Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Lear's Fool/Bureaucrat discussion

Oh look, it's another RfA that will end up in the Questions section of a future RfB. After observing this for the past 10 days, it's becoming increasingly clear that there are some very strong opinions by both the supporters and the opposers, and this could very well end up as an RfA that could set a precedent for the future. The percentage has been fluctuating from everywhere from 50% to 80% and everywhere in between. The majority of the opposition is based around lack of content work, a very contentious issue in RfAs. Many editors believe that it is essential to adminship, others believe it is not very. Thus, consensus is a difficult thing to determine here, and in my opinion, would be best decided by a group of bureaucrats.

Here are the main points as I see them:


 * Support
 * Dedication to unreferenced BLPs
 * Disagreement with opposition
 * Understanding of policy
 * "Net positive"
 * Oppose
 * Lack of content contributions (the big one)
 * Close paraphrasing on a BLP
 * Insufficient experience

Personally, I think that the support points outweigh the points brought up by the opposition, so I support closing as promote. However, other crats may disagree. Thus, I am opening this crat chat up for discussion. ( X! ·  talk )  · @097  · 01:19, 9 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Food for thought: in the 'extension period', it's been 23-5-0, with one of the 'originals' withdrawing their opposition. I would also support closing as promote: while the user is a little short on content, their clue quotient seems high enough to compensate based on a review of comments offered in support. If this is closed as 'no consensus', they'll be back in a few months with a successful result - and we'll have deprived ourselves of a few months of free administrative labour. Might as well get them into the salt mines sooner, rather than later. – xeno talk 01:55, 9 January 2011 (UTC) annotated – xeno talk|undefined 03:06, 9 January 2011 (UTC)


 * After reading over and considering everything I would also support promotion. While I have no comment on whether I think content creation is a solid requirement for an admin candidate, I do believe it is a completely valid reason that one might use to oppose. And there were quite a few opposers using that as their reason and I am in no way discounting their opinions. However, there was a relatively substantial number of other opposers who opposed for reasons I wouldn't consider to hold a lot of weight (but I'm not going into detail on that). Also, there was a rather strong indication at the tail end of the RFA that the pendulum was swinging in favor of the candidate. When I took all this into consideration, it seemed to me that the overall mood of the RFA was just enough to pass the tipping point for me from no consensus to promote. Useight (talk) 03:00, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * If any are interested in my further details, I outlined them on the talk page here. Useight (talk) 15:29, 9 January 2011 (UTC)


 * As I mentioned before when I extended, I believed that the fundamental questions of closing an RFA were not being answered. As I've written about here, these questions are "Does the community trust the candidate with the tools?" and "Is there a reasonable doubt based on previous experience that such trust may be compromised?" Customarily, the supporters provide reasons for the former, and the opposition provides reasons for the latter. As for a general overview of the first, I thought the general consensus was that the editor was on the borderline between not enough experience and enough. Because of the subjectivity of RFA criteria, there's nothing you can do about that. I could not, however, find a substantive "reasonable doubt" among the opposition beyond article writing. I was actually initially inclined to pass the RFA without crat chat, not as "no consensus" as some have mistakenly assumed.
 * To be fair, though, both sides had their fair share of questionable arguments and rationales, and so I decided that an extension would make it more clear what it was that consensus from both ends was really agreeing on. Several other factors, including a number of !votes coming in past deadline as well as the holiday season, influenced the decision as well. Whether lengthening an already long discussion to better examine it is valid remains to be seen, but I think the effect that the extra time had was to get more discussion going and stabilize a clearer consensus.  bibliomaniac 1  5  07:21, 9 January 2011 (UTC)


 * To be clearer, I support promotion.  bibliomaniac 1  5  08:14, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * As I !voted in this RfA, I recuse myself from meaningful contribution. --Dweller (talk) 07:38, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * After reviewing the comments and discussion made during the RfA, I would support promotion. I should note, however, that the subject of the discussion has noted that he doesn't want to be promoted at this time. I'm not sure how much that should weigh into the decision, though, as he obviously wanted to be promoted at some point or this whole discussion wouldn't be taking place. I agree with Useight and Bibliomaniac in that I many of the reasons used by those opposing promotion seem to be based on less weighty reasons. I think the weight of the opinions given in support of promotion leans the discussion more in favor of promotion, especially within the last few days. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 08:27, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * After reviewing the discussion, in my opinion, on this particular request, there appears to be a consensus that the lack of article content edits is either not significant enough on its own or outweighed by other factors. Therefore, as Lear's Fool did obtain a consensus of his peers to obtain the tools, they should be granted to him. -- Avi (talk) 21:46, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Having looked at the matter, I would support promotion.  MBisanz  talk 18:42, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Closed
As per the discussion above, in which case all the participating bureaucrats were unanimously (exception one recusal) of the opinion this RfA should be closed as a pass, I've closed the RfA. Lear's Fool is now an administrator. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 00:07, 11 January 2011 (UTC)