User talk:ErrantX/Archive/2015/November

The Signpost: 28 October 2015

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DYK for Operation Zeppelin (deception plan)
Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:02, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 November 2015

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Your GA nomination of Operation Zeppelin (deception plan)
The article Operation Zeppelin (deception plan) you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Operation Zeppelin (deception plan) for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:26, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Andrew Massey (SAS commander)
Hi ErrantX, this newbie to Wikipedia hopes that the corrections/amendments just made to the Andrew Massey (SAS commander) article are OK. Please advise as I'll do any other necessary work in the next day or so. Thanks for your help.Researcher1944 (talk) 09:58, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

DYK for Operation Royal Flush
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:02, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

RfC
Hi Errant. I just wanted to let you know that I have just announced the end of the voting period on the RfA reform RfC, so if you still want to you can now close it. -- Biblio worm  00:58, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that nuanced and careful close! I hope we'll be seeing more of your work. - Dank (push to talk) 14:22, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * No worries. As far as I'm concerned, if 180 editors see fit to build a discussion of that length it deserves more than a passing close. Cheers! --Errant (chat!) 14:27, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm also very pleased with your closing of that RfC, especially since it was so long. I'll get the next step prepared shortly. -- Biblio worm  16:21, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Close of RfC
Hi Errant. This was a toughie and I appreciate your diving in. However, what disturbed me was the determination re O, "difficult to remove admins." Unlike the other portions of the discussion, this directly impacted on existing admins. Yet there was no breakdown of admin vs. non-admin !votes. It seems to me that the admins should be removed from the calculation before determining whether to go ahead with this aspect in the second phase. I'd urge you to revisit that question and discount admin !votes. Coretheapple (talk) 16:42, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * thanks for your comments. So... I don't think I'd agree that is an appropriate thing to do & don't plan to revisit. If you'll allow me to explain why: firstly that sets a troublesome precedent - cutting people out because of their particular access rights. You could, perhaps, argue that anyone who has, for example, been blocked should have their !votes discounted to. Secondly; I am there to judge and summarise consensus, choosing criteria such as the one you've suggested is tenuous and somewhat overstepping my role. Had anyone raised a strong concern in the discussion about this, and had the community clearly supported excluding admins, then that would have been OK. I didn't see that however. Thirdly; you'll notice that I put that section (E, I think in actual fact) in a sort of "hedge" zone. It's a very complex discussion and, as you say, there are multiple factors at play. That section is full of differing viewpoints that don't fit to a binary yes/no. There are some good support and oppose rationale, from both Admins and non-Admins. Which leads to Fourthly, this isn't a !vote and so you'd be wrong to imagine that I didn't consider admin-status in reading through the comments. That did play a part. Finally; I placed that section in a discretionary position, it's clearly a topic that the community has a lot of opinions about, but it might be that this is the wrong place to consider them. Perhaps those that strongly support the approach might look at this topic separately? It might get included in Phase II, at least in part - that's up to whoever drafts the next phase (if you feel very strongly about it, maybe that's a role for you?). Either way, I don't know. Hopefully I've explained my thought process behind this adequately. --Errant (chat!) 17:07, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply. The reason that I was distressed was that this general issue has come up previously and is always shouted down by the affected parties, the administrators. Again, a good turnout by admins seemed to win the day for them. I don't think that discounting, at least partially, the views of affected parties is problematic; it is implied in the way society treats COI. On Wikipedia too, our guideline discourages editing by affected parties. Orinarily in RfCs and AfDs an editor's declared COI is taken into consideration. It would seem foolish to have a totally level playing field in such situations. That's why I think it's important to continue to keep discussing this into the second phase and I do hope there is some way to get it into Phase II. Not clear how, given that it didn't "make the cut" in your close. Coretheapple (talk) 19:57, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest that there are significantly more admins than non-admins. So, realistically, if a majority of non-admins agreed with the principle then it would have enough support to go through. As is often the case with these things, timing is everything. Some time ago there was no way to de-admin, short of a full arbcom case. Now Arbcom have a couple of different ways to de-sysop, and have shown willingness to do so. Also, the community view is being taken into account on a case by cases basis by Arbcom. through that process. So it's not as if things aren't changing - if slowly. The problem with that section is that clearly the community is fairly well divided over the issue, not least over whether it's even relevant to the discussion. The specific question was about whether a lack of de-adminship made RFA harder than it currently is. There was no firm consensus on that question, as I read it, but whoever drafts the Phase II might prefer to incorporate those ideas nevertheless. Whether there is appetite to discuss this topic in other venues is an interesting question; I'd say there is, and Request For Comment/Community De-Adminship is awaiting someone to step up. --Errant (chat!) 20:23, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * OK thanks. I hope there is a way forward. To clarify: In first sentence do you mean more non-admins than admins? Coretheapple (talk) 20:47, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, yes I do. --Errant (chat!) 20:51, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 November 2015

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The Bugle: Issue CXVI, November 2015
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here. If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 03:25, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 November 2015

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Re: Your closing of 2015 administrator election reform/Phase I/RfC, Question E
When you closed Question E as "discretionary" for Phase II, whose discretion were you referring to? As someone who thinks desysopping reform will be vital for effective RfA reform, I'd like to include proposals in Phase II for the removal of admins, but I don't want to step on the wrong toes. Thanks! —Swpbtalk 22:14, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I think I am going mad because when I checked on your message last night I thought I saw a link to a page with some of your proposals??? So, anyway, what I would say is that - just be careful. There was no clear consensus; but people felt, quite evenly I thought, very strongly about the topic. So the risk is, that it derails Phase II. But at the same time, closing it as "failed" would be just as unfair to the supporters. So I left it in the middle. IMO a carefully thought out proposal in this area would probably go down well. Badly, or broadly positioned, proposals would fare a lot less well. It depends what you're aiming to address? Fundamentally the problem is one of scope; the RFC is looking keenly at the RFA process - it is a reasonable argument that de-adminship is simply not relevant to that. And this will affect the impact of proposals of that nature; you will get a section of people who will oppose on the principle of "wrong venue". When the topic is controversial that's probably enough to kill the proposal stone dead. The people saying as such do make a strong point; which is that the community has clearly agreed that the RFA process needs improving, but nothing has been said about de-adminship in specific terms. The community has done things to address de-adminship - there was a time not too many years ago where you pretty much had to delete the main page to be de-adminned. But now ARBCOM are taking a lot more community requests, and seem to be using de-adminship powers broadly construed. Finally; as I said to another query above, Request For Comment/Community De-Adminship is begging to be filled in... --Errant (chat!) 19:51, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:57, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
Hi, You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:26, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

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The Signpost: 25 November 2015

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