have helped.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:14, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 02:52, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

@Dweller: I'm new here if it wasn't obvious. In that case, I completely disagree with your assessment that implies this is a normal reconfirmation RFA. Reconfirmation RFAs are supposed to have voluntary outcomes. If Swarm (as an example) puts himself up for reconfirmation, then what happens next is still voluntary. Swarm wouldn't start by resigning the tools, but he'd start by opening up the RFA and waiting for the results. The RFA could then still be closed with a 3-to-1 opposed result, but Swarm wouldn't be forced to resign the tools. My guess would be that, historically, leniency was afforded to re-confirmation RFAs due to this reason. However, I could be wrong.
I'll clarify that I think one can reasonably interpret this RFA as consensus in whatever way suits them. I just don't agree that leniency should be applied in this exceptional case. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 02:52, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

assessing early support rationales

I think there are a couple of issues here that I don't know how crats should assess. In this RfA, opposition grew; later !votes were much more likely to be oppose. I think this is natural. A lot of folks, knowing that an oppose vote will attract hostile attention, may not feel safe posting an oppose until enough others have done so. And early support !voters, seeing the current tally well within the 'easy consensus' range, don't think a detailed support rationale is necessary. As the RfA wore on, supporters were much, much more likely to provide rationale. Again I don't have any advice for how to take this into account, but it's perhaps something that crats should at minimum keep in mind when assessing support !votes, especially earlier ones. --valereee (talk) 11:19, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

The instructions don't require a lot of words in a support rationale (historically). We take it for granted that supporters agree with enough of the nomination statement to support. I certainly could have been much more voluminous. Also, as opposes occur, it becomes necessary to present counter arguments-- stronger rationales for supporters later on. On the other hand, no one wants to appear to be harassing or attacking opposers, so one (certainly I did) may curb one's response. (Note to crats I can't emphasize enough that ten years without a problem till these extraordinary recent events should count in favor of having confidence in the candidate. Do we lose a truly incredible admin over a single mistake that will not be repeated?)  Dlohcierekim (talk) 11:33, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

The issue here is... Do we let an admin (at the time) off the hook for knowingly violating the ToS? As a former admin for a mmo game, if I were to disagree with something more powerful people enacted and then change it, I would be fired without the chance to return. I see no reason why anything different should happen on WP. Noah^Talk 11:49, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

This is an encyclopaedia, not an mmo game or social media site. No-one violated the ToS. Let’s keep this in perspective. - SchroCat (talk) 12:05, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Your example is not at all compareable to what happened here, since en-WP has traditionally been independent of WMF, and what happened was that the WMF (or more precisely a division within the WMF, not the WMF board) tried to grab power that they have previously never had. Without prior discussion. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 12:10, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) When an army of a country is overthrowing the current dictator, that army is violating the 'terms of use' of the dictator. Is it by definition bad? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:11, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Hurricane Noah, have you noted that the most powerful people (from a very technical and legal sense) of the mmo game that you perceive Wikipedia to be, unanimously believes that FRAMGATE should not affect restoration of Floq's sysop bits in any manner? ∯WBG^converse 12:32, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Last time I checked, aiding a sanctioned user by unblocking them is a TOS violation. The most powerful people said that Framgate should have no effect because they were forced into submission after an army of people came out. Unblocking someone without all the facts (especially from the accusers) shows poor judgment on Floq’s part. Noah^Talk 12:42, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

From WP:Office actions: On the subject of modifying office actions, the Foundation states "Wikimedia administrators and others who have the technical power to revert or edit office actions are strongly cautioned against doing so. Unauthorized modifications to office actions will not only be reverted, but may lead to sanctions by the Foundation, such as revocation of the rights of the individual involved. When in doubt, community members should consult the Foundation member of staff that performed the office action, or their line manager. However, details regarding an office action are only shared to the extent that they do not compromise the safety of users, the public or the project." .. it is not a TOS violation, it is something that those who have that power are strongly cuationed against. Not the same. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:56, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

[2] Care to point out where in the Terms of use it says unblocking a user is a violation? - SchroCat (talk) 12:57, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

I assume that you were a part of the BoT discussions or possess certain psychic abilities? ∯WBG^converse 13:21, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

The Wikimedia community and its members may also take action when so allowed by the community or Foundation policies applicable to the specific Project edition, including but not limited to warning, investigating, blocking, or banning users who violate those policies. This mentions blocking, so therefore it can be argued that unblocking is also a part of this. My understanding of this specific section is that foundation policies and community policies did not support unblocking, so this was a ToS violation. Noah^Talk 13:25, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Then you have misread the situaton. The Terms of use do not cover unblocking at all. They show what areas of power the community has, as distinct from the foundation. There was no violation of the terms of service here. - SchroCat (talk) 13:55, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, y'all

Do we have a 'crat barnstar? Having to wade through this mass is more work than anyone needs.  Dlohcierekim (talk) 11:36, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Not to mention that judging by this page so far, any possible result arrived at by any possible means will almost certainly be logically, morally, procedurally and mathematically flawed. Scribolt (talk) 12:32, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Being a Crat isn't that different, in that respect, to be an admin. Don't you repeatedly use your tools mistakenly? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 13:00, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

No need for a barnstar - I have it on good authority they'll be getting a 100% pay rise in the very near future! --kingboyk (talk) 02:47, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

• I have a lot of sympathy for the 'crats here. This is one of those situations where no matter what you do, someone somewhere is going to be pissed off about it. Cosmic Sans (talk) 13:14, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
• So far I've found it outright enjoyable to read through their line of thinking on this. We have some very impressive 'crats - which I suppose is a credit to the community. Hmmmm - not often I speak of the Wikipedia community as a whole in good terms - but there it is. — Ched :  ?  — 17:39, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

  I agree Ched - its not just wading through, it is making sense of all 456 contributors where many have been at pains to explain and clarify their views. Even though I opposed, it doesn't seem to me to be any ground for complaining that they have not been dilligent, used magical maths or misread the consensus, contrary to some of the legitimate concerns expressed above. Having a non-controversial close to a controversial RfA is a remarkable achievement. Find bruce (talk) 00:16, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

• Agreed with all those above – thanks to the crats for their hard work! — Bilorv (// W A K E U P //) 18:29, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Neutral !Vote comments

Can 'crats involved in assessing this case confirm that Neutral !votes are being taken into account per WP:RFA? Specifically: "numbered Support and Oppose comments are considered. Neutral comments are ignored for calculating an RfA's percentage, but they (and other relevant information) are considered for determining consensus by the closing bureaucrat. In nominations where consensus is unclear, detailed explanations behind Support or Oppose comments will have more impact than positions with no explanations or simple comments such as "yep" and "no way"." Leaky caldron (talk) 11:41, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

• The 'crats already know that, and will no doubt take that into account (people here don't elect just anyone to be a bureaucrat, only those whose judgement and fairness people here have trust in...). So how about letting the 'crats spend their time on evaluating the consensus in the RfA, rather than answering meaningless questions here? - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 11:59, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) How about you allow me to ask any damn question I like? I don't see you hounding any of the other participants on this page. Leaky caldron (talk) 12:29, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
    • "Hounding you"? I'm just replying to comments that are totally off target, no matter who made them, so if you get more replies than others it's only because you're more off target than anyone else here is. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 12:34, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
      • For the final time - stop following me about and remarking on my comments. PLEASE! You did it yesterday and I let it go. You are doing it again. You are not a 'crat and I am not interesting in your non-relevant opinion of my contributions here. Leaky caldron (talk) 13:09, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
        • It's not up to you to decide who can and who can't answer your posts here, and answering multiple posts of yours here, on this page, is not in any way hounding (if I had followed you around, and commented on every talk page you comment on, you might have been able to build a case, but the only place where I have responded to your posts is here...). So stop. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 13:15, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
          • @Thomas.W: If you get asked by a user to leave them alone, then the sensible thing to do is oblige. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 02:28, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

@MJL: Are you seriously saying that I should stop pointing out logical fallacies (see "Math" section above; Leaky caldron obviously hadn't even bothered to read the self-nom statement in the RfA this discussion is about...) and deliberate misrepresentations (of what Dweller wrote in their 'crat statement) in Leaky caldron's posts just because they dislike being corrected? That's not how it works in a debate. This is the only page, and time, where I, to best of my memory, have ever responded to a post by Leaky caldron, so any claims about hounding are totally unfounded, and you don't get away with erroneous claims and statements simply by telling another editor they're not allowed to reply to the posts. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 05:44, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Reply on my talk. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 19:31, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

• Pandering procedural arguments to the Crats is not a good look, no matter what side you’re on. And I say that to those arguing that support !votes without rationales should be discounted as well. It just seems desperate. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 12:27, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
  • We've already had one 'crat simply vote counting..... Thanks. As for pandering - no idea what you mean. There are plenty of wiki-lawyers elsewhere on this page. Go and badger them. Leaky caldron (talk) 12:32, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
    • "simply vote counting" isn't an accurate representation of what Dweller wrote in their statement. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 12:59, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
      • Indeed it is not. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 13:02, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
        • No. It's my interpretation and I'm not the only one to have expressed concern about it. Leaky caldron (talk) 13:03, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
          • You're welcome to take whatever interpretation you like, even if unfounded. I see that AGK raised a questioning eyebrow above, where he seemed to be concerned I might be vote-counting. Although he didn't post again here, he was kind enough to ping me with a thanks when I pointed out the policy page footnote that reflects longstanding community consensus and Crat behaviour, on the main discussion page. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 13:30, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
            • You know, I am not sure why you are persisting with this. Your "promote" decision is done and dusted (you didn't have much time to elaborate as much as you would have liked). And yes, you have seen the concern expressed and responded to the Arbcom member who was concerned (not to me or anyone else). That's all good. Perfectly understandable - always nod to those in a position of power. To be clear, I am not expecting YOU to consider the point I have made about Neutral !Votes which is on the RFA page under the heading "Discussion, decision, and closing procedures". That ship has obviously sailed. But I assume, unlike others here, you do not object to me asking a question concerning Neutral !Votes? Or do you? 'Crats are not infallible, as we have seen from controversial decisions in the past. Interestingly, no one on the project page has yet mentioned "neutral". Support 12, Oppose 3, Neutral 0. No harm in asking the question then. Leaky caldron (talk) 14:11, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
              • As always, I read every word of the RfA, its talk page and continue to read this page and the main discussion page. I don't object to being asked questions about my interpretation of consensus, I welcome questions, comments and constructive criticism as I am open to changing my mind. It is after all a Cratchat. Your comments about AGK are revolting and I won't respond to them. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:07, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Again, this seems like a desperate attempt to tilt an RfA by encouraging crats to interpret neutrals as opposers. Whether or not you’re aware of it, that’s all this looks like. Don’t whine when you’re not taken seriously. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 15:09, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

The neutral comments are what they are. The RFA page I have quoted is what it is - approved by the community no doubt. I am what I am - yes I opposed your friend. You are what you are a supporter - and of course and Admin. As for being taken seriously, thankfully that isn't down to you. Leaky caldron (talk) 15:16, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Leaky caldron, may I respectfully ask what you expect/hope that the 'crats take away from the neutral comments? From a personal perspective, I'm not sure how much weight I would give to those !voters whose arguments couldn't sway even themselves one way or another. Agreed that there are several thoughtful points made, some of which were referred to by other support and oppose !votes. Beyond this, though, what do you think they should be considering? CThomas³ (talk) 20:51, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Nothing more or less than required by WP:RFA....that they "are considered for determining consensus by the closing bureaucrat.". Simple really. Finally one of them, correctly, has! Leaky caldron (talk) 20:59, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, Leaky caldron, at least one bureaucrat mentions considering the Neutral votes which is what I think is at the root of your question. As a Neutral, I could neither Oppose nor Support but I wanted my rationale to be included in the chat and I think it is. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:38, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Reasons for opposes

@UninvitedCompany: you say in your statement that the "vast majority of the opposition was related to the candidate's actions in re the matter of Fram". I think this is an incorrect assessment. Although many people note the Fram actions, and for some that's sufficient, the opposition goes way beyond that. The candidate's entire recent demeanour, and indeed the flippant nature of the RFA itself with its unabashed admission of not wishing to follow community norms or answer the three standard questions (even when urged to do so) was clearly an equal or greater factor in many of the opposes. Similarly, Xaosflux talks about whether the community trusts Floq to exercise administrator access appropriately in the future and concludes there is no consensus that they would not... but again, there is significant opposition on this score related to the candidate's current attitude. Make no mistake, Floq was a great admin in the past and will probably be one again in the future, I like Floq a lot and I didn't vote in the RFA because I couldn't really make my mind up. But I have to admit I'm surprised that the crats are brushing aside such a large volume of concern from very experienced editors. If I were a crat, I don't think I could possibly see a consensus to promote in this one at this time, the concerns are just too great. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 09:36, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

I think it's a little severe to say that there's no possibility of seeing a consensus here. There was high turnout for supporters and opposers alike, but the RFA ended at the high end of the discretionary range. A couple percentage points higher and it would be an automatic pass. Cosmic Sans (talk) 13:45, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

I suppose so, but the recent RexxS promotion at 64% show that actually there isn't such thing as an automatic result any more. And rightly so, the crats are supposed to look deeply at the rationales and reasoning. And also treat people the same irrespective of who they are - a never-been-an-admin editor who filed an RFA like this one would likely have been lauged out of court. I don't deny the support was strong, and certainly the crats have read the whole discussion, but I think myself they're getting a bit too hung up on the percentage and the high number of supports and not actually analysing whether there really is solid community support for promotion. The sheer volume of opposition, and not just from people who have a beef with Fram, but from highly-respected admins too should be giving more pause for thought than it is. Like I say it's unlikely any real harm will come of this promotion, and I was neutral myself so I don't really mind if Floq is promoted, but something doesn't quite sit easy with me about it, that's all. I wish Floq all the best, anyway. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 13:56, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Ironically, Floq is better off at just under 74% than he would be at just over 75%. If the RfA was just above the nominal discretionary range, people would be arguing that this is a special case and we should have a crat chat regardless. And once the crats bend the rules they're under pressure to justify doing so, which of course will mean looking extra hard for reasons not to promote. This is exactly what we saw in the RexxS RfA but in the other direction. But an RfA inside, but at an extreme end, of the discretionary range gets an automatic crat chat and so there's no motive to push it one way or the other. Reyk _YO! 14:43, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm wondering about that last comment - will all future RFAs in the discretionary zone go to crat chats? I can think of one hypothetical scenario where in my view it isn't needed "this RFA has fallen from 96% support to 69% in the 24 hours since "that incident", and I am closing as no consensus to promote". In this case there was a very slight downward trend in the last couple of days they took it from 77% to 74%, but otherwise this was a large RFA that ended at the top of the discretionary range. So far the crat chat is going 5 nil for promote, would a similar RFA in the future automatically go for a crat chat? ϢereSpielChequers 18:47, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

@WereSpielChequers: In fact, Floq 2 didn't just suffer a slight downturn in the last few days, it had a steady drop throughout its lifetime, as more heavyweights came out in the oppose column. IIRC the % started off on day 1 somewhere in the 90s and dropped steadily through the 80s and into the 70s thereafter. One could construct a hypothesis that it would have dropped much closer to 65 if it had been allowed to go on for several more days. This is just an observation, mind you, obviously I wouldn't attempt to argue against Floq's promotion based on such speculation. The length of RFAs is tightly bound and everyone contributing knows that. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 11:33, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

The combination of an early wave of supports with the later arrival of the Opposse is normal for non unanimous RFAs, provided the candidate isn't a Not Now case with only a couple of thousand edits contributed or less than a year of activity. So I'm not surprised that the candidate started high and then the opposition arrived. But my understanding was that the percentage rarely changed much over the last three days, though I suppose in this case there was the extra attraction to participate in that it was on the edge of the discretionary zone. ϢereSpielChequers 13:06, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Yep, fair enough.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:29, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

@Amakuru: While the matter is now closed, I did see your comment earlier. I reviewed the RFA today and stand by my comment that the "vast majority of the opposition was related to the candidate's actions in re the matter of Fram." You are correct that many "oppose" voters listed multiple reasons. As I noted in the 'crat chat itself, opposition based on the candidate's actions in re the matter of Fram are legitimately grounded in policy, and I gave those !votes full weight regardless of whether other reasons were also cited. In evaluating consensus, I do not give greater weight to support or opposition simply because multiple reasons are given or based on a subjective reading by me that an oppose is "strong" or "weak" as the inherent subjectivity places me perilously close to supervoting rather than reading consensus. UninvitedCompany 20:17, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

@UninvitedCompany: thanks for your response here, and I can certainly see where you're coming from. The line between admin (or crat) judgement and "supervote" has always been a murky one, and in contentious discussions you very often get these disgruntled arguments from the "losing" side, which will either be "you vote counted", or "you supervoted", depending how the numbers were. I'd like to think that there would be circumstances where the crats would not promote with a 74% tally (or even 76%, come to that, as the RexxS result showed that the discretionary range itself isn't cast in stone), if the strength of argument in opposition were high enough. But from the crats' arguments I can accept that this particular RFA wasn't a legitimate fail-at-74 example. Anwyay, it's all water under the bridge now. A belated welcome back to the corps from me to Floquenbeam, and I look forward to seeing them around the circuit doing their thing as usual.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:51, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Bureaucratic inertia

I know this is a volunteer project and all, but the consensus for promotion has been 5–0 for a while. We seem to be waiting on four crats: @Acalamari:, @DeltaQuad:, @MBisanz: and (possibly) @Primefac:. To leave Floq twisting in the wind like this seems cruel, and if functionaries have become incapable of making timely decisions there's a lot more wrong with WP than this RfA. Miniapolis 23:35, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

@Miniapolis: if this is still going in ~40 hours from now, I think we'll close it down even if there are no further responses. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:42, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Determining consensus requires patience. As forward progress has been made throughout, personally I feel we can continue to be patient. isaacl (talk) 00:00, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

I'd like to take a moment to sympathize with Floq having to wait so long for the 'crat chat to close. Sorry about that. It's a huge amount of text to go over, so I wouldn't be surprised if a fellow bureaucrat intended to get to it after work, but then something came up and they had to put it off to the next day after work, but then couldn't get through the whole thing in one sitting (I couldn't), and had to wait until the following day after work to finish. Or something to that effect. Sorry again for the delay. Useight's Public Sock (talk) 00:34, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Agree, it's about 50,000 words - I had to take a break a few times to avoid getting comment fatigue to ensure that each contribution was given due consideration, entries such as "agree with x and y" usually also meant re-checking back what x and y had said to see which factors the new statement was additionally endorsing. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:41, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm a little behind from my update from yesterday but I'm here. As has been said above, it's a giant page to read even by RfA standards and, in my case, I'm not a fast reader. Acalamari 00:44, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

• FWIW, there is zero concern on my end waiting longer. It isn't a problem for me, and is understandable. @Miniapolis:, thanks for the concern, but I don't feel I'm twisting, and @Usesight:, no apologies necessary. -Floquenbeam (talk) 01:58, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

sigh, repinging @Useight:. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:00, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Bureaucrat toolkit?

The concluding statement at the bottom of /Bureaucrat chat reads, in part, The final decision was that consensus exists to grant Floquenbeam 2 access to the bureaucrat toolkit. Shouldn't Floq be getting the administrator toolkit rather than the bureaucrat levers and switches? I don't think an upgrade was part of the consensus to promote... BlueMoonset (talk) 17:05, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

lmao! @Primefac: see above. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 17:06, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Clearly a mistake; it's User:Aardvark Floquenbeam that wants to be a bureaucrat. -- MelanieN (talk) 17:10, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Indeed, that was who I meant to promote. Primefac (talk) 17:17, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

No backsies, they're an bureaucrat now. –xeno^talk 17:14, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

*pushes up glasses* Technically some sort of half-bureaucrat/half-admin hybrid. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 17:16, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Adminicrat? Bureaustrator? --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:28, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

sigh I guess so. The bank has made an error in your favour, eh? Primefac (talk) 17:17, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

The bank is never so kind with me. Though I use a credit union, so that may explain it. I do like the sound of "bureaustrator"—it rolls trippingly off the tongue. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:32, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

It sounds like the title of an 80s action movie: This year, Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as the Bureaustrator. "'Asta la backlog baby." Coming to a theatre near you. Mr rnddude (talk) 17:44, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

• Things sure are boring around here lately. Perhaps an RFB tomorrow? --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:20, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

  I'm sure you'd pass with 100% support. Primefac (talk) 17:30, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

  @Floquenbeam: Dibs on nominator. Also, your always free to get Swarm to nominate me for RFA if you're looking for an interesting time lol Welcome back! :D –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 17:31, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

• In other news, Floq has officially replaced Jimmy Wales. Congratulations! Cosmic Sans (talk) 20:49, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you

Thanks to the bureaucrats for having invested significant time in reviewing and analysing the underlying RFA. I'd also like to thank the 'crats who elected to recuse in participating. There is a lot to be said for those who recognize that the core purpose of the 'crat chat is to analyse the RFA in a manner that best ensures the confidence of the community in the final decision. Risker (talk) 18:23, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

What Risker said. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:37, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Ditto, and now, let's make like the head goose and get the flock outta here !>) Paine Ellsworth, ed. ^put'r there  23:13, 2 August 2019 (UTC)