Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2022/Candidates/Robert McClenon

Robert McClenon

 * Robert McClenon has been almost singlehandedly handling WP:DRN for as long as anyone can remember. I think he's a blatantly obvious choice, despite the lack of admin tools. I have yet to see an argument against his candidacy other than "not an admin", although I could have just not looked hard enough. I'm sure there are plenty of people who've went to DRN that could sing his praises, if such a thing was warranted. I think what an arbitrator does has quite a lot in common with what a DRN volunteer does, perhaps even more than with what an admin does. casualdejekyll  00:11, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Statement by Paradise Chronicle
I followed the link provided by Robert McClenon in his answer to my question, which was: Can you lead to any former example where a leading presidential candidate of the polls was rightfully deemed as not notable? but there I found nothing that would justify to deem a leading presidential candidate not notable. I even found WP:POLITICIAN, and there Nataša Pirc Musar is rather obviously notable. If McClenon makes the choice to defend the withholding of notable info regarding a presidential election as an Arb. and even defends this with Wikipedia policy, (which he really did in his answer), it wouldn't support the Wikipedia spirit of providing information for free. Said that, he also said he wasn't sure if he understands the question, so I hope he can clarify what he meant.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 11:48, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm confused what WP:POLITICIAN has to do with this, it pretty clearly says unelected candidates are a WP:GNG matter - or what McClenon does with it, either, for that matter. casualdejekyll  14:37, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
 * @Casualdejekyll Just bring an example of a an article on a presidential candidate leading in the polls that was deemed as not notable.
 * Imagine someone would apply to become an Arb and his statement would be removed (by mistake) and the one who could fix it defends his removal and doesn't just bring it back to the ArbCom elections. It was not a one or two line stub but a fairly expanded article on a leading presidential candidate. Thanks for the diff. Robert McClenon.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 17:46, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
 * @Paradise Chronicle: Let's imagine this is an AfD that takes place on 3 September 2022, the date of Robert's comment. What are your WP:THREE best sources (dated 3 Sept 2022 or earlier, since we are discussing Robert's actions here) to show that Musar passed WP:GNG? (Since this isn't a real AfD, I do not feel like assessing 29 sources is worth my time.)
 * Please note that people can become notable in the future. I haven't investigated: Musar is likely notable now. Since you're criticizing Robert's conduct, the context of his actions is relevant.
 * Additionally, McClenon isn't the only one who thought that Musar wasn't notable, as your very diff shoes that Bkissin felt the same way. You keep implying that a leading presidential candidate is automatically notable due to being a leading presidential candidate, despite multiple people telling you that isn't true. casualdejekyll  18:17, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
 * They can say whatever they want, as long as they don't show me a precedent of a declined presidential candidate leading in the polls for notability, I am correct. Maybe I am also wrong and they are right. Maybe there actually exists a precedent and they just followed this example, who knows? Paradise Chronicle (talk) 23:09, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Are you WP:LISTENing to what other editors are saying? Asserting that because she led the polls, she was notable, despite multiple editors providing evidence that that's not what notable means on Wikipedia... I don't truly know what your intention is, but it certainly looks like you aren't even reading our arguments. EDIT: It also concerns me greatly that you are a New Pages Reviewer that seemingly doesn't understand WP:GNG. casualdejekyll  14:51, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
 * No I did not listen and brought the article back to main space and fixed what I expected a more experienced editor to do. Are you WP:LISTENing?Paradise Chronicle (talk) 15:33, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
 * So to recap: your issue with McClenon is that he did not think Musar was notable in September 2022. In response, you asserted that since she was leading in the presidential polls, she was notable. This has been thoroughly refuted as an argument. You have been provided with the policy, which says that candidates for elected positions are subject to WP:GNG. The question is simple: Does Musar pass GNG? You have refused to answer, repeatedly. Let me state this again: Leading in the presidential polls is NOT a criteria for notability. And again, too, just to make sure you read it: Leading in the presidential polls is NOT a criteria for notability. WP:GNG clearly defines what notability is, and you by all accounts already know the definition, but to recap, the definition of notability is that a topic has received significant coverage in multiple reliable sources that are independent of the subject. I asked you to show me reliable sources, and you did not. casualdejekyll  15:47, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I do not think furthering this discussion will be productive. casualdejekyll  15:47, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Government suppression of the media could complicate WP:GNG. Maybe that's an example of WP:IGNORE? WP:GNG arguably assumes freedom of the press. But I wouldn't fault someone for using their best judgment in the above scenario, since this is clearly not covered in the policy. The void century (talk) 20:39, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
 * There was no Government suppression of the media that could have complicated WP:GNG, she was a prominent part of the Government for ca. 10 years before she became a candidate. Besides she was the lawyer of the First Lady of the United States and a prominent functionary in Europol etc. which all gives press coverage for multiple articles. And ok, one can make a mistake and say sorry, I'll double check next time one opposes my decision...I was in a rush at the time, and the whole thing would be much better. But no, Robert defends not moving her back to main space with Wikipedia policy. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 21:45, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
 * If anything, I think this is a good thing. casualdejekyll  14:08, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Statement by Santasa99

 * I agree with above statement by Casualdejekyll. Robert McClenon composure, tone and attentiveness are breath of fresh air in situations which are by nature situations with a lot of tension, strained dynamics, which inevitably causes discomfort in the editors. He is always calm, and most importantly focused. He has my vote of confidence. ౪ Santa ౪  99°  19:40, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Statement by Ritchie333
I'm going to give a counter-argument. Yesterday, Robert proposed a community ban for a user that was immediately shut down as being excessive. While some might think this is a moot point, given the user was indefinitely blocked (and indeed, I had suggested was a sockpuppet), I can't vote for arbs who immediately plump for the most draconian reaction possible out of all the options. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  15:28, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd hardly call a community ban "draconian" - it was wholly unnecessary, yes, but I think it's significantly nicer to the blocked individual than a single admin's decision. Perhaps Robert believed that the blocked user was acting in good faith and felt that it was more appropriate to be handled on a community level. (And if we're arguing about moot points, we might as well bring up that your entire evidence for the socking allegation was a username pattern when the behavior didn't really match at all.)Of course, I'm definitely involved (lowercase) in all this, so people reading the statements are encouraged to do their own look into the situation. casualdejekyll  16:36, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Unless it's habitual, one such situation maybe should not be so easily overstated. ౪ Santa ౪  99°  17:29, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Statement by casualdejekyll: The self fulfilling prophecy
While reading the voter guides, I noticed a common theme that irked me greatly: people choosing to oppose McClenon because he's not an administrator. On paper, this is completely valid: adminship gives a lot of useful tools that an arb can make great use of. What irks me about this is Elonka and Pythoncoder opposing on the rationale that failing RfA means you can't get the community's trust, even the latter user specifying that it is a "regretful" oppose.

This doesn't make any sense to me at all. The entire point of having an election instead of just picking random admins or whatever (like has been suggested) is to judge the community's trust. I was under the impression that the goal was to determine what the community's trust of Robert and other candidates is? Those RfAs were five and fifteen years ago, respectfully. Many admins haven't even had an account for that long. They're so old that they aren't really an accurate measure of community trust at all beyond the most general terms, which suggest that at the very least a good 40% of the 2017 community trusted him. A lot can change in 5 years. A vote that is effectively "I would support if you were an admin" is complete bollocks if we want to keep insisting that adminship isn't a requirement, especially since as far as I can tell, of all four of the voter guides that advocate for and against candidates, only one brings up an argument against Robert not based on his flags. So is "failing RfA five years ago automatically disqualifies you from arbitration" really going to be a popular enough position to make McClenon lose? I hope that most who oppose McClenon have a non-flags related reason for doing so, and they just haven't shared it - these votes boil down to "he lost the !vote before, so he must lose the vote again", and I'm afraid that voters as a whole are taking this rationale and not looking at Robert's actual contributions (which I have already talked far too much about above).

On the opposing hand, what Giraffer said,, seems to hit the nail on the head for me: people opposing because "not an admin" are de facto making adminship a requirement for ARBCOM, when it seems like there is a significant fraction of the community opposed to that. I can't see a difference between Robert's qualifications and most of the admin candidates', and if that puts me in the minority of voters, then so be it. casualdejekyll 22:58, 9 December 2022 (UTC)