Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Lugia2453/Bureaucrat discussion

 ''The following threads are preserved as an archive of an inter-bureaucrat discussion regarding the related RfA, Requests for adminship/Lugia2453. The final decision was that no consensus was demonstrated at this point. Please do not modify the text.

- bureaucrat discussion
After giving this RfA a great deal of thought, and reading the supports and opposes a few times over, I don't feel comfortable closing it unilaterally either way. As a result, I'm opening this up. Here's what we know:
 * 1) The primary issue of the opposition was the lack of article work. His contributions to articles were almost nonexistant, rather than it simply being a "no GAs or FAs" group of opposers.
 * 2) Other less frequent opposers cited the lack of overall experience, both in terms of time and in terms of breadth on the site.
 * 3) Supporters noted his vandalism-fighting abilities, and were unconvinced that his lack of article work would be an issue as an admin.
 * 4) The RfA has been roughly at the bottom end of the discretionary range throughout the final few days of the process, moving back and forth in the 68-70% range.

Due to the first three points, we are at an impasse of, at its core, whether or not an admin needs to have knowledge of every policy and contribute on multiple fronts, or whether a specialist admin, even in a relatively simple field, is okay to promote. I'll allow other bureaucrats to weigh in here. (I have a lean-opinion, but not a strong enough one to comment with just yet). Wizardman 04:41, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree that this is a borderline call. There has never been much of a consensus as to whether or not signifcant content editing experience should be necessary for administrators. It is a shame to see that this issue continues to divide the community. To my mind, the opposition to this candidate is grounded upon valid, if not particularly strong, concerns. In this context, I have always regarded evidence of misconduct, poor communication and or misunderstanding of policy to be weightier opposition than general concerns about lack of experience (whether in article-space or wikipedia-space as the case may be). That said, it is valid opposition and is clearly held amongst a significant proportion of the community that has chosen to oppose this request. It would be wrong to dimiss it. I do not think there is a consensus to promote Lugia2453, although it is a very close call. The requirements of those opposing are not unreasonable - they do not seek the single-handed writing of a feature article, just greater participation in the development of Wikipedia's articles. I hope Lugia2453 will take that onboard and submit a fresh RfA having gained such experience, as they appear to be a promising candidate. WJBscribe (talk) 12:27, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * After sleeping on it, I agree with out 98% of what you said. This is tough particularly because this is a divisive topic and has been throughout many RfAs. The way I look at it is twofold: will the candidate abuse the tools, or misuse the tools? The first one never has people in the discretionary range so it's not an issue, but after in borderline cases there is evidence of possible misuse, whether through good faith learning or otherwise. Because the lack of content contributions/experience is really the only issue noted and a solid number of people had no issue with it, I would say that, very narrowly, there's a consensus to promote. That's not to say the opposers claims are unfounded; they are entirely valid and I actually share those concerns (there's a difference between no GAs/FAs and no content creation, and he's in the latter), but it is clear that many do not. Wizardman  17:14, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The issues raised by the opposes were not limited to content creation but participation in other areas and answers to the questions. A clear consensus to promote would not require this much hand-wringing. Andrevan@ 04:09, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

A creative solution
Extensive article contributions demonstrate understanding of key content policies and the ability to work well with others. Lacking that, I looked through the entire RfA to try to assess if these skills have been shown. There isn't much to be found that would tip consensus either way. There are some specific concerns in the opposition (esp. #2, #9, #16, #17, #19) which suggest a combination of a lack of experience or precision in relevant areas; however, these points are countered well by the supports (esp. #40, #45, #47). There is no strong consensus against promotion, but there isn't consensus to promote, either.

The default, by tradition, would be to close the RfA as no consensus. That being said, less than 100 editors commented. There were a lot of votes in both support and opposition that didn't provide much reasoning behind them. There wasn't a lot of discussion about Lugia2453's level of experience and the quality of his work. The easy choice is to call it "no consensus", suggest to the candidate that they get some article-writing experience under their belt (e.g. a few GAs), and branch out with their maintenance tasks.

Instead, I suggest a more complicated but perhaps better choice. Restart the RfA from scratch. Blank the present discussion; reset the tally to 0/0/0. This will surely attract more attention, and hopefully yield a better discussion, which will either reach consensus from the arguments made or even make the call obvious from the numerical standpoint.

I invite comments from everyone. For my fellow bureaucrats: is this a precedent we wish to set? For the community: is what I have proposed reasonable, or will it cause more problems than it would solve? For Lugia2453: if this idea gains any traction, are you willing to do a second week of RfA with only a few days break after the first one?

 Maxim (talk)  23:52, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I can understand the desire to try again, given that opinions may be stronger this time, but I can't support making a candidate go through RfA for a second straight week on principle. Not fair to the candidate, not fair to the voters, and not really fair to us either. We were granted the crat tools to make the couple-times-a-year tough decisions like this, after all. Wizardman  02:42, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree, it's not worth restarting the RFA. This isn't so close as that except numerically. Just call it "no consensus." Major concerns were raised about the user that we can't ignore. Andrevan@ 04:05, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm all for thinking about alternative solutions, but I think this proposal would just amount to a "no consensus" result, with an obligation on the candidate to re-run immediately. IMO, timing of a new RfA should be left at the candidate's discretion. WJBscribe (talk) 13:00, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Summary
So far, I think we're split 3:1, with the majority of the view that there is no consensus to promote. Unless anyone changes their mind in the next few hours, or more bureaucrats join the discussion that are of the opinion that there is a consensus to promote, I think we should close this RfA as "no consensus". WJBscribe (talk) 13:29, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree that we should soon close this RfA as no consensus. Lugia2453 has indicated on the talkpage that they don't want a second week of RfA (who can blame them?), which places me firmly in the "no consensus" camp. I further agree strongly with Andrevan's statement that "a clear consensus to promote would not require this much hand-wringing."  Maxim (talk)  16:08, 5 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Go ahead. It's already been tough on the candidate. Let's close it up with no prejudice to a future RFA. Andrevan@ 16:30, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I've done the needful. – xeno talk 16:54, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Timing of close
I would like to address an issue regarding the timing of the close. There seems to be a suggestion (both on the RfA page and on the talkpage) that bureaucrats were somehow avoiding closing this discussion. I doubt that is true. Please bear in mind that few of us are active at any given time, we are volunteers and have commitments away from Wikipedia. I am sure that Wizardman was simply the first bureaucrat with sufficient time to come across this RfA after it was due to close. I want to assure everyone that bureaucrats do not shy away from difficult calls; indeed the whole point of these "cratchat" discussions is to avoid that happening. I don't believe there is any hesitation amongst us, just a shortage of numbers to provide the rapid attention that is possible in other areas. You don't need "braver" bureaucrats, just more bureaucrats, if the possibility of discussions overrunning by 24 hours+ is a problem. WJBscribe (talk) 12:27, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I saw the RFA when it was "on hold," before this crat chat was initiated, but if it were not "on hold" by Wizardman I would have closed it myself as no consensus without a crat chat. So maybe next time Wizardman, if you don't put it "on hold" I'll make your life easier :) Andrevan@ 04:07, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

''The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this discussion, the related nomination, or that of the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.''