Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Money emoji/Bureaucrat chat

The following thread is preserved as an archive of an inter-bureaucrat discussion regarding the related RfA, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Money emoji. The final decision was that consensus exists to make Money emoji an administrator. Please do not modify the text.

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Discussion

• Initiating discussion. 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. I don't think a unilateral decision in either direction would be appropriate; weighing these concerns against the weight of support is needed, especially given how many supports have reaffirmed their position in reply to some opposes. Primefac (talk) 12:07, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
• Chat seen, will be at least 10 hours before I can reply further. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:14, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

  After reviewing and weighing all of the discussion comments, I am seeing a weak consensus to promote. Many years ago, I may have considered this a no-consensus situation, but the 2015 RfC specifically allowed for discretion in the 65-75% range, and this candidate falls in the middle of that range, even after my !vote weighting. The content creation opposition was mostly refutedovercome by the supporters that claimed to not have issue with that aspect. I'm seeing the most serious contention being about the candidate's maturity and my reading is that the concern is that this could lead to future WP:ADMINCONDUCT issues. The supporters claim that they have observed maturity, and that it has been increasing over time following the "retirement" situation in 2018. I will continue to watch this chat and its talk too see if other insights further sway my result. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:53, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

  In regard to the "trend" referenced by Warofdreams, I'm not swayed by that in this RfA mostly due to the timing of it, for a contrasting example: if a major trend in the discussion changed in the last 1 day of the discussion I would put more weight in to it. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:50, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

• It is very hard for me to see the discussion as a consensus to promote. There is considerable opposition that is well-founded in policy. As a 'crat I do not believe it is appropriate for me to agree or disagree with the opposition. Rather, I merely observe that it is not specious, nor unreasoned, nor based on personal standards for adminship that are not widely accepted. There is also the trend towards additional opposition as the candidacy has been better understood. UninvitedCompany 17:51, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
• I also see it being extremely difficult to find a consensus to promote. I'm not here to voice my own opinion but that of the community. The two primary concerns that come up are content and maturity. Even reading through the support section, editors don't dismiss that maturity was an issue, they just think they have surpassed it to a varying degree. There are also some weaker supports that are because of maturity. I appreciate those reaffirming their support for the candidate that they think the issues have passed, but I can't ignore the community voice which isn't ready to give the tools because of it - even if it's a not yet and putting this down the road. The last thing I'll add is there are also people who cite the maturity issue to this RfA, not to edits from 2018/2019, so I have to consider that also. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 18:48, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
• I've seen this, but I won't be able to review things until at least tonight, possibly tomorrow night. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 19:15, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
  • After reviewing the discussion in the RfA, I find I agree with Useight's assessment: there is a razor-thin consensus to promote. As has been noted by others, the majority of those opposing brought up solid arguments for why they were opposing. However, I think thoses supporting brought up equally-solid reasons for supporting, some of them in spite of the reasons brought up by those opposing. Some even reaffirmed their support after many of the opposes had been written. Because of that, whoever closes this RfA, if it is closed as a promotion, should caution Money emoji to tread carefully and make sure of any actions they are taking. Ask a lot of questions. Try to find one or more admin mentors who can help them avoid any missteps, if possible. This was a really hard one to decide. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 22:50, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
• I am going to say, I do see consensus to promote, although weak. The basis of the majority of opposes is that he has made insufficient edits, be it to content specifically or just generally. However there doesn't seem to be major concerns about the edits he has actually made. Maturity concerns are reasonable. Turning then to the support comments, there is a wealth of people who either have positive comments about the individual, or strong support due to his work in CCI - and area that does lend itself to mistakes. As I say, it's a weak evidence of consensus as the numbers are at the 70% mark... But the arguments seem to fall at a stronger opinion towards support. Worm^TT(talk) 20:09, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
• I will try to review within 12 hours. –xeno^talk 17:57, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
  • This is a really close one to call, so agree with bringing it to a bureaucrat discussion. My initial read (taking into account the 2015 update) is that there is a consensus to promote, albeit resting on a knife’s edge.

    I’m increasingly hesitant to put any stock into "trendlines", as this may have the unintended consequence of encouraging strategic voting rather than consensus-building discussion.

    One thing they did stick out to me was that despite the volume of opposition, there were no threads moved to the talk page. I’m not sure if that speaks to the climate improving at RfA (which would be nice), or if that bolsters the opposition (the argument being that well-founded opposes don’t generate acrimonious threads that drift off-topic).

    I’ll revisit within about 12 hours (if still open) to expand on my reasoning, and take any additional community comments on these and other factors into consideration. –xeno^talk 06:17, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

    • Warofdreams (and others): I'm still unmoved with regard to the trendline argument.

      It's not surprising that a greater percentage of supports are made at the beginning of a candidacy, having prior knowledge of the candidate or following the participant's review of the candidate at the outset.

      Conversely, opposition will typically build towards the end of the candidacy - after the initially submitted oppose rationales have been tested by the rigor of discussion.

      RfAs are well-advertised and always run for about 168 hours. To consider what might happen if the RfA were to run longer is irrelevant to our decision, and no 11th hour revelations were involved in this candidacy.

      Having had another look, I still see consensus to promote as the oppositional base - some of which was not well-grounded - does not outweigh the support arguments.

      As a personal side note, I think it's unfair to say that resolving copyright issues is not content creation: the candidate took unsuitable non-free content and created free content via their efforts. (That being said, this objection need not be sustained for me to still find consensus.)

      More later if necessary, but don't wait on me if consensus is reached. –xeno^talk 18:49, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

      • In my (now rather historic) experience, trendlines can go either way in a discussion, and there's no pattern, even in closely balanced discussions. Trying to determine what would happen if the discussion ran longer can be an important consideration if significant new information is introduced late on, but in this case, that doesn't seem to have happened. My interest lies in tracking how the process of building a consensus has fared during the period in which the discussion was open. Warofdreams talk 18:58, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
        • While supports and opposes were about evenly matched for the final ~72 hours of the candidacy (41/40), be sure to take into account those users that re-affirmed or bolstered their support in that time period as well and that the later support votes were made with the bulk of the oppositional material already on the table. –xeno^talk 19:55, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
• I'll try to get to this tomorrow afternoon UK time but I can't guarantee it and I will understand if you need to close this before then. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 20:11, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
• I'm with UninvitedCompany, there is significant opposition which is founded in policy, so I don't see a consensus to promote. Looking through I don't see the support comments, on the whole, as expressed more strongly than the oppose ones. Unlike xeno, I do think that the trendline is significant. If RfAs are about building consensus, this request has been moving away from consensus, and there's no evidence that it is as a result of strategic voting, but rather due to honestly expressed views. Warofdreams talk 12:14, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
• Sigh. There's a comment near the bottom of the RFA that reads: "This is probably one of the most difficult decisions I've had to make in well over 400 RfA votes." I feel you on that - this is the toughest 'crat chat I've been involved in. I'm reminded of a line from the movie Mulan: "A single grain of rice can tip the scale." And I'm not just saying that because of the numbers. The numbers, despite being virtually as close to the center of the 65-75% discretionary zone as possible, given that there were over 200 !voters, absolutely do not tell the whole story. But still, I wouldn't be surprised to see this 'crat chat end with the bureaucrats evenly split, based on the contents of the RFA. You know, situations like this actually make me kind of glad that I'm not so active on Wikipedia these days, because I've never heard of the candidate - it helps put my mind at ease (a little bit) when trying to be as impartial as I can when making the tough calls.

Anyway, here goes. The opposes are solid remarks; practically all of them mention weighty matters about the candidate. (Note to the reader: I don't make judgment calls in my bureaucrat capacity regarding whether I agree or disagree with the reason the !voter came to their conclusion). I did find it interesting that among the 66 opposers, not a single one used the term "Strong Oppose." Not sure I've seen that happen before on an RFA with so many opposes. Obviously, that's just the label on the comment; the actual meat of the comment can absolutely be considered "strong" without that label (and vice versa, for that matter). And, to be clear, there are strongly passionate opposes in this very RFA. Meanwhile, a number of supports came back to reaffirm and/or strengthen their support, but many supports also acknowledged a level of concern with some of the same things that opposers were opposing for. But, on the flip side, a number of supporters were pretty enthusiastic, too. And, to top it all off, one of the most passionate opposes was actually in the neutral section. It all made for a difficult time indeed. In the end, my assessment is that there is, by a razor-thin margin, consensus. And I don't mean that as hyperbole. There's a reason I had to agonize over this one for a couple of days, losing sleep in exchange for repeatedly reading all the !votes, and it's probably why bureaucrat comments in this chat have been a slow trickle (apologies to the candidate for the delay). This is literally the toughest thing I've had to do in my wiki-career. Useight (talk) 17:38, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

• I concur with UninvitedCompany and DeltaQuad. There is a sizeable and well-founded opposition to the candidate, so I do not see a consensus to promote here. --Deskana (talk) 21:34, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

  Deskana and UninvitedCompany: With respect, finding that there is "considerable opposition"/"sizable and well-founded opposition to the candidate" is not enough, on it's own, to adequately explain your position that there is no consensus to promote. If there was not such opposition, then we would not be having a bureaucrat discussion in the first place, so these comments do not really contribute to the community's understanding of your analysis. We must also find that such sizable and well-founded opposition was enough to counter the weight of the similarly sizable and well-founded support (or explain why we felt the support was not well-founded, etc.). Would you each be willing to expand on your rationales, to explain how you came to the decision that the volume and strength of opposition actually swung the pendulum against promotion (keeping in mind that the community in 2015 expanded the range in which we should promote candidates)? –xeno^talk 00:45, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

  (Echoing the query of bureaucrat-emeritus WJBscribe) UninvitedCompany, Warofdreams, Deskana: could you clarify whether your comments are made using old-school reckoning, or otherwise confirm your views were indeed calibrated with the updated expectations? I would also highlight WJBscribe’s analysis: ”The change in the numerical boundaries means that - although consensus is not numbers - the expectation is that RfAs with 70%+ support will be successful absent a strong balance of argument in favour of the opposition. I don’t see that here. The opposition is valid and of the sort that can lead RfAs to be well outside the discretionary range, but that has not happened here, the opposition is balanced by a supermajority of supporters. It is not the kind of opposition with diffs showing behavioural issues, policy misapplication, editing contrary to policy etc that would make the opposition strong. The opposition is more broad - lack of contributions, too soon, temperament. The latter is important, but appears to be a concern based largely on a single incident retirement message.” –xeno^talk 07:44, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

  @Xeno: while that wasn't directly to me, I don't agree that there is an expectation of 70% = success, even the first page of WP:RFA calls this out as in practice, most RfAs above 75% support pass. Also, I wouldn't necessarily see 31% opposes as being "strong balance" of opposition. Practically, we don't need to determine if the RfA was actually a "fail", only if it isn't a "pass" - and the murky area in between is not a pass. I did see this specific case as rising above the grey area, but just barely. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:25, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

  @Xeno: I believe that only under unusual circumstances should a discussion with approximately 70% support (I believe it's at 69.86%) be seen as a consensus to promote. The most common reason I would support such a promotion would be where there is substantial opposition that is not well-founded in policy. Recent examples have included RfAs that drew opposition of a retaliatory nature or opposition based on the !voter's personal experience requirements (where such requirements lack any basis in policy or practice). As I noted upthread, the fact that there has been more opposition as the candidacy has been better understood is also a factor. This is because it indicates that some of the initial support !voters may have chosen a different position had they participated at a later point in the discussion. Regarding your comment that We must also find that such sizable and well-founded opposition was enough to counter the weight of the similarly sizable and well-founded support, I do not agree, as such analysis implies an even threshold where any support percentage over 50% could be seen as a "consensus to promote" if the comments were equally well-founded. UninvitedCompany 20:34, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

• OK, I've had a chance to look at this now. There are many comments above that I agree with. It's a toughie. I think I fall in line with Xao on the content creation opposes, but Useight actually summarises my opinions really closely. Very marginal consensus to promote. I think the way the Crats are split indicates how close this is to the line. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:31, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
• Finally chipping in; as Primefac mentioned, I was traveling all of the week, and I apologize for having kept everyone waiting. To get to the point: I see consensus to promote, albeit weak. That said, I see an RfA like this is very much seen in shades of grey, meaning that I think both promoting or not promoting are acceptable outcomes. I broadly agree with the comments with bureaucrats on both sides of this coin, but there are two factors that push to suggest promotion. The first factor is that community did requeste us to use a lower discretionary range than was done previously, and to me that alone suggests that promoting in such an edge case is a less bad option than not promoting, as my understanding of the spirit of the request is "to go easier on the numerical threshold". The second reason is the strength of arguments. The main arguments against promotion were temperament and lack of content creation. What I note is that many opposes cited only one of the two main arguments. The "lack of content creation" argument, while not weak, is not as strong as concerns over temperament or direct evidence of not understanding policy. This second factor is less of a motivating factor for me than the first, largely because content creation has very much been a factor in other (more decisive!) RfAs. Maxim_(talk) 23:01, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Broadening discussion and moving towards close

This is tight. It would be good to hear from more Crats. We have 17 and 10 have opined so far. Pinging: Avraham, Bibliomaniac15, Cecropia, Maxim and MBisanz. Encouraging Nihonjoe to return and give a view when they can and I think it's worth waiting, with apologies to the candidate for the delay. Primefac, as initiator, am I reading you correctly that you plan to hold off on stating a view and then ultimately close the discussion? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 11:45, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Correct. Primefac (talk) 11:54, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Some of those bureaucrats haven't edited in months, so I wouldn't hold my breath for a timely return. Ironic, coming from me, I know. Useight (talk) 17:36, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

I'll drop some talk page messages. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 20:34, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Primefac, I’ve taken that course in the past (refraining from taking a stance in bureaucrat discussions with the intent of closing them- helps maintain and demonstrate impartiality), but typically only when I lacked the time to responsibly weigh in on the candidacy proper.

There’s nothing in common practice or policy that prevents a bureaucrat who opined in a bureaucrat discussion from also closing it, and I think that this particular discussion would benefit from additional bureaucrat opinions about the candidacy itself - if you have time to provide yours.

If you no longer felt comfortable closing it after that, someone else can, it can be sorted out in a motion to close to ensure any dissenting opinions support the emergent consensus or finding of lack thereof. –xeno^talk 17:05, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

I know, and I have been pretty busy this week. See my comment below (so I don't have to say it twice). Primefac (talk) 20:36, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

• If no additional bureaucrat opinions within 24 hours, we should consider closing, lest we break a nearly 13-year record. And I guess this is as good a place as any to request qualified candidates to stand at WP:RFB. –xeno^talk 17:05, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

• I second that. I wanted to post the same thing, but didn't know if it was appropriate to do so yet. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 17:09, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
• I don't really think this specific case would be easier by throwing more resources at it, but agree this appears to be reaching its natural end. Though I'm on the support side I'm not seeing a consensus "to promote" developing here. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:52, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree with this. As it stands, I don't see consensus to promote. Useight (talk) 20:39, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No pressure on Primefac, but if they found consensus to promote, I think we'd have <ahem> consensus to promote. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 20:34, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
    • Hah! Primefac (talk) 20:36, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
• Maxim should be commenting in the next 24 hours or so (told me they were traveling all week), thought I'd wait for them. Sorry I didn't say anything earlier, been a little busy this week. Primefac (talk) 20:36, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

I've given a gentle nudge to all the outstanding Crats. If Maxim is going to comment soon, that's worth waiting for. Nihonjoe is clearly busy IRL but I'm hoping I read into their comment that they might find some time for this. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 20:44, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Recusals

1. Bowing out of this one given that I supported. Acalamari 13:25, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Summary

Consensus to promote

Worm That Turned, Xaosflux, Xeno, Useight, Dweller, Nihonjoe, Maxim

No consensus to promote

UninvitedCompany, DeltaQuad, Warofdreams, Deskana

Recused

Acalamari

Other

Primefac (will close)

Close

There is a consensus to promote Money emoji to the role of administrator. In watching both the RFA and this chat, the time to process was not so much due to volume (such as with Floquenbeam 2) but in parsing out just how much trust the community is giving to administrators (with two recent sysops at ArbCom I can certainly see how users may be concerned with a potentially immature or hotheaded user getting the mop). The crats (by a decent margin) find that while it is a very reasonable concern – and one that Money emoji should be taking into consideration going forward – there are enough users who feel that they have matured past the PRAM retirement from a few years ago to merit promotion. Primefac (talk) 23:46, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

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The above thread is preserved as an archive of an inter-bureaucrat discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of this discussion or the related nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.