Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard: Difference between revisions

Copied from user talk as requested:

Over a year ago I fixed a few dozen errors in nationality. It is "a Jordanian", not "an Jordanian". It is "an Israeli" not "an Israelian" or "a Israeli". I fixed other errors, not just a and an, like: Iraqian to Iraqi ([2] [3]), Arabian to Saudi or Arab ([4] and then fixed [5] [6]), and Israelian ([7] [8])

My edits were already discussed at AN in this discussion. Consensus of the discussion was as put by User:Asartea: "A quick spot check of some of their contributions shows nothing indicating bad-faith in my opinion. Lots of gnomy edits which is probably why they were editing so fast but no POV pushing, vandalism or other bad behavior. Regarding but until they got over 500 they avoided virtually all articles relevant to ARBPIA considering in my vague memories that area is chockfull of warnings and ECP that isn't that abnormal".

Nothing wrong. These even aren't most of my edits. I have made hundreds of edits since, mostly to food articles. I made hundreds of edits before the nationality fixes, mostly to food articles.

I am also Israeli. I am interested in articles in the region.

Now over a year later, HJ Mitchell decided by himself that any editor that fixes this type of grammar error, a instead of an or the other way around, is 90% a sock.

This is against the discussion that already took place a year ago at AN, where such editing was considered natural and helpful.

Minor copyediting is also suggested in Wikipedia:Growth Team features#Newcomer tasks and this project.

I request that the previous discussion be upheld, that HJ Mitchell's action be overtured, and that my rights as an editor be restored.

Free1Soul (talk) 06:40, 15 December 2021 (UTC)}}[reply]

• Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Icewhiz, for whoever wants to go into details.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:20, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I oppose an unblock. The behavior evidence provided at SPI is persuasive. Even if not a sock, this is an editor that made ~500 minor-ish edits and then dove into ARBPIA topics, an editing pattern that we can't allow to continue. Firefangledfeathers 18:55, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is a CU block yes? Can this even be discussed here? Valeince (talk) 18:16, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Strictly speaking, no, but I do not see how this appeal can succeed nothwithstanding--Ymblanter (talk) 18:18, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I dont think this is a CU block, the CU declined to block and the block was behavioral based. User:Maxim could clarify. nableezy - 18:25, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The technical relationship is is a  Possible. This means, based on the CU data alone, that the probability of this account being related to other Icewhiz is equal to that of the accounts being unrelated. The block here is HJ Mitchell's, and thus an ordinary sockpuppetry block, and while not trying to put words in his mouth, is most likely because the behavioural evidence is convincing enough for a block. Maxim_(talk) 20:59, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I would simply block any account that games EC and then dives straight into any controversial area that requires EC to edit, but tht's just me. Black Kite (talk) 19:05, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Black Kite - It's a correct approach. - GizzyCatBella🍁 21:31, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This does look a lot like gaming the system in order to gain EC to me. SQL^{Query Me!} 21:34, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please copy over that this is my first and only account. I was at a Wikipedia workshop in my town over a year ago where the instructor was very angry at some Wikipedia editors but also brought up some useful editing tips. I do not know Yaniv or Icewhiz, I am not them, how can I prove to you I am not them? Those two editors did not edit food articles like I do. Free1Soul (talk) 18:55, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I suggest to unblock with tban on Poland and I/P if it's really Icewhiz he cannot disrupt those areas and if isn't we will gain
  WP:GNOME editor --Shrike (talk) 19:36, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  If consensus forms around an unblock (which I still oppose), I agree with those two tbans being wise. I'd also suggest revocation of EC status. Firefangledfeathers 19:59, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  @Shrike and @Firefangledfeathers - No, that's a bad idea. I have no doubts (zero) that we are dealing with the abuse here. I illustrated that with pieces of evidence. The magnitude of the socking activities in those topic areas and the efforts these barred editors are willing to take to continue is incredible. They will sporadically edit different topics utilizing this account. When the time comes right, they'll appeal. No, there shouldn't be any gap left for potential later use. - GizzyCatBella🍁 22:21, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I am inclined to trust your Icewhiz radar, and HJ Mitchell's. My point was: we should not unblock, but if we do, more than just the two tbans should be considered due to the gaming behavior. Firefangledfeathers 22:44, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Absolutely not; there are so many things wrong with that suggestion that I barely know where to begin. Icewhiz is subject to an ArbComBlock; we are not allowed to overturn that with a simple discussion here. You cannot say "if it's really Icewhiz and we let them back in, that's fine." Icewhiz was banned for extremely serious, sustained real-world harassment, and especially given the obsessive nature of his later behavior (coupled with his willingness to spend huge amounts of time on sleeper accounts), it is unreasonable to expect that he could be trusted in any topic area even if we were permitted to give him the chance you're asking for, which, again, we are not. Beyond that, the blatant way this editor gamed the 30/500 restriction makes it extremely hard to AGF or to trust that they would genuinely abide by the spirit of any further restrictions. Finally, given the extensive use of sleeper accounts, what happens if they behave for six months and then ask for the topic-ban to be removed, while still under suspicion of being Icewhiz? We know that Icewhiz can behave himself for months on end - after all, he nearly got admin status by doing so. --Aquillion (talk) 23:26, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Given the user gamed the 30/500 system, I'm not inclined to unblock. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:30, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Nope - as I understand it, it's a sock of Icewhiz. GoodDay (talk) 21:09, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• To be honest I was never super convinced that this was Icewhiz, but there are definitely Icewhiz socks that would have had me thinking probably not. I think I have, despite my reputation, a fairly high standard for the amount of proof to block for sockpuppetry, and with all due respect to GizzyCatBella who has definitely been spot on with a whole host of socks, I'm not sure that the standard I have for sockpuppetry blocks has actually been met. I dont think the probability of this account being related to other Icewhiz is equal to that of the accounts being unrelated combined with the behavioral evidence is enough to block as Icewhiz. I do think the EC status was gamed, but Ive thought that about a bunch of accounts and been shot down when Ive questioned it before. If it were up to me, Id unblock and revoke EC status and let the editor make 500 substantive edits elsewhere to regain it. As far as topic bans, if it isnt Icewhiz or Yaniv there is no reason to t-ban the account. Right is right and fair is fair here, either this editor is blocked as a sock of a banned user or they are unblocked because they are not believed to be a sock of a banned user, and in the latter case they shouldnt be treated as though they still maybe kinda sorta might be with a topic ban. nableezy - 23:03, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  @Nableezy - Trust me. The current plea text is likely authored by Yaniv, but the account has been set up by Icewhiz. Don't feel bad about this one. I appreciate your integrity, by the way. - GizzyCatBella🍁 00:07, 16 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  @Nableezy - Do you remember this of Yaniv?:

  please copy my appeal/review request over to AN -->[9]

  Do it for me, please..-->[10]

  And look at Free1Soul now:

  Copy my appeal to AN.. -->[11]

  Please, please, please someone copy to..-->[12]

  You copied Yaniv's appeal the last time around too -->[13] :-) GizzyCatBella🍁 02:05, 16 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've a very high regard for GizzyCatBella's sleuthing in this area. Nableezy's argument nonetheless is solid, and above all, fair. It's embarrassing the intensity of socking in this area from, it seems, three distinct but perhaps formally or informally connected persons or groups - as we are obliged to cope with that abuse, the impression, or collateral damage, is that fixing the problem creates an appearance of editors like us 'grouping' against the 'other side' mechanically, a kind of mirroring of the very practices we deplore. Nableezy's caution is in that sense obligatory. My only problem with it is that Free1Soul stated on his page that:-

I was at a Wikipedia workshop in my town over a year ago where the instructor was very angry at some Wikipedia editors but also brought up some useful editing tips.'

It is hard not to read that as an admission of a kind of socking, perhaps unwitting. We know since at least 2009/2011 that Israel or groups within the territories formally organizes 'workshops' designed to train people to push a national or settler agenda, and many people, since mostly blocked for poor practices, flowed in over the years. Free1Soul states that his mentor was upset at a group of wiki editors (probably the usual scoundrels among us denounced repeatedly on blogs and hate sites) and picked up a tip or two how to edit (the quick 'a=an' gambit to mechanize jumping over 500/30 qualification bar?) Aside from this disconcerting picture, forgivable for its naivity, that admission only makes one wonder about the 'instructor', a Yaniv or any number of instructors schooling people to defend their country or its perceived interests by teaching tricks. We certainly need capable Israeli editors (two at least are around who are brilliant, but undramatic - and what marks them out is that, while they may share some general patriotic values with socks, they are, and this is the difference, article builders, whose work shows detailed curiosity about history, and an intense willingness to read large amounts of material,(most of it unpolitical) to make constructive contributions regardless of the conflict. Nishidani (talk) 14:57, 16 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, I must say; I would be extremely interested in hearing more about this "Wikipedia workshop"? Huldra (talk) 20:45, 16 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I won't bore the page with a dozen articles I examined yonks ago, but at least this should be familiar. You must also remember an English Uni project asking editors like myself to fly over and discuss Wikipedia I/P editing for a research project conference. Potential coordinating abuse was obviously the risk, in getting to know fellow editors. I don't think anyone accepted that. I certainly did not. Not the place to discuss this here though. (Nishidani)

Indeed. It is just that Wikipedia (or rather: WMF?) often hold "work-shops" in various cities, or Museums, or whatnot; all in oder to recruit new editors. All quite legit. I have a suspicion though, that was not what Free1Soul attended.

WP:MEAT comes to mind, Huldra (talk) 21:39, 16 December 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

Well, there's no end to my ignorance of the wider world of wikiculture. But if instructors at a WMF workshop could bring in politics, rather than technical advice, we may as well give up on this place. Ahimé.Nishidani (talk) 22:01, 16 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW I would Oppose per GizzyCatBella above. Whilst this is not a CU block, it might as well be one. Icewhiz has a record of operating accounts which lie fairly low, acting as Gnomes and such, for potentially years. I would doubt that Free1Soul would immediately return to ARBPIA articles, rather in typical Icewhiz "upper tier" sock style, will behave themselves quite well for a while (whilst other lower tier throwaway accounts do all the harassing), and try to build a genuinely good reputation. After pulling what they did with Eostrix, it has become apparent that they are capable of making very high quality socks. Would it be an idea to run another CU and see if it can be upgraded to a CU block?

talk) 13:19, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

• Gimiv (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

(Note: this is copied from ANI where I mistakenly posted it earlier and the only edit I made is replacing MR with RM. I am not requesting sanctions against other editors and I

If there's anything that needs doing, it's investigating Gimiv, not reverting this closure. They're an obvious sockpuppet, was previously banned for sockpuppetry, and this is… the third venue that they're forum shopping on? Very suspicious… Sceptre (talk) 23:00, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Gimiv, I'm trying to actually engage in this, but your forum placement is really dubious. Firstly, you mixing up RM and MR was fundamental - I would never have engaged on ANI had it been done correctly. But putting aside that error, your reasoning is functionally dead-wrong on why not to use MR. Handle the move close review first, at the right forum. Then handle different ones. Putting it here, after you were told the correct location, makes it far harder for you to evade a charge of forum shopping. Nosebagbear (talk) 23:15, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nosebagbear, Gimiv did exactly what the other editors said he should do and copy it here. I didn't know what the difference between RM and MR was myself a few hours ago and I don't think familiarity with policies should be required to report misconduct. I would like to see administrators respond to this complaint about senior editors targeting junior editors with stonewalling tactics and twisting policy. This is the third incident of this nature. Francesco espo (talk) 23:42, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, the person who closed the ANI discussion made it very clear that it should go to MR. Secondly, Gimiv is saying they don't want sanctions. At that point, the only thing on offer is to overturn a specific decision, which would make MR the forum. Otherwise all that is being offered by ANI is a rhetorical platform, and that, it does not exist to provide. Nosebagbear (talk) 00:10, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I did not request sanctions, but I did request a review that of more than what a WP:MR can provide. Because the RM discussion was closed against consensus, the AfD is duping editors into believing that the outbreak cover-up is unsubstantiated. The AP and CNN gave clear evidence of the outbreak cover-up and high quality RS like the BBC and Guardian reported it a cover-up in their own voice. Will a MR overturn the result of this AfD, and if so, can the AfD be closed once the MR is opened? If this is not the right forum to discuss this problem, then what is? Gimiv (talk) 00:37, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• This seems like forum shopping to me. The place to have a close decision reviewed, after discussing it with the closer, is Wikipedia:Move review. An ANI is clearly inappropriate, and was correctly closed with advice to go to Wikipedia:Move review. The argument made for why AN is appropriate is This is not a clearcut WP:MR, because as described below, these blanking tactics have been used before as a way to censor content in this topic. While, in theory, an AN discussion may be a more appropriate venue than MR where an RM closure is only one aspect of a series of connected problems that require administrative attention, this doesn't even nearly meet that bar. Based on the OP's editing history I'm personally inclined to make an AE report, as I don't really think the sum of their contributions suggest they're likely to be a constructive (or at least non-disruptive) influence in the COVID-19 editing area, and am not sure why TBF undid their block in the first place. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:21, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• The unblock of Gimiv was a clear error. If you look at the editing history, this is a single purpose account that does nothing but cause disruption, such as this forum shopping thread. The account should be blocked indefinitely. To avoid any more waffling, I will leave this comment here and see if others agree. Jehochman ^Talk 01:44, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  The block reason was a suspicion I couldn't provide enough objective evidence for to keep up against opposing voices. There was no way to keep up the block in its original form; it would have been overturned here at AN eventually. I'm fine with others (re)blocking any single-purpose account in this topic area. I'm also fine with extended-confirmed protecting all the discussion pages in this area, but a majority of users prefers allowing new editors to jump into COVID-19-related discussions with four days of editing experience. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 02:16, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I thought something like that might have happened. Crowds don't always have wisdom. When blocking it is most effective to point out the account's own bad behavior. If there's no checkuser evidence of sock puppetry, nor

  WP:DUCK evidence, then don't mention it. I feel your pain. Jehochman ^Talk 02:24, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  I'm sory to interrupt your private chat, but before

  WP:GAME and even Alexbrn knew better than to participate. We must now know what to do with the AfD once a MR is opened. Francesco espo (talk) 03:32, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  I think we discussed my comment at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Actual_examples? recently, where someone else brought it up in similar context. The short version is that's not a precisely accurate interpretation of my comment, which wasn't meant to be a generalised statement in any case, but I suppose for future reference I know I should begin comments with a list of disclaimers of context, statements of scope, and lists of exceptions before getting to the substance of my comment.

  As for the substance of your comment, as I see it here are your options:

  1. If you think individual editor sanctions (eg on CutePeach and Normchou) are incorrect, ask them to appeal at
     WP:ARCA in line with Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Procedures#Standard_provision:_appeals_and_modifications
     .
  2. If you think there is a general policy issue, visit
     WP:VPP, where I note a discussion is ongoing
     . There you can bring up the parts that relate to policy change or policy problems (I note the discussion that actually happened ended up somewhat unfocused).

  Persistently bringing up historical events and grievances regarding individual editors, some of whom no longer really edit in this topic area anymore, just comes across as

  WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour, especially if there's no direct relevance to the matter at hand, which in this case there doesn't seem to be. Food for thought is all. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 03:56, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  • This editor doesn't even recorded 50 edits yet. I don't see any merit in the single-purpose argument, they have insufficient editing history to make that determination and COVID-19 is a topic with broad coverage and extremely widespread interest. It should not be considered unusual for any editor to focus on this topic area. On the one hand I see claims of "obvious sockpuppetry" but on the other hand this editor is still learning about the difference between requested move and move review and the purpose of the "incidents" page; I'd expect an experienced sock to know such things. Yes, their complaints have been a bit disruptive but blocking as an option should only come into play only if such disruption persists long after they've been around long enough to learn the ropes. – wbm1058 (talk) 02:27, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Seven months of single-purpose editing make a pretty good argument for "single-purpose account". ~ ToBeFree (talk) 02:30, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Most accounts with under 50 edits do not manage to cause this much disruption. Managing to do that, especially in a hotbed area like COVID-19 lab leak theories, should really be treat as a negative point against the account's involvement, not a positive. As for your comment about the editor not knowing the difference between RM, MR and ANI: (1) even if we accept that's true,

    WP:AE and have over 30 diffs to present as evidence in a future AE case ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:33, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply

    ]

    I often make over 50 edits in a single day. I got pinged into this today, I'm not keen on reengaging this rabbit hole which would distract me from my current project, which is single-handed clearing the links to incorrect names. I've cut the number of pages on that list in half but it's a long slog. I think I could be a single-purpose editor on that work queue for another month and still might not clear it all. I hear this guy's argument, it's not meritless. Just this evening I saw an eye-opening report on NBC Nightly News about some brave reporter who was jailed for reports some here deny the Chinese government is suppressing, and has apparently gone on a hunger strike in her jail cell. – wbm1058 (talk) 03:11, 18 December 2021 (UTC) That's Zhang Zhan, who I note is covered in this article. – wbm1058 (talk) 04:35, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I propose closing this with no further action. If a second editor feels the move discussion was closed in error, they can take it to
  WP:MR. Jehochman ^Talk 04:03, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • I second the close with no further action. The move close is something that might benefit from a more focused discussion at
    China COVID-19 cover-up allegations, as these are allegations that China denies. I'd also be OK with Allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. More concerning to me is that content discussing the plight of a citizen journalist like Zhang Zhan might be redirected off of mainspace. – wbm1058 (talk) 04:35, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
    ]

Your edits to Priesthood in the Catholic Church appear to be unsourced, non-neutral, and in many places misspelled. Also, we do not respond to threats. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:05, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, we do. I blocked the IP for a month.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:17, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm quite excited by this "

The Signpost know because they can only use more suggestions for the "in the media" piece. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:32, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

Resolved

Hello! User called "Oushik" for some reason changes the data on the wikipedia page. Link to the page (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=AnnenMayKantereit&action=history) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redstackflowju (talk • contribs) 19:12, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Redstackflowju: This looks like a simple instance of vandalism. Thank you for reverting it, but there's no need to let us know about it unless it escalates.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:24, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Overturn The close is clearly wrong and should be overturned. For those who are not familiar with SecurePoll and votewiki:, I should say that besides WMF and its affiliates, there are only 3 communities that actively use SecurePoll: English Wikipedia since 2014, Farsi/Persian Wikipedia since 2016, and Chinese Wikipedia since 2021 (just testing, not actual elections). Here is the proof: votewiki:Special:SecurePoll, you can go back and forth but you won't find any other communities holding their elections there. Unfortunately, there were some misunderstandings among the oppose voters. User:Wugapodes claimed in their long comment that "hundreds of wikis" were using this infrastructure which is not correct. User:Risker (who had mistaken Arab for Farsi [By the way, Arab is used for race in English, and the correct term in this case is Arabic which is used for the language]) had been confused reading this comment of mine at MetaWiki. Unfortunately, some users including User:ProcrastinatingReader and User:Wugapodes changed their vote from support to oppose based on incorrect information. 4nn1l2 (talk) 14:19, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is what concerns me most about the close. The closers wrote that the technical side of the proposal (availability of the secure poll and of the scrutineers, voting guide issues etc) is unclear. They have since justified this by saying that there were other technical concerns, which there were, but it is not clear to me that they understood some technical concerns were simply false. (You don't need to "address" a claim not based in fact in a proposal.)
    In their defence, maybe they just haven't been asked this directly. @Lee Vilenski, Primefac, and Ymblanter: at the time of the close, were you aware that Risker's claim about the "Arab Wikipedia" was incorrect, as shown in this diff, and which arguments/!votes did you accordingly throw out or give less weight? (Obviously you should have thrown out Beeblebrox's—"I have to admit I had no idea that [debunked fact from Risker]" is the only concrete oppose reason.) — Bilorv (talk) 16:56, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    I do not think I should comment in this thread about the close. It should not be relevant for its evaluation.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:44, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Shit, I missed it. Would have supported. Now, let's discuss the actual vote for this proposal about voting. I know, NOTAVOTE, etc., but it looks like nearly all the participants are veteran editors in good standing, and while some arguments are clearly more substantive than others, I can't really see how a support ratio that's barely above 50 percent can really lead to an action in the affirmative. Unless consensus to begin technical discussions with the WMF could be demonstrated among both sides. Not sure that's the case, but maybe tech mambo-jumbo...? Possible, I suppose, but unlikely. El_C 14:26, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• 72/111 isn't "a support ratio that's barely above 50 percent", it's 65%. And because there are no grounds to discount those support votes, or weigh the oppose votes heavier, I think that's clear consensus, and the close should be overturned to "successful". (involved, voted support) Levivich 14:41, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Screw all y'all, I'm hiding my shame. El_C 15:18, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Levivich, I'm seeing 72 support to 39 oppose — what are you looking at? El_C 14:50, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply] What is that ratio as a percentage? Mr Ernie (talk) 14:52, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply] Levivich means 72 supports, 111 total votes (the 39 oppose votes are implied in that total).--WaltCip-(talk) 14:53, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply] Ah, I see. What a confusing way to put it, then, WaltCip. Mr Ernie, about 55 percent. El_C 14:55, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply] C have you had your coffee today? Try 72/111 once again. {{percentage}} might help... Or if you prefer, do the math for 72:39. Protip: it's the same answer :-P Levivich 14:57, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply] 39 divided by 72 x 100 = ~55 percent. I am drinking PC Organics Black Cold Brew Coffee right now (unsweetened, no cream). El_C 15:01, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply] I'm going to bill you for this math lesson. What you're doing is 39/72, which is the wrong math. What you're figuring out is that the oppose votes are about 55% of the support votes... that means a little more than half as many people voted oppose as support. That's not a "support ratio" barely above 50%, that's a "support ratio" (if you count it relative to oppose) of 185% (72/39 = 1.85). You see, 72 is almost twice 39, so almost twice as many people voted support than oppose. It's not a bare majority, it's a supermajority. Under your math, a poll that had 100 supports and 1 oppose would be calculated at 1/100 = 10% "support ratio". That's not the right math. Levivich 15:04, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply] That is incorrect. 1 divided by 100 x 100 = 1 percent. El_C 15:05, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply] What? Why would anyone go with 100(39/72)? Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:08, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply] The support percentage is 55 percent, not 65. Sorry, am I in some alternate math dimension? El_C 15:09, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply] I'm reminded of the "solve 2 x 3(4 + 5)" discussions on Facebook which always got people arguing back in the day. WaltCip-(talk) 15:10, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply] Just do 72÷111 and times it by 100! Forget the 39.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 15:13, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply] I see that now. What an idiot I am. Did I mention I failed math in high school? But I got an A+ in historical demography in uni. Go figure. El_C 15:16, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• @S Marshall: I did not participate but what is the practical difference between your NO CONSENSUS, and the close as UNSUCCESSFUL? Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:59, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  The difference is the possibility that the proposal might be re-tried. "No consensus" implies, as it does for many deletion discussions, that a consensus may exist in time with a more nuanced outlook. "Unsuccessful" casts the proposal into the category of

  consensus can change, the barrier for re-entry is much lower for a "no consensus" proposal than an "unsuccessful" proposal. WaltCip-(talk) 15:07, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply

  ]

• Overturn close. Whether it should have been closed as successful is not fully clear to me, but the close is too problematic to let stand (quibbles about implementation details should not make the principle fail). A good close should help us find a way forward, this one just blocks them. —Kusma (talk) 15:16, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Disclosure: I voted in support of the proposal, and participated in arguing on the talk page. —Kusma (talk) 15:22, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• As a side note, this is a big problem with these RfA reform bonanzas. There's like a million proposals, many of which are inordinately long. El_C 15:26, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• I already commented on the talk page, but to make it formal, I think this should be overturned. I will echo S Marshall in affirming that the closers are trusted and experienced judges of consensus, so I don't know what went wrong here, but something clearly has. Too many cooks, maybe? But when a well-attended discussion has a two thirds majority in support, there should be strong reasons for finding consensus in the other direction. Instead, we have a brief and difficult-to-parse closing statement (despite having a fortnight to draft it between the three of them) which seems entirely disconnected from our
  told that "the oppose argument is stronger". The only discernable reason for this is that the oppose side raised "more arguments", which is a novel and fallacious basis on which to judge the strength of argument. Further, the closers seem to consider it a deciding factor that the oppose arguments "have not been refuted" when, for one, many of them explicitly were; and moreover, we have a long-standing convention that if objections are raised to a proposal and a majority of editors still support it, it can be taken as read that they did not judge the objections significant – a convention the closers themselves reference (the numerical advantage of support votes means that there is consensus that less scrutiny is not significant). The first example of a 'strong', 'unrefuted' oppose argument given by the closers (the technical side of the proposal [...] is unclear) is a case in point: as immediately pointed out on the talk page, it was refuted, and anyway, a technical obstacle to implementation (which we only have one person's word exists) in no way shows an absence of consensus for a proposal in principle, which is what they should have been assessing, and is probably why most supporters didn't bother to "refute" it. The second example (an absence of the feedback) is seemingly plucked out of a hat: there is a feedback mechanism in the proposal, and as far as I can tell nobody in the oppose section raised "lack of feedback" as a deal-breaker. The closers heard all these objections on the RfC talk page (well worth a read) and unfortunately have dug in their heels, so here we are. Personally, I see a pretty clear consensus in favour of proposal 8B, but I participated in the RfC, so I'll be conservative and say that this should be overturned and re-closed by someone else. – Joe (talk) 15:32, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Overturn. I initiated the linked thread on the RFC's talk page, so I won't repeat what I wrote there. I'll just add this: If it is not possible to run these elections via securepoll (a point I believe was refuted in the RFC anyway) the WMF or whoever else is responsible for handling securepoll should be the one to tell us such.
  Calidum 15:45, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • Since there is some discussion here about non technical reasons this may have failed, I'll reiterate what I said on the RFC talk page. Among the other reasons cited was a "drop in support due to the secret ballot nature," an apparent reference to arb com elections. As far as I can tell, this argument was raised by one user (or maybe two) who didn't even cite actual evidence of this. A quick look at recent arbcom election results will show most candidates get at least 60% percent these days, and maybe half get two-thirds support (I of all people managed nearly 55% in 2016). Also cited by the close is opposition due to "absence of the feedback to both successful and unsuccessful candidates," but that is a feature, not a bug, and is meant to address the community's findings in the initial stage of this process as evidenced by
    Calidum 16:56, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
    ]
• Endorse (involved, I voted against). As noted in the introduction, this was a panel close by three respected and independent admins who were assessing the arguments made in the discussion. As much as proposers were at pains to point out that this wasn't replacing the old-style RFA but was additional to it, this was clearly still a very big change to the operation of the project and (from my biased perspective) I do think the closers were right to deem the proposal unsuccessful. If this were a run-of-the-mill deletion discussion or an RFC on a fairly trivial matter, then I would say fine, there's a consensus... but to effect such a massive change with such evident and well-stated misgivings from prominent and respected members of the community would IMHO have been wrong. As a final point, please recall that the threshold of support usually required in an actual RFA is 65% at an absolute minimum, with 70% to 75% being the more usual pass margins. This proposal, which aimed to change that system radically, only garnered 64.9% support, so it doesn't actually have the quorum of its own domain.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:54, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Your final point is a reasonable argument that the closers explicitly did not apply. (But Wikipedia is not Nomic, and doesn't have explicitly defined supermajority rules for rule changes). —Kusma (talk) 17:08, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  It's not a reasonable argument, it's utter nonsense: "to pass an RfA requires 65%, therefore to change the RfA process should require 65%" is a silly nonsequitur, like "to be elected president requires a majority of the Electoral College, therefore to change the rules for electing the president should require a majority of the Electoral College." --JBL (talk) 17:38, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  To steelman the argument a bit, the fact that a supermajority is required with regards to RfA is an acknowledgement of how important the process is and how mere majorities should not be used to ram through changes that are at least as radical, if not far more so, than a new administrator. If a simple majority can be used to defeat the "powers" reserved to a supermajority, then that supermajority is de facto useless and impotent. To your example, a much larger supermajority than the Electoral College is used to change the rules of US presidential elections. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 17:44, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree that if Amakuru had made a completely different argument, it might have been less transparently bad. (Your variation is also not a good argument, but it is at least not ridiculous.) --JBL (talk) 18:18, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse. The closing statement accurately reflected the strengths of the arguments presented. The comments from supporters consisted largely of "let's give this a try", while those opposed listed a variety of reasons that the idea won't work, very few of which were actually addressed during the discussion. But even more importantly, the close properly took into account the existing consensus around RfA, and how the changes proposed in this RfC were not compatible with them.
  In RfA's 18-year history, there has always been a consensus that this process is a discussion rather than vote. Even in the preceding phase of the RfA reform discussion, this consensus was reiterated (see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2021 review/Issues#C. Too much discussion (should be more like a vote)).
  Adopting this proposal, even while ignoring all its obvious technical shortcomings, would overrule years of consensus about RfA, based on a conversation with a smaller margin in favour than an average RfA and with a smaller number of participants. The closers correctly determined that this conversation is an outlier, and does not reflect the consensus of the community. – bradv^🍁 15:57, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rubbish. At a well-advertised discussion hosted by User:Barkeep49, the community has already found that RfA is defective in various ways. A clear consensus exists to reform it and that's why the discussion began in the first place.—S Marshall T/C 16:10, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't appreciate my comment being dismissed as "rubbish". – bradv^🍁 16:16, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  There is currently a strong consensus among the only people who matter (potential admin candidates) not to use the current RfA system. (The last 50 edits to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship go back more than a year). So we need to do something. Removing autopatrol from admins is unlikey to change something about the strong consensus that RfA should not be used. —Kusma (talk) 22:08, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse close: As I said I did not participate but having read the discussion, and the close, I endorse the close as reasonable reading (even if I would not have written exactly the same thing). This is especially true, as the OP appeal sees "No Consensus" as within reason. The proposal itself did have a technical implementation element to it, so it is wrong to now discount objections there. (And that was not the only oppose rationale, which are legitimate.) In order to succeed, everyone knew it had to have affirmative consensus, and the finding that it did not ("unsuccessful") is within reason, and the way forward is made plain both in the close and in WP:CONSENSUS policy, address objections in a new proposal ("Decision making and reaching consensus involve an effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns.") There may well be a willingness to change, given how poor the RfA model is seen in promoting conversation or debate, as well as, poor in providing useful outcomes, but go back to find consensus. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:10, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Adding: The claims by some of 2/3 support are not just over-hyped, imprecise math, they are contrary to NOTAVOTE. NOTAVOTE at it's most basic means you do not tally the bolded words, you read the discussion. Those words of the discussion in my view mean the close is reasonable and should stand, but consensus decision making is hard (and it is always a strong pull to want shortcut to a vote), which makes closing hard, and you are not going to find good closers or good closes, when the closechallenge, like the underlying discussion, is now to be treated like a VOTE. And you are not going to find good closes and good closers, when as some seem to argue the closers should have SUPERVOTEd to change the proposal being discussed. And a warning, you are not going to find a better close, if you find new closers at all (we just had an Arbcom case filed, because closers are not as easy to find as some think), that is not likely tainted as a forced vote. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:40, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I look forward to this discussion being closed as "no consensus", and what comes after that. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:17, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Since extensive discussion took place on the talk about the merits of the close, which probably should've taken place here, pinging everyone who commented there as they may have some feelings about the close: @
  Beeblebrox, Bradv, Kusma, Giraffer, Taking Out The Trash, John M Wolfson, Extraordinary Writ, Levivich, Valereee, BusterD, Ymblanter, Lee Vilenski, Primefac, Barkeep49, Joe Roe, Worm That Turned, Winner 42, Enos733, SD0001, Davey2010, S Marshall, Jackattack1597, and Espresso Addict: ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:17, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• (Involved, !voted for) I'm not 100% sure on this one, but I do think there is one problem that was brought up was given more weight on the closing then necessary: technical details about such an implementation. I agree that more work may be needed on that area, however if the closure can find that there is support for the core concept (Allowing use of a secret ballot option for RFA), the closure could have deferred details on how that ballot would operate to a follow up discussion, even to a fluid process such as we use when updating the Arbitration Committee Election rules. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:22, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• (Involved, voted against). Due to my involvement, I'm loath to cast any !vote in this discussion, but I'm leaning endorse. The additional arguments on the oppose were not particularly addressed by the support, although as stated by others some of them could be recast as features (lack of feedback, etc.) However, not all of the !votes in the discussion addressed all of the concerns, so it is unclear to what extent each point was answered from each individual !voter. Combined with the <2:1 support ratio for such a drastic change, the default of nothing happening should be upheld, even if the closers didn't use that reasoning in the close. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:31, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  @John M Wolfson Could you specify which arguments/concerns were not addressed by the support? – SD0001 (talk) 12:43, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Overturn close not a reasonable reading of the discussion (disclaimer: I voted oppose). For all practical purposes, even though the major roadblock was apparently technical, the closers decided to close this with 'consensus against' such that there will be no work done to address technical hurdles. Their close diminishes all momentum in trying to make the proposal become reality. Claiming technical hurdles is not a valid reason to block a community RfC in any case, see my comment here for reasons why. The closers then said there were multiple objections raised by the opposition, SecurePoll issues being just one of them. I presume the discussion on the talk focused on SecurePoll issues because the other objections seemed even more unreasonable, plus the closers themselves said the SecurePoll issue was stronger. The rest was: Second, there are additional reasons to oppose, an absence of the feedback to both successful and unsuccessful candidates, drop in support due to the secret ballot nature and others. and voting guide issues (!). These are very weak objections, some of which were only made by a few users. Things like an absence of the feedback can be deemed to be a legitimate cost of the process, and the absence of feedback was obviously factored in by the supports when they voted but deemed to be less significant than the perceived benefits of the proposal.
  The job of a closer is to sum up the community sentiment in the discussion. Most editors felt the proposal's perceived strengths outweighed its perceived weaknesses. Closers don't get to force editors to change how they balanced the strengths/weaknesses but that is what the closers here did. (exception is when there is an overriding policy (and thus a
  WP:LOCALCON) reason to do so, but since this was a discussion about making policy, clearly that doesn't apply). The oppose reasons weren't things that the supporters ignored, they were things the supporters didn't value as much as the opposers did. Those are two completely different things.

  The correct close would've been: there is consensus to implement an elections route to RfA, but there are unresolved details. Fixing those details may not necessarily require a future RfC, because the details aren't major elements of the proposal, but they will require further discussions and work (on the community side and MediaWiki/technical) before it's possible for the system to come into effect. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:36, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• Overturn Do-over in a broader venue Closes and consensus is a bit fuzzy here. If it was truly only on the arguments made, such would essentially call for an interpretive super-vote by the closing admin. But overwhelming legitimate support, including arguments made for it should hold sway over a closing admin analysis and opinion on the arguments. So IMO the close should have been that the proposal passed. But a basis for a do-over in a broader venue could be that this venue was too narrow for such a huge and complex change. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:36, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • WT:RFA... How is that not broad? If it's because it happened on a subpage, I'd note that Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy/Update and ratification also happened on a subpage. I think the facilitator took every reasonable step to make sure it had broad participation. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:41, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    • The facilitator did an excellent job, I did not mean to imply otherwise. (though I would have added a month to the brainstorming phase). My point was that this is unusually huge and seeking even broader input might be a comprimise / way out here.North8000 (talk) 17:51, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

      It's not really possible to get even broader input. About as many people voted in 8B as did the ratification of the Arbitration Policy in 2011, noting also the editor community was larger then. People aren't forced to participate on any given issue and some issues garner more community attention than others. Just seems a lot of editors weren't interested in these RfA reforms, and that's that, but a participation of over 100 editors is not mild by any stretch. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:11, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    There was even a Signpost article about it. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:10, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm convinced, plus that is a separate question, so I changed my opinion to "overturn" North8000 (talk) 15:39, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Overturn close Disclosure: I participated in the vote. Initially I was neutral, I moved to support for a time, and then returned to neutral, which is where I fell at the time it was closed. Considering the technical argument has been refuted, I think it was clear there was consensus to further pursue this idea. That would likely need further ironing out and potentially a do-over, as suggested by North8000. What I can't seem to understand is how the closers found there was consensus against this idea being pursued further. As an aside, does the status of this close prevent interested editors from further pursuing this idea regardless? If not, interested editors may as well do that. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:44, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn (copy-pasting from talk page) Poor close. A 72:39 tally being closed as unsuccessful is always suspicious. From the closure: First, the technical side of the proposal (...) is unclear should not even have been irrelevant. The goal of the RFC should be to establish whether the community wishes to use SecurePoll (or an equivalent system). Working out the technical details could be done later – and the right people to do it in this case isn't even the community. All that matters is that there should be plausible ways to implement, which do exist in this case. These refutals were made in the discussion [28] [29] [30] [31] It's pathetic the "issue" of voter guides is even mentioned. Are we incapable of holding a mini-discussion to work out what should be done about voter guides? It is not something that needs to be sorted out in advance. (disclaimer: I voted support) – SD0001 (talk) 16:45, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• On what basis can a discussion by mostly
  involved participants (who have been pinged in a large number above) overturn the consensus of three, uninvolved admins? What happens if an admin closing this discussion decides to "overturn" the result—what is it to be overturned to? — Bilorv (talk) 16:56, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • On what basis can any close or action be overturned then?
    Calidum 17:02, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
    ]

    Closes are usually overturned if there is some procedural issue, or if it's clear that the closer simply got the wrong end of the stick of supervoted or something. This close here was clearly a line call, however - I don't think anyone would say it wildly misrepresented the discussion or was fundamentally against policy. And any close of this subsequent AN discussion will also be a line call. It seems hard to justify why the second one will override the first one.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:27, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    I would not normally consider a 2/3rds majority a "line call", especially given that many of the opposes were factually mistaken on top of that. That's normally an easy and uncontroversial consensus to support. Obviously RFCs are not a vote and if the closers can find very, very strong arguments to disregard a large number of supporters it can still be closed as no-consensus (or even oppose, although that would be honestly shocking), but making such a stark reading does invite re-examination of their rationales to avoid a

    WP:SUPERVOTE situation. And I think it's telling that while the overturns have a glaring factual error in their closing rationale, none of the endorses, that I can see, have presented a serious argument that the opposes actually had a stronger argument - the best that they can say is "let's just move on, people", which isn't a policy-based argument when we're discussing whether a close was based on a valid reading of the arguments presented. (Indeed, I would hope that anyone closing this discussion would disregard such endorses.) --Aquillion (talk) 18:28, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply

    ]

  I voted oppose and am supporting an overturn to a close that would be against my preferred position. The integrity of consensus is more important than the end result here. They are three good closers, but they are still fallible and this is not a reasonable close. Aside, since over 100 editors (many of them folks who are active in project issues) participated in that discussion, necessarily any review will involve editors who participated in the discussion. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:17, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I have complicated feelings about this close. I viewed my role as facilitator of this project to help the community find ways to improve RfA. One of the weak consensus findings from Phase 1 is that RfA might be so broken that it cannot be fixed. Yet that same discussion rejected the idea that RfA should be more like a vote. Did this admin elections as an alternative pathway thread that needle because it's not changing RfA (which remains an option to get sysop with the same proportion of discussion and voting as before), it's providing a whole new alternative? Maybe, but maybe not. I think there is a reasonable argument to be made that there is not consensus for the elections as proposed and so I'm not willing to speak out against the closers, whose work I am so thankful for, on that basis and ask for it to be overturned. But I do think that closing statement lacks the precision that I had hoped such an experienced panel would provide. Either technical concerns received a lot of weight, in which case I would have hoped that a consensus for elections as an alternative would have been found to have consensus just not that propose at this time, or it was a smaller piece of finding that there wasn't enough support for such a large change to such a long-established process in which case the wording wasn't indicative of the actual reasoning behind the close.
  That said, I strongly disagree with anyone who says that this wasn't adequately publicized. I think you can make a reasonable argument that the creation of
  WP:XRV was outside the scope of the RfA and a weaker but still plausible argument that removing autopatrol was. However, Phase 1 which was advertised during and with the results at AN, ADMIN, RFA, VPR, and the Signpost found a weak consensus to try a completely different method than RfA. So for elections to be floated in Phase 2 is well with-in scope and Phase 2 was advertised at AN, ADMIN, RFA, VPR, the Signpost (twice!), and on watchlists. I have a lot of process criticisms of myself (some of which I've noted above) but the idea that things weren't well advertised enough to find consensus for elections, if such a consensus exists, isn't one of them as I cannot imagine any further measures could have led to more publicity. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:02, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]

@Barkeep49: I believe that it was adequately publicized. (though I missed the formative phase because I was off-wiki during that notice) And that the participants are basically those who took the initiative to join the process at that point. My note above was saying that seeking an even broader venue for something as huge and complex as this item might be a graceful way out of this.North8000 (talk) 18:04, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@North8000 thanks for clarifying and can appreciate how it could be a way forward. By way of background, I went the subpage route for a couple reasons. Primarily, I knew the discussion was going to be large. Phase 2 is currently over 600kb with the talk page adding almost 300kb more. This would obviously overwhelm a non-dedicated page. The second, smaller, reason was that it gave more control over formatting, and in particular would allow for structured discussion in a way that was still accessible to all (i.e. mobile editors not being able to easily use level 3 and beyond headings). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:08, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• involved, voted in favor The close is correct that an admin election should not occur without a follow-up RFC, and that follow-up RFC should probably have a "should elections occur at all" question rather than just implementation details. The close is incorrect in that it implies there is consensus against such elections (because of the extremely vague "additional reasons to oppose"). Some of the details (in particular whether SecureVote can or will be used, how often elections will occur, and the type of discussion that will occur before the vote) must be considered as topics of a future RFC. I view the discussion as showing there is consensus that the community does support the broad idea, though not showing consensus for any specific plan of action. Yes, a few people vehemently don't like it, but consensus is not unanimity, there was 2/3 support, and many of the oppose voters were vaguely supportive of the idea. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 17:28, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Normally I don't comment on RFA topics these days because I haven't been keeping up, and there's a risk of sounding like an idiot. But I have to object to a comment above that implied that "let's try something new", a rationale offered by many supporters (including me), was weak. I don't think my rationale was weak. I know that experimentation is needed, and even RfA's most ardent status-quo supporters (not many people these days) agree that changes are needed. I just don't know which experiment will work, but in theory, it should be possible to try something, with appropriate safeguards. - Dank (push to talk) 17:34, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  +1. --JBL (talk) 18:21, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Honestly, given the community's long-established reluctance to change anything, even in processes that nobody particularly likes, the onus should be on opposers to explain why we shouldn't try something new. – Joe (talk) 20:18, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Admittedly I'm biased in that I supported the proposal, but I really don't see how a widely advertised discussion with a large number of participants which got 65% support can be closed as "unsuccessful". I could understand "no consensus", a suggestion that the proposal or the technical details needed work, or that the process should only be approved on a trial basis, but a policy proposal with that much support hasn't been explicitly rejected, which is what that close implies. Especially as a large amount of the opposition (and the rationales highlighted by the closing statement) relate to the technical/implementation details, which shouldn't be interpreted as opposition to the principle. Furthermore in a policy discussion there's far less emphasis on refuting an opponent's arguments, another thing emphasised by the close. If people don't find an argument convincing then that counts for more than whether it's been explicitly refuted. Hut 8.5 17:48, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• I voted weakly to support, my main hesitation being that the proposal was too specific (i.e. using SecurePoll, time-boxed discussion period of 3 days), and it's safe to say that the details of the proposal ultimately affected the close. I don't hold a strong opinion on whether the close should be overturned or not, but it seems to me that the idea of admin elections as a concept is supported – but the details of how an election were to be run are contested, and in this instance I'd err on the side of passing with the recommendation of further discussion on the latter, although that might be getting into supervote territory... (I have zero closing experience). Giraffer ^{(talk·contribs)} 17:56, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn. A better and more firmly-grounded argument than this is needed to disregard so many votes, especially when the opposes unambiguously made arguments that are factually incorrect - especially the technical argument. That's not a matter of opinion; the opposes are just flatly wrong, so citing it specifically as the first reason to ignore an overwhelming numerical advantage is a huge red flag. The fact that one of the closers above is declining to indicate whether they were aware that it was false only compounds this - I don't think this is the time to be silent. And even beyond all that, "some technical details will still have to be ironed out" is absolutely not a strong argument even if it had been grounded in fact, since by definition an RFC is going to generally be held before serious work is put into implementing a technical proposal - nobody is going to be able to devote technical expertise to a project that lacks a consensus backing it. --Aquillion (talk) 18:20, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse the close as one reasonable interpretation of the discussion. (I opposed the proposal.) As I said at the RfC talk page, I do not see how a discussion in this venue is going to be fruitful regarding a panel close by three respected neutral admins, who were selected for the task in advance by the RfC organiser and did not participate in the debate. Most of the editors commenting here weighed in on one side or other, and are inevitably biased. My view of the close, for what it is worth, is that (1) to overturn such a critical and longstanding part of the encyclopedia's infrastructure would require a clear strong majority, which in the view of the closers was not achieved; (2) the proposal was both complex and fuzzy and most voters wished to alter at least some aspects of it; (3) most of the multiple concerns raised by the opposers were not adequately addressed by supporters; and (4) the number of participants was very small compared with the number of active editors. Espresso Addict (talk) 18:29, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn. Closure quote: "the opposition found additional arguments, which are stronger and have not been refuted". This is incorrect. The "technical side of the proposal" is not unclear, it was clearly defined. We have attempted to explain this in my 00:32, 1 November 2021 (UTC) comment and 4nn1l2's 10:10, 10 December 2021 (UTC) comment with mixed success. Opposes based on technical misunderstandings are not "stronger" than the support. I'd go as far as saying they're invalid, but they're definitely not "stronger". "Absence of the feedback"? Yeah, that was the point of the proposal, not an argument against it. It's an alternative process next to the feedback-rich existing RfA process that any candidate can choose if they like. "Drop in support due to the secret ballot nature"? A good reason to start a trial and see if that's the case. In the worst case regarding this argument, the support for all candidates is too low, noone gets elected and that's it. No new administrator, no problem. Not an argument against trying. "And others"? Point them out in a proper closure. Nothing of this is "stronger" in a way that justifies closing as "unsuccessful". ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:32, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• pinged here and involved, !voted conditional support I was surprised by the close. I don't think it's wrong, but I was expecting something more along the lines of "general support if technical issues can be overcome, this probably needs further discussion" or similar. —valereee (talk) 18:36, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• The single best thing the closers could do here would be to strike out "unsuccessful" and replace it with "no consensus". A number of commenters above are quite understandably interpreting "unsuccessful" as "affirmative consensus against the proposal", which seems to me and many others to be an undeniable supervote. By contrast, several people (including me – see my comment on the talk page) have said that "no consensus" would at least be within the realm of closer discretion. Indeed, the "unsuccessful" bottom-line conclusion is internally inconsistent with the rest of the close: there'd be no point in talking about "an additional RfC" if this one found an unequivocal consensus against the proposal. Was the choice to use "unsuccessful" over "no consensus" (which was indeed used elsewhere, e.g. 7A) deliberate? If so, it certainly requires far more explanation than was given. If not, changing that bolded word (and nothing else) right now would likely resolve the concerns of several who have !voted to overturn. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 18:51, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• I opposed the proposal so I am obviously involved, but if it matters it seems like this should be treated as no consensus rather than unsuccessful. It's probably on the margin between a consensus to proceed and a lack of consensus, but I don't think the opposers' arguments are so much better than the supporters' that they would override them. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:59, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• I advised against this, and still think it is unlikely to accomplish anything. Another massive discussion is exactly what we don't need. I continue to think the close should stand and a more productive use of everyone's time and effort would be a whole new, carefully planned, narrowly focused RFC aimed at establishing support or opposition only to the basic idea of admin elections, with details to be worked out later.
  talk) 19:01, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  This would have been an option in case of a "no consensus" closure. A more productive use of everyone's time would have been a correct closure. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:31, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  We already have admin elections, just that you have to actually back up with your vote with some actual rationale rather than being able to oppose for unknown reasons behind the secrecy of the ballot box.  — Amakuru (talk) 19:49, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  @

  Beeblebrox: If we try that as things stand, I bet you a shiny red apple that we'll get an instant flood of opposes saying, "you already proposed this and it was unsuccessful, stop forum-shopping". – Joe (talk) 20:25, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply

  ]

• Agree with Beeblebrox 100%. Consider focusing this energy on moving the elections idea (which I strongly oppose) forward via new RFC instead of expecting any affirmative action from this (by necessity) negative discussion. I'm thinking about my granddaughter's eventual run for adminship. "When did Wikipedia start electing admins, pawpaw?" "We'd been moving away from discussion to what we called a !vote for several years, sweetpea. The crucial RFC discussion on a straight vote was originally closed as unsuccessful by three respected, uninvolved and trusted contributors, but eventually a heated AN discussion among the mostly involved later overturned the closure." BusterD (talk) 19:43, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  The most telling thing here is that those endorsing the close can only bring themselves to say that the closers are "respected", not correct. – Joe (talk) 20:28, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Irony is lost on at least one participant. I also did not use the modifiers "serious" "trustworthy" "courteous" "vastly experienced" "competent" "thorough" "far-sighted" "well-qualified" "thrifty, brave, clean and reverent" either, though I'll hold they apply. We do have serious and unfortunate ANI-like hectoring and shade-throwing going on in this thread. No amount of picking apart others' comments is moving the process forward. BusterD (talk) 20:54, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I'll add this: I'm very interested to hear what the uninvolved have to add to this discussion. The involved are certainly having their say and say and say and say. BusterD (talk) 21:38, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• In my involved opinion (!voted against), the close was problematic. I don't think that the supporters' "additional arguments ... which ... have not been refuted" were strong enough to justify a close as unsuccessful, but I do think that they were strong enough to justify a close as no consensus despite the opposers' numerical advantage. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 19:48, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• (pinged) My two cents here is that this close is justifiable, even if it was not what I was expecting from watching the discussion. To the extend that the closers closed it as "unsuccessful" rather than "no consensus to implement" my hope is that the close does not foreclose (even in the medium-term) additional discussion and future proposals from occurring or is used to suggest that the community rejected this proposal. --Enos733 (talk) 21:10, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn - (supported) - From a quick glance the majority of supports (myself inc) were all "lets give it a bash" whilst opposes were on the technical side - Imho the proposal should've been closed as No Consensus or failing that follow up RFCs should've happened. For some bizarre reason although I'm not an admin I cared more about the patroller right being removed from admins than I did about this particular proposal. –Davey2010^Talk 21:24, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Arguments making specific factual claims can be refuted and judged not to be applicable to forming consensus. However a personal opinion on the effect of a procedural change doesn't need to be refuted by opposing views in order for those views to be considered. Those supporting admin elections don't need to show that an absence of feedback or a decrease in participants is not a problem. Commenters can validly disagree with those arguments, or decide that it's a tradeoff they are willing to make. Thus I do not feel that these types of arguments should be considered stronger than other expressed views. isaacl (talk) 22:14, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn. The larger the numbers are, and the broader the scope of the discussion, the more we should rely on counting the !votes rather than the closers' opinion of what policy is or should be. For a proposal intended to overhaul a major policy, there is very little existing policy to appeal to (i.e. which !votes might be discarded for violating in, say, an AfD or an SNG RfC), and arguments are based on first principles. The most qualified individuals to evaluate the strength of those arguments are not the closers, but the later !voters. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:48, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn (uninvolved). The closing appears to be based on the notion of unrebutted arguments, but in high level discussions like this, where no policy applies, these arguments are not required to be rebutted. Instead, the lack of rebuttal along with the greater support for the opposite side should be interpreted as the opposite side agreeing with the principle of the argument (for example, that there will be less feedback for candidates), but disagreeing that this argument is controlling, instead believing that it is an acceptable cost, or believing that it is actually a benefit (as was the case with the level of scrutiny arguments). As such, there is no basis for the closers, as closers (as opposed to !voters, who can and did judge the strength of the arguments, and found in the opposite direction to the closers), to assess the strength of these arguments, and because they tried to the close is improper and should be overturned. BilledMammal (talk) 00:16, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• The arguments to overturn are not compelling. The claim is that support arguments are not weak, but 18 of them, a full 25% of support !votes, were just claiming that we should try it without any serious consideration of the problems. By any reasonable interpretation of our policies and guidelines (especially
  politician's fallacy, and the closers correctly saw through that.

  That's all without getting to the technical concerns. The arguments about technical concerns being wrong are based on a single support comment (The 00:32, 1 November 2021 (UTC) comment ToBeFree mentions has nothing to do with the main technical concern surrounding multiple votes on votewiki happening at once.) made (1) a week after closers started closing discussions, (2) a week after the discussion was removed from CENT, (3) 40 days after discussion started, and (4) more than a month after the concern was first raised. This discussion suggests that closers should ignore a month of discussion based on a single, unexamined comment made when no one was looking (ironically, how the proposal would handle important but very late comments was raised by the opposition and not addressed in support arguments). The closers closed the discussion at hand, and while supporters would like that single eleventh-hour comment to save the proposal, the closers correctly gave it the weight it had in the discussion: none.

  The correct course of action is to put together a new, better proposal taking into account the concerns of everyone and hold a follow-up RfC that is equally well advertised. We should not overturn a reasonable close in order to force through a proposal that even supporters saw as problematic without any clear idea of what we'll actually be doing. The proposal didn't even reach the level of support required to create an admin or even pass by the proposal's own consensus threshold. I'm willing to agree that a "no consensus" close would be a more diplomatic wording, for all intents and purposes, the closers were correct in saying that there was not consensus for this proposal and therefore it was unsuccessful. Endorse — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:31, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • without any serious consideration of the problems^[citation needed] How can you determine how much consideration a !voter gave to problems? Just because a !vote is short, or is "per above", doesn't mean the !voter didn't seriously consider the problems. Otherwise, we're going to end up with everyone writing very long rationales, repeating each other, just so their !vote doesn't get discounted for lack of serious consideration of the problems. I mean, think about it: if the next !voter in this discussion !votes "endorse per Wug", that doesn't mean the closer should discount that !vote for lack of serious consideration unless the !voter repeats all your arguments. And if we're going to discount such !votes on the support side, we ought to do so on the oppose side, as well (and in all the other proposals!), and then where will that leave us?
    a consensus for what? A consensus that, as an alternative to RFA, we have an admin election process, held every six months, with candidates signing up by a certain date, followed by two phases of debate: (1) 3 days of discussion and questions with no bolded !votes, and (2) if the candidate decides to progress, a secret ballot for a full week, with voter suffrage to match Arbcom elections, and a 70% passing requirement, to be done via SecurePoll (or similar). That was the proposal. Sure, there are additional details to figure out, but that's not a reason to find no consensus, as this is still a very specific proposal.
    The arguments about technical concerns being wrong are based on a single support comment ... made (1) a week after closers started closing discussions... Not true. "Secure Poll" appears in over a dozen support !votes starting on the second day of the proposal (Nov 1). They include comments like "Riskers argument below leaves me unmoved. If the SecurePoll infrastructure cannot accommodate our admin elections, the WMF should update it." (Nov 3) and "I'm not concerned with the securepoll stuff mentioned below." (Nov 7) and "Risker's comment on technical issues merely indicate that SecurePoll may not be a viable solution as of now. This does not prevent us from establishing that we want to use it..." (Nov 8). These are direct, reasoned responses to the technical argument, and they appear throughout the entire support section. a single, unexamined comment my foot; that is just not the reality of that support section, SecurePoll is discussed over and over. It's true that the most detailed rebuttal was in the last support vote, #72 on Dec. 10, but that doesn't mean nobody was paying attention to that earlier. More editors said the limitation of SecurePoll described by Risker did not sway them, than the number of editors saying that it did sway them. The closers picking one side of the argument as "stronger" is supervoting because there is no policy or other basis for discounting either side of that particular argument. Levivich 01:19, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • a single, unexamined comment What kind of examination do you have in mind? I, unlike you and User:Risker, have provided diffs and proofs for all of my statements. If I'm the person who changes the language of votewiki (gerrit:734451, gerrit:738222, gerrit:544995), odds are that I know exactly why we change it. I have uploaded the screenshots of all fawiki elections so far (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, cat). You can see that in 2017 we didn't change the language of votewiki and it was LTR (left to right), but in other years you will see it RTL. If I'm the person who arranges the postponement of fawiki elections (phab:T292685#7412256), odds are that I exactly know why we didn't want simultaneous elections with WMF (we adapt ourselves; enwiki does not need to worry about fawiki or other RTL projects). Here are my contributions on votewiki: votewiki:Special:Contributions/4nn1l2. I feel somewhat responsible because this comment of mine at MetaWiki was most probably read by Risker (Movement Charter/Drafting Committee candidate and member) and led to her false claim about SecurePoll scarcity which was resonated by some other users[32] and impacted on the fate of this proposal. I'm shocked to hear that the weight of my vote should be zero (none) just because I was the last voter! What kind of logic supports this? 4nn1l2 (talk) 11:53, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Facts are facts, Wugapodes. It doesn't matter how late in the game someone corrected them: we should not take into account arguments not based in facts. This is common practice—at AfD, for instance, it is not unusual for a closer to throw out !votes/arguments because of the closer's determination that they are factually mistaken. In any case, 4nn112's comment was not "unexamined" because it received no responses, but uncontested. For my part, I had the discussion watchlisted, read the comment, scrutinised to see if it was factually correct (it was as far as I could determine) and decided whether I needed to make additional comments in light of it (I decided not, as I was already in support). — Bilorv (talk) 17:27, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • It was uncontested because it was made when no one was looking. Like I said, it was made after it was removed from CENT and while the discussion was being closed. I'm glad you spend the holiday season pouring over your watchlist, but between holiday planning and other wiki obligations, keeping tabs on a 40-day-old discussion in the process of closure wasn't high on my priority list. I didn't see that comment until this discussion. Anyone can show up at the last minute and claim something is true, but I still haven't had the chance to evaluate the claims because (1) it's the holidays and (2) a close review isn't the place to reargue the discussion; I'm concerned with whether the closers correctly identified consensus based on the discussion they had not the post hoc arguments made by the winners and losers. Mind you, I originally supported, but moved to oppose because of the technical concerns. What would have happened if I had seen the comment? Who knows, but I certainly don't want closers trying to guess at what would happen in a hypothetical discussion that didn't happen. If this information was so readily available and incontrivertable, why did it take over a month for someone to figure it out? Why was it only posted after the discussion was removed from the most visible advertising location? If it's so groundbreaking, why didn't anyone bother to ping anyone who would be affected by it? In this discussion PR (who also moved to oppose after technical concerns were raised) had the courtesy to ping over 20 people whose input on the issue would be helpful, but I'm supposed to believe a critical mass of supporters saw this comment and not a single one thought about giving a courtesy ping to anyone? I'm glad you had the chance to review the evidence, but closers can't read minds. We shouldn't assume everyone agrees with everything that comes later in a discussion when there's no visible engagement with the claim, time to review was relatively minimal, and there's no apparent notification of any interested parties. In RfA discussions that seem likely to go to crat chats, participants often return simply to reiterate their support in light of new evidence (compare Juliancolton's analysis of Money emoji's RfA consensus with how this discussion went), but despite most participants being well versed in that norm no one thought to do so? Sure, there are probably good answers to all those questions, but that's the problem with closing discussions based upon hypotheticals: they can justify whatever you want. Closers summarize debates. When weighing a single last minute comment with no engagement against 40 days of review and debate by multiple editors, the closers correctly identified the consensus on that issue. Despite focusing on the technical concerns here, as I point out in my endorse rationale, I think the no consensus outcome is reached even if we disregard the technical debate, but I still believe closers correctly evaluated the outcome of that prong of the debate at hand even if it might go differently in some future RfC. — Wug·a·po·des​ 18:47, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • @4nn1l2: What kind of logic supports this? See Wikipedia:Closing_discussions#How_to_determine_the_outcome, Wikipedia:Advice_on_closing_discussions#General_principles, and Wikipedia:Silence_and_consensus#Silence_is_the_weakest_form_of_consensus. In general, a single comment made during the closure that prompted no discussion does not trump a month of debate on an issue. — Wug·a·po·des​ 18:47, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

      For closing the discussion as "unsuccessful", the alleged strength of the oppose arguments was treated as the most important factor. For defending the closure, the objective strength of a support argument is now being discarded in favor of procedure. Also, keeping the discussion open for further comments was an intentional decision by the closers, and at least that decision was a good one. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:51, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

      I think you misunderstand what I mean by "Strenght of arguments". Strength is determined by discussion participants through debate which is then summarized by closers. A closer shouldn't just decide which arguments are better and that perspective is explicitly rejected in the essays I linked. The lack of discussion is exactly why it's not considered particularly strong: no one responded to it or indicated any kind of vetting. When summarizing the discussion, the stronger arguments are those that were tested over a month of discussion and which participants came to a consensus on. In any other situation, people would cry SUPERVOTE if closers disregarded a month long discussion over a single comment made just before closing. — Wug·a·po·des​ 19:09, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

      By this logic, we shouldn't evaluate the strength of arguments ourselves – neither me, nor you, nor the closers. Instead, we need to count the number of participants, whose evaluation we trust, to see if a majority of them (oops, 2/3) agrees that the support arguments are stronger than the oppose arguments. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:26, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

      According to Wikipedia:Closing_discussions#How_to_determine_the_outcome, The closer is there to judge the consensus of the community, after discarding irrelevant arguments: those that flatly contradict established policy, those based on personal opinion only, those that are logically fallacious, and those that show no understanding of the matter of issue. [emphasis mine]. That's exactly why the weight of your vote and Risker's should be considered zero, because you made factually wrong claims (you claimed that "hundreds of wikis" are using this infrastructure).

      According to Wikipedia:Closing_discussions#When_to_close_discussions, If additional comments, even weeks or months later, might be helpful, then don't close the conversation. It's not me voting at the eleventh hour, it's the closers who chose a bad time for closing the discussion (Really, how was I supposed to know on 10 Dec that closers would want to close the discussion on 13 Dec?) They could give us another month for discussion. I was all for discussing further. So, it's not my fault. This is another reason for overturning the closure. I was informed of the disscussion after this Signpost message and shortly voted on another proposal. It was only 10 days later that the word Farsi caught my attention and I read the 8B discussion. I'm not a regular on enwiki. I consider Commons and fawiki as my homewikis. As I said I feel somewhat responsible because this comment of mine at MetaWiki was most probably the root cause of the misunderstandings. That's why I wanted to read the panel close discussion, was the 3rd person to show my grievances regarding the close at the talk page of RFC, and the 2nd person in this thread at AN. 4nn1l2 (talk) 19:53, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Describing the support as based on the "politician's fallacy" fails to take into account all the failed proposals and the reasons that led to their failure. There was no "politician's fallacy" involved; people have rejected bad solution attempts and endorsed good solution attempts, based on arguments that went far beyond "this is something". ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:28, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm not being hyperbolic, some support rationales were literally just the politician's fallacy. "I think our current system is collapsing so badly that we need to do something that really changes it, and this is, in my view, the only sufficiently radical proposal on the table​", "Given the lack of major changes to the main RfA process it looks like we'll end up with, I think this alternative process is worth a try". Other support votes were conditioned on changes that undermine the claimed consensus "as trial only" (well, a trial was apparently rejected so this shouldn't be considered a support), "Support with a week or more for the discussion|Support with a week or more for discussion" (well, if we go with the proposal as written this shouldn't be considered a support). If you only look at the numbers, it seems like there's a strong consensus but when you actually dig down into the comments and preference matrix, there's a lot less agreement on what exactly to do. — Wug·a·po·des​ 19:03, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Desires for "sufficiently radical" / "major" changes already contain a selection; they go beyond a desire to just do "something", which would perhaps be a more fitting description when applied to the removal of the autoconfirmed status, or my proposal to rename RfA page titles. It is also highly unlikely that any radical/major change would have been accepted just for being radical or major; the proposed solution was good enough to meet the supporters' (not explicitly described) criteria. Both linked comments are longer than the quote: Each of them also contains references to specific counterarguments and expresses support regardless of these taken-into-account concerns. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:16, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I continue to be appalled at how many people I normally consider sensible want our administrators to be chosen or rejected based on their offwiki politics, or how ugly the photo on their userpage is, or how unpopular they are on peoples' chat protocol/message board of choice, or how many of the same uncheckuserable sockfarm's articles they've tagged for deletion, without even the current speed bump of coming up with a plausible !vote rationale that doesn't have the same textual quirks of that farm's last eighteen opposes. You all really want that? Because this is how you get it. —
  Cryptic 01:33, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • We reason that the current practice is so ghastly for the candidates that vanishingly few are willing to stand. The number of active admins is decreasing, and we now have several admins who stalwartly maintain processes that would fail in their absence -- admins who are single points of failure. We reason that the current practice will eventually kill the project. We therefore need a process that's less ghastly for the candidates so that some of them are willing to stand. We know this is a terrible idea, Cryptic, but all the alternatives are worse -- including continuing with our current methodology. Did you have a view on whether this close reflected the consensus?—S Marshall T/C 01:53, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, because the current popularity contest where the first dozen or so voters have outsize influence is so much more preferable.
    Calidum 01:56, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • WP:RFA. That's the basic logic behind supporting 8B. Or, to be more specific: ACE is no worse than RFA, so let's give it a try. It's hard to cause any harm here because it's hard to imagine any alternative could be any worse than RFA, so it makes sense that people would be pretty open-minded about experimenting with alternatives (also cuz this is a wiki). Levivich 01:58, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
    ]

  That happens in the current RFA process. Look at the most recent unsuccessful RFA for an example of the first thing you said being used to reject an otherwise qualified candidate.Jackattack1597 (talk) 02:08, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I think you're referring to what's now the 2nd most recent (the most recent now being an Icewhiz sock), but the point is otherwise fair. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:39, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  This point of view (and indeed the entire premise that led to the proposal under discussion) seems to assume that experienced editors, including myself, were somehow wrong to oppose particular candidates for adminship and that an overhaul is needed to somehow ensure that such candidates get waved through in the future. That's an extremely disparaging view to take of your fellow editors who raised concerns about a candidacy in good faith. When I oppose a candidate, as indeed I did in a recent RFA, I do not do so lightly. My oppose is almost always caveated by constructive feedback and a go-away-and-improve-in-this-area-then-come-back-in-six-months kind of message, as indeed are the vast majority of such opposes. If people choose to interpret that as "toxic" then that's on them not on me, because my goal is simply to ensure the project is shepherded by those who I personally feel are qualified. I want to see more of these people take the steps needed to be admins, and it's disheartening that so few refuse to come back and resit the test. Of course, I can continue to oppose such candidates under the new system too, only that they'll go away without the feedback element and, as noted by the OP here, with frivolous opposes not struck out as they currently are, which hardly seems like an improvement.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:08, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  @Amakuru This isn't really the place to re-hash the discussion and the benefits / detriment of the proposal, but as the proposer - I'd like to say that I absolutely did not believe that the opposers of candidates were the problem, or that they (or you) should be not allowed to express such views in the future. I was instead focussed on the structure of the system, the fact that candidates feel under excessive scrutiny but balancing it with the actual need for scrutiny of candidates. Psychologically, oppose votes feel worse, and get focussed on, even for those with hundreds of supports, and actually it's difficult for a person to accept the feedback, even with the suggestion that they can come back and improve. Hence the need to remove the "bold" votes, make it less of a focus on the vote, and more on the feedback. We did something similar on CUOS feedback a few years back, after we had a similar level of toxicity in that process. Long story short, the proposal was aimed at not disenfranchising voters, not making the process easier but making it less unpleasant for the candidate. Worm^TT(talk) 11:34, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  @Worm That Turned: thanks for your note, and apologies for rehashing the initial discussion - it seems (as is often the way) there's been quite a bit of that on this thread generally, as it's hard to really say much about the close itself without addressing the underlying reasons! I take your point about bolded oppose votes, I only got two in my RFA and yet they still stung so I can only imagine how it must be if they keep coming in droves. If there's a way to keep the same fundamental system for RFA such that my !vote still counts and I can give constructive feedback, then I would support it. I just can't in all honesty see how this proposal does that. I mean, take a look at Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2021. Every single candidate was opposed by more than 200 editors, and even those elected in some cases received the level of opposition which would result in an unsuccessful RFA. What are they supposed to make of that? Where's the feedback on how to improve? Conversely, if some genuine feedback comes through during the "discussion" phase and I go on to oppose with suggestions for improvement, but then the candidate passes with 1000 votes in the ballot, for unknown reasons... what are we to make of that? Anyway, that aside, all the best to you and I hope you have a great holiday season if we don't communicate before then!  — Amakuru (talk) 12:34, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse Per above. The job of the closers is to weigh the strength of the arguments presented, and not to tally !votes. I believe this was done in a fair and equitable manner, and commend them for doing so. -FASTILY 04:07, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn (uninvolved) The idea that the closers should weigh compliance with policy when the entire subject of the dispute is about whether to change policy is strange. "Let's give this a try" is, in fact, a perfectly valid argument in such a scenario. When the raw vote count is this stacked, there needs to be a severe deficiency with the arguments of the more populous side to justify closing in favor of the less populous side, and that isn't present here. It should be overturned to, at the very least, no consensus. Mlb96 (talk) 09:15, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• As the initial proposer, I was disappointed with the close, which as written comes across as a supervote. I fully accept the pragmatic view - that the discussion did not lead to consensus for this change to go into force, even at two thirds majority support. There were much hesitation from the supporters over aspects, and there was some general support from the opposition areas, completely muddying the waters - so this was never going to be an easy close, nor one that you can simply look at the numerical values. My issue was that the tone of the closure does not match the tone of the discussion - the closure's tone reads to me as "this is an unsuccessful request, there are strong reasons against and weak reasons for". However, in my view the tone of the discussion was "there is much support for this radical idea, though due to the radical nature and technical concerns there is not sufficient support to reach consensus at present, further discussion is required". Although both are functionally the same (the proposal does not go forward in its present state), the close as written does not encourage further development of the solution. So, overall, I'm less of an overturn and more of a tweak Worm^TT(talk) 11:18, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I'd be much happier if the close said "the proposal almost achieved consensus" rather than just "unsuccessful". I think the cleanest way to do this is to void the current close and then have a new close that can serve as a better foundation for going forward. —Kusma (talk) 11:27, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Mmmh... can't we just try again in a few months? Enterprisey (talk!) 12:03, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Traditional wait is six years after a failed RfA revolution. —Kusma (talk) 14:33, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Mixed - theoretical support shown, but also a consensus for certain pre-requisites in any proposal (opposed) - so I get the reasons for overturn. There isn't a clear overarching policy that they were in breach of, so as long as they have any reasonable justification, the !votes stand and should be roughly numerically assessed. That said, very few of the support !votes either countered many of the oppose reasons, or stated that they didn't view them as significant (or applicable etc etc). However, I do feel that it could be considered a barely acceptable moral support for the position, but with a consensus that aspects x, y, z would need to be resolved in any proposal actally specifying a methodology and that proposal would need to cover how they would be accomplished. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:48, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse (uninvolved) as within the bounds of closer discretion. A "no consensus" wording would perhaps have been more accurate than "unsuccessful," but here we have a major change to the RfA process that only reached 65 percent support, which would be no consensus for a candidate, so it's not unreasonable to judge the proposal as falling short of consensus.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 13:57, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Policy changes always have less participation and less % support than individual RfAs. Again, there was about 2x the amount of participation in the most recent successful RfA than in any RfA reform proposal. Even the arbitration policy RfC had less participation. See Wikipedia:Times that 100 Wikipedians supported a policy change, which shows it's quite rare for policies to actually garner large participation. So trying to judge the consensus of an RfA reform by RfA standards is a bad metric, it should be judged by the standards to change a policy, and given how conservative Wikipedians are, a 2/3 supermajority is more than sufficient, numerically speaking, to be called consensus. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:26, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  This just shows that the discussion (or at least the fact that it might result in major changes) was not well-enough advertised, which I and others said at the time. I only found out about it one month in, because it was mentioned in a Signpost article. I'm sure others were the same. By contrast, individual RFAs are always extremely prominently placed on our Watchlists, and almost everyone who might care knows about them by the end. Also, I'd have thought the patent absurdity of a smaller quorum than is usually achieved in a particular process to vote to radically overhaul that process should be obvious. It kind of reminds me of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, which requires a 2/3 majority in parliament to vote for an early election, but everyone knows that in fact the entire act could be repealed by a simple majority, rendering the 2/3 requirement somewhat moot.  — Amakuru (talk) 18:54, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  It was very well advertised. The RfA reform RfC was on watchlists just like individual RfAs. The point is that policy changes do not attract as much community interest as RfCs on editors (RfA/RfB/ACE). The quorum isn't absurd; note that the participation in an annual ArbCom election (1887 last year) is well over 10x the participation it took to ratify the arbitration policy itself (~150) (& it's about 6x the quorum of the ACE in the corresponding year)

  Wikipedia:Non-administrator rollback/Poll was an unbundling from the admin toolkit, passed also by a support of 2:1. These days rollback is a shall-grant user right and not really a contentious unbundling. The community is incredibly conservative, so when you get a 2:1 consensus on something which is actually a meaningful deviation from the status quo (a true rarity), it should clearly be considered a consensus absent specific reasons to say otherwise. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:02, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Overturn (uninvolved). Largely commenting because some users above hinted that the overturners-were "involved", and I'd probably have voted against this proposal had I bothered. This was a widely advertised and very well-attended proposal. As forms of Wikipedia consensus go, this is about as strong as it gets for "what is the community's preference for how RFA should work," it's near the equivalent of constitutional amendments for governments. As such, the closure talking about "unrebutted arguments" is essentially precisely wrong: the implication of "unrebutted arguments" on a random XFD is when one !voter points out major policy concerns backed by Wikipedia-wide consensus that the other 4 !voters ignored. It's not a relevant close here, where the supporters were entirely aware of the arguments for the status quo, weighed them, and elected to support anyway. Essentially this close says that RFA's structure is locked in place, forever. This is a terrible precedent. Wikipedia changed from 2001-2011, and it will still need to change from 2021-2031. Even if a proposal is 100% contradicted by some existing policy, that 100% has an unrebutted argument against it, there needs to be some way to say screw it, change the policy anyway. SnowFire (talk) 19:24, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn per ProcrastinatingReader. (I supported the proposal.) I also agree strongly with ProcrastinatingReader that [t]e community is incredibly conservative, so when you get a 2:1 consensus on something which is actually a meaningful deviation from the status quo (a true rarity), it should clearly be considered a consensus absent specific reasons to say otherwise. --JBL (talk) 23:32, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• (supported proposal) Overturn to either successful or no consensus. It isn't unsuccessful. A well-attended, 65/35 discussion about changing a policy should rarely ever be closed as unsuccessful, and this isn't one of those rare cases. That said, closing this discussion as snow overturn to successful is even more absurd than the actual close. — J947 ‡ ^{message ⁓ edits} 01:22, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn. I've gone back and forth on this for a while now, but I just can't bring myself to !vote endorse. I strongly agree with
  WP:NHC explains that concept correctly: closers should discount those arguments "that flatly contradict established policy, those based on personal opinion only, those that are logically fallacious, and those that show no understanding of the matter of issue" and, having done that, then defer to the perspective that "has the predominant number of responsible Wikipedians supporting it". The closers cited none of those considerations, instead simply selecting arguments that they preferred and criticizing the majority for not addressing them to their satisfaction. I just don't see that as being consistent with the closers' role. Third, this is a really short closing statement. Perhaps I'm just prolix, but I – a non-admin – have given longer statements about the title for an article about a storm and a single infobox picture: both matters of infinitely less significance than this very weighty matter. While brevity is the soul of wit, I'm not inclined to give much deference to a closure that barely grappled with the difficult issues presented here. (Indeed, I can't help but note that one of the endorse !votes above is longer than the closure itself. Surely a good closure should speak for itself without requiring lengthy post hoc rationalizations?) Fourth, I do think that there might be fair arguments for a no-consensus close, most notably the argument that 65% support is inadequate for such a significant change. But that argument was conspicuously absent from the closure, and I can't endorse based on an argument that wasn't made. If the closure is overturned, I hope that the reclosers consider all possibilities, including no consensus and tentative consensus in principle. Finally, I did indeed !vote in support of the proposal, but I've genuinely tried to consider this matter thoughtfully, deferentially, and with an open mind. I'd like to think I would reach the same conclusion even if my personal predilections differed. This has been a long explanation, but I hope it at least immunizes me from any charges that I did not consider all of the opposing arguments. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 08:00, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Endorse close. It's clear the idea behind 8B has a groundswell of support. And while the supports had numerical advantage, a lot of the supports had conditions/caveats. As a result, it would hardly be possible to have closed this as successful, since there was not a consistent, clear, unambiguous proposal the supporters were all supporting. But it seems there is fertile ground for proponents to address the discussion/concerns, both in the support and oppose comments, and come back with a revised concrete proposal that is quite likely to achieve consensus in a couple more rounds (without the baggage of a 99-part omnibus!). With that as an encouraging possibility, I'm unwilling to get too fussed whether 3 experienced closers decided to label their close as "No consensus", "Unsuccessful", or "Revise and resubmit" or suchlike, even though a more positive wording might have .been more encouraging.
  Martinp (talk) 03:51, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Overturn. I like the idea to overturn to "consensus to begin technical discussions with the WMF" because it splits the baby, so to speak. It's not consensus to enact it, but it's aknowlegement of the strong majority in favor of the proposal, while recognizing that there are still technical obstacles to overcome. Iff these discussions are fruitful enough to overcome the technical issues, then the propsosal can move forward. -- Tavix ^(talk) 04:02, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn. I intentionally elected not to participate in the proposal review process, but I have read the discussions that emerged there. Closers should evaluate the strength of arguments made in support and opposition, but this is not a blank check to ignore what is quite frankly overwhelming consensus. Opposition is not privileged over support simply because it lists a greater variety of reasons, and I think the closers should have been aware of that when they made their decision. Side note – it's a bit disheartening to see so many people just re-voting in this closure review in the same way that they !voted on the actual proposal. I'd like to think that I would voice support for overturning a bad close, even if it didn't agree with my actual position in a discussion. AlexEng^(TALK) 04:18, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse (uninvoled). While there was on the face of it a lot of support, there was not one single thing that all the supporters were suporting, and not all of the arguments in oppositon were addressed let alone fully refuted and the closing summary explains this well. Thryduulf (talk) 12:19, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• overturn to NC (uninvolved) I don't know how I would have weighed in on this. But there wasn't a consensus to reject this proposal. I'm much less sure if the right closure was NC or there was enough to support it. But going to NC seems obvious. Hobit (talk) 21:46, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Overturn (uninvolved) at least to no consensus. Closing it as unsuccessful over technical issues doesn't really make sense, if it turns out technical issues prevent this, that's a separate issue from whether the community thinks it should be done. Ignoring those opposes, it's even clearer that the community thinks the support arguments outweigh the oppose ones, in strength if not in number. Elli (talk | contribs) 04:27, 24 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Call for close

I think there's been more than enough input to this close review, and I think all that remains is for a previously uninvolved person to summarize what we've said and carry out the community's will.—S Marshall T/C 11:33, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Not after less than 24 hours, no. And we can't take shortcuts in a controversial closure review. —Kusma (talk) 11:52, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's snowing. Even the people who say "endorse" are going on to add that no consensus would have been a better close. Why drag it out over Christmas?—S Marshall T/C 12:42, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's not snowing. Come on.

WP:AN. These methods of reaching consensus are not equitable. WaltCip-(talk) 13:39, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

It's not true, that my endorse says "no consensus" would be better. What would be "better" is to move on, because on balance my uninvolved opinion is that within the WP system, this three panel close is right enough, this is not the place to expect more than that. For some of those asking for it to be overturned, they are either asking for something that makes no difference, or some who are asking for it to be replaced with a SUPERVOTE, which changes the implementation of the proposal, as it was proposed. The Closers don't get to change the proposal, the people commenting were not, if you will

meeting minds on a different proposal, indeed as the close found, they were "unsuccessful" in finding agreement (see, WP:CLOSE, "Consensus can be most easily defined as agreement."). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:58, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

• (edit conflict) I am against SNOW here, firstly because the hurdle is ultra-high for SNOW-closing a close review, but also because while @S Marshall: is right about those endorsing adding nuance, he seems to ignore that the same is true of those backing overturn. These are !votes with a very high rate of nuance, not just in reasoning but in what they advise the close should change to. As such, it should not be closed early. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:48, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - I don't see a consensus to overturn the close, any more than there was consensus to enact the new policy in the first place. Of course, those who voted in favour would like it overturned, and think their argument was best, but the closing panel didn't agree. I haven't seen any point raised in the review that would suggest they made a major error.  — Amakuru (talk) 18:57, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  "Haven't seen any point raised" – You may need to read the review to see these points. The entire closure is a major error; many people have taken the time to explain why. I do agree, though, that closing this discussion too early would not be beneficial. It's perfectly fine to let it run for 72 hours or a week. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:37, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Too early. I would agree that if it was closed today a consensus would be found for overturning, but it is far from a
  WP:SNOW consensus and so should be left open for at least a week. BilledMammal (talk) 22:21, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• My reading of the discussion is "no consensus to implement". I agree with the closers and others commenting here that a better way forward would be to start a new, better formulated RfC, likely after discussing the technical barriers identified with the WMF. I did not vote in the RfC, but I do feel the technical and operational barriers identified are more problematic than some of the supporters realize, based on discussions I've had with folks running SecurePoll elections in the past few years. My reading of the discussion is that there may be consensus for a trial of some non-!vote RfA method, but again, I don't think there's a clear consensus for the proposal as formulated. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 04:43, 24 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]