Wikipediocracy

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Money_emoji (T-C-L)

Nominated by our friend Ritchie333 and by TonyBallioni. Total edits under 10,000, over half being under 20 bytes, which looks a bit weak for an admin candidate. Currently 28/0/1, the 1 being a rare appearance by SandyGeorgia.

Poetlister wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 11, 2020 9:14 pm

Nominated by our friend Ritchie333 and by TonyBallioni. Total edits under 10,000, over half being under 20 bytes, which looks a bit weak for an admin candidate. Currently 28/0/1, the 1 being a rare appearance by SandyGeorgia.

Most admin candidates presented are rather weak, in the sense that very few of them have any idea of how to write anything.

Wikipedia gets what it deserves, high-ranking incompetents.

If you know how to get decent content writers to run for RfA, I'm all ears. Most of them don't want anything to do with it, or fear they'll get blanket opposed for a lack of AIV experience; although I've repeatedly said that anyone who is capable of writing an FA can understand how AIV works in about ten minutes and do a better job than something with 10,000 edits there.

It would help cancel out some of the nonsense like the proposal I saw last week that would have seen some jobsworth go through and G5 delete a bunch of Eric's articles because they wanted to be able to do it to sockpuppets retrospectively.

Ritchie333 wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 11, 2020 11:02 pm

If you know how to get decent content writers to run for RfA, I'm all ears. Most of them don't want anything to do with it, or fear they'll get blanket opposed for a lack of AIV experience; although I've repeatedly said that anyone who is capable of writing an FA can understand how AIV works in about ten minutes and do a better job than something with 10,000 edits there.

It would help cancel out some of the nonsense like the proposal I saw last week that would have seen some jobsworth go through and G5 delete a bunch of Eric's articles because they wanted to be able to do it to sockpuppets retrospectively.

There is no way.

Wikipedia is broken beyond repair.

Ritchie333 wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 11, 2020 11:02 pm

If you know how to get decent content writers to run for RfA, I'm all ears. Most of them don't want anything to do with it, or fear they'll get blanket opposed for a lack of AIV experience; although I've repeatedly said that anyone who is capable of writing an FA can understand how AIV works in about ten minutes and do a better job than something with 10,000 edits there.

It is indeed one of the greatest weaknesses of Wikipedia that it is run by "the community", which by definition consists mostly of editors who spend little time trying to make an encyclopaedia because they are mostly active on the "behind the scenes" pages. Probably, most of the best content creators never look at RfA for example. As a result, content creators are regarded as of a lower class than the elite "community" so rarely become admins, and it has become a vicious circle.

Ritchie333 wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 11, 2020 11:02 pm

It would help cancel out some of the nonsense like the proposal I saw last week that would have seen some jobsworth go through and G5 delete a bunch of Eric's articles because they wanted to be able to do it to sockpuppets retrospectively.

Last week we were talking about removing the Rollback rights of this troupe after all of them restored obvious vandalism, now they want more power? To hell with that. It's there now and melting, fortunately.

It was an attempt at a mammoth violation of the rule that you should judge each edit on its merits rather than your opinion of the editor. It's more in line with the treatment of Wikipedia as a game rather than an attempt to build a work of reference, but of course that won't surprise anyone here.

#'''Support''' Grudgingly. Because the candidate fails my criteria of being the perfect candidate. Because I distrust both the nominators. Because the RfA fails my criteria of having at least 3 nominators. Because AfD !votes of the candidate should have been exactly 50% keep and 50% delete. Because I only normally support candidates with zero opposing editors.... And hopefully, in case of a crat chat, my well-explained support !vote would get the importance it deserves. That it. [[User:Lourdes|Lourdes 10:15, 13 February 2020 (UTC)]]

Does not trust Ritchie333 (T-C-L)and TonyBallioni (T-C-L) ? link

rhinoroars wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 14, 2020 7:13 am

#'''Support''' Grudgingly. Because the candidate fails my criteria of being the perfect candidate. Because I distrust both the nominators. Because the RfA fails my criteria of having at least 3 nominators. Because AfD !votes of the candidate should have been exactly 50% keep and 50% delete. Because I only normally support candidates with zero opposing editors.... And hopefully, in case of a crat chat, my well-explained support !vote would get the importance it deserves. That it. [[User:Lourdes|Lourdes 10:15, 13 February 2020 (UTC)]]

Does not trust Ritchie333 (T-C-L)and TonyBallioni (T-C-L) ? link

Pretty sure this is sarcasm....

Beeblebrox wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 14, 2020 7:20 am

Pretty sure this is sarcasm....

I think there's very little doubt about it. But many people here have difficulty detecting sarcasm, which is why we need the emoji.

I don't think this is going to pass. Still, it's a point of fact that Wikipedia has had copyright violations and plagiarism hiding in plain sight, with a backlog of investigations stretching back over ten years, and hardly anybody wants to do anything about it.

I hope it does

Ritchie333 wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 14, 2020 5:21 pm

I don't think this is going to pass. Still, it's a point of fact that Wikipedia has had copyright violations and plagiarism hiding in plain sight, with a backlog of investigations stretching back over ten years, and hardly anybody wants to do anything about it.

It's interesting to speculate why anyone might be motivated to do anything about it. Can you think of any reason why an unpaid volunteer might choose to spend their time investigating copyright violations and plagiarism?

Eric Corbett wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 15, 2020 12:25 am

Ritchie333 wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 14, 2020 5:21 pm

I don't think this is going to pass. Still, it's a point of fact that Wikipedia has had copyright violations and plagiarism hiding in plain sight, with a backlog of investigations stretching back over ten years, and hardly anybody wants to do anything about it.

It's interesting to speculate why anyone might be motivated to do anything about it. Can you think of any reason why an unpaid volunteer might choose to spend their time investigating copyright violations and plagiarism?

The same reason that unpaid volunteers choose to spend their time adding categories or doing other gnoming work. it's a hobby that for some reason they find interesting.

I fear "Game Theory" may apply. Doing something everyone agrees is a "good thing" is an easy path for advancement in any field.

Unfortunately, some who just want titles or power choose the easiest path.

This person has zero discernible opinions on anything remotely controversial. Which is unusual on the Internet as a rule.

collect wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 15, 2020 2:19 pm

This person has zero discernible opinions on anything remotely controversial. Which is unusual on the Internet as a rule.

It's not a bad thing if you want to pass RfA, of course. But one of the problems with Wikipedia is that almost anything can become controversial, however sure you might be that it isn't. That's a consequence of WP:NPOV.

This one really tanked over the weekend, but is still likely to pass because 'crats are reluctant to close as no consensus these days.

This also says something about the 42 voters who supported the nomination initially before the first oppose vote was cast.

Wikiguy.DC wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 17, 2020 4:17 pm

This one really tanked over the weekend, but is still likely to pass because 'crats are reluctant to close as no consensus these days.

This also says something about the 42 voters who supported the nomination initially before the first oppose vote was cast.

If it finishes above 70% it will pass. It is quite common for there to be an initial rush of support followed by an initially slow trickle of opposes. Once people see the oppose arguments, they are more likely to agree with them. Maybe there should be a discussion about candidates for a week before people actually start voting.

It's a 'crat chat.

Could go either way, the result (69.9% support) is right on the knife edge between passing and failing. It all comes down to what the 'crats think of the arguments (not enough content creation, and bit of a tantrum 19 months ago).

Ritchie333 wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 18, 2020 12:11 pm

It's a 'crat chat.

Could go either way, the result (69.9% support) is right on the knife edge between passing and failing. It all comes down to what the 'crats think of the arguments (not enough content creation, and bit of a tantrum 19 months ago).

It is rare that a candidate is able to avoid the lack of content creation trap. Cyberpower managed it a few years ago. This could have been avoided simply by postponing the RfA until a little more credible content creation was recorded. I was almost tempted by the argument that the work they currently do is, inter alia, content work. I think that the proposer could have easily avoided this situation. As ever, far too eager to advocate an underdone candidate now instead of preparing a fully done one in 6 months.

I don't think 6 months would have made any difference. He might have spontaneously decided he was bored with CCI and started writing a few GAs, but I don't think he'd have done it without some prodding in that direction, which ironically he now has.

The RFA has been dropping steadily over the course of the last 48 hours (see talk), but from what I have seen it is mostly over a (relatively) small number of issues; "content creation" and "maturity (or lack thereof)" are the main two.

And the 'crats have already begun their work of explaining away the opposition. We're gonna get Rexxed all over again.

Wikiguy.DC wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 18, 2020 4:27 pm

The RFA has been dropping steadily over the course of the last 48 hours (see talk), but from what I have seen it is mostly over a (relatively) small number of issues; "content creation" and "maturity (or lack thereof)" are the main two.

And the 'crats have already begun their work of explaining away the opposition. We're gonna get Rexxed all over again.

There is (unsurprisingly) an incoherence in RfA procedure. On one hand, it is allegedly a !vote not a vote, so the crats are supposed to decide it on the weight of the argument rather than just count supports and opposes. On the other hand, if the balance of votes is strongly one way or the other then the candidate is automatically accepted or rejected with no discussion.

While it's not unusual to see every word of the Crat statements picked apart by people on the talk page, there is a bit of a debate happening on the main discussion between Xeno and the crat opposers. To be fair, UninvitedCompany's rationale is a bit weak compared to the crats who have voted to promote. The supporters are at least attempting to provide some justification even if it's mostly "oh god this is a hard decision" fluff as though this decision will decide the fate of Wikipedia.

I don't buy the trendline argument at all for this particular RFA. It's one thing if the RFA trended downward because an explosive reveal was uncovered in the final day or two, but that's not the case here.

At the end of the day, I suspect this is going to fizzle out into a no-consensus result.

I think the trend line should be given some merit. It was clearly tanking for a reason. It would likely have failed outright if kept open another 12 hours or so.

Wikiguy.DC wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 21, 2020 6:20 am

I think the trend line should be given some merit. It was clearly tanking for a reason. It would likely have failed outright if kept open another 12 hours or so.

it's a bit dangerous to speculate on what might have happened in different circumstances. The crats are entitled to give more weight to votes or !votes in the last day or two than to earlier ones. However, they can't give any weight to votes that weren't cast, and might not have been cast even if the RfA had been allowed to run for longer.

7 - 4 supporting to pass now in the 'crat chat. Closed as successful.

link

Jans Hammer wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 22, 2020 11:18 pm

7 - 4 supporting to pass now in the 'crat chat. Closed as successful.

link

Another piece of curious logic. That's only about 64% in favour. They probably wouldn't have accepted that margin on the !vote, which isn't a vote.

Poetlister wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 23, 2020 9:19 am

Jans Hammer wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 22, 2020 11:18 pm

7 - 4 supporting to pass now in the 'crat chat. Closed as successful.

link

Another piece of curious logic. That's only about 64% in favour. They probably wouldn't have accepted that margin on the !vote, which isn't a vote.

That would indeed be a strange anomaly, if we weren't talking about Wikipedia, which is jam-packed full of such muddled, inconsistent thinking.

Given a discretionary range close is basically a dice roll over whoever closes it, I don’t expect much logic in the result of a Crat Chat.

As Nihonjoe demonstrated a couple years ago with the Brianhe RFA (link), any of the crats who voted for no consensus could have closed it with no promotion had they reached it before Primefac. There would have been a lot of whining and maybe a quickly shot down arbcom case request, but it would have failed and that’s the process for you.

It's RFA itself that is the anomaly. 'Crat chats are a discussion decided by consensus, as is the norm on WP, whereas RFA is, most of the time, a vote with hard numerical standards for passing and failing, and only "becomes" a discussion when it falls in between automatic pass and automatic fail.

It's not perfect but leaving it this way leaves the 'crats with at least one important task still left for them to do.