Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Cyberpower678/Bureaucrat discussion

Just a note to say...
..., I think that's a pretty fair assessment of the issue, and the point about how we're all volunteers is well taken. For myself, I tried to be brief and not pile on so much (I suppose I should have said "per many above"), since I do know that Cyberpower has contributed well and the RfA is supported by some big shots (including the nominator) in whom I have great faith. Looking over the RfA again I suppose I should have added that I don't think the reasons given for requesting the magic wand are that impressive. In the end, though, I guess this can go either way and I wish y'all good luck in your decision making. Drmies (talk) 16:12, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * , "we do have some leeway to disregard opposing comments where the only or primary reasons given lack a basis in policy or a clear connection to the goals of the project"? Do I translate that as "disregard comments of IDONTLIKECYBERPOWER and comments by trolls"? I'm a bit puzzled, given the relative lack of mudslinging and yelling. Drmies (talk) 16:16, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Regarding "...leeway to disregard opposing comments where the only or primary reasons given lack a basis in policy or a clear connection to the goals of the project. A number of the "oppose" comments fall into this category". Are !votes in the support section also afforded this in your reasoning? Not trying to create waves here, just interested in your rationale. For example, in the supports section of the RfA, how much weight would you give to #1, #4, #14, #16, #44, #45, #65, #69, #73, #80, #92, #98, which do not seem to provide a basis in policy or such clear connection. I also ask because the way your comment is worded, it seems at least possible that you are only considering discounting oppose !votes as per your rationale, but not any support !votes. Despite my having !voted in the oppose section, I wish the candidate well and have no qualms with the RfA. North America1000 16:34, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Comments like #80, "I thought you were one already, to be honest." would seem to express the view that "you show the knowledge/temperament expected of an admin to such a degree that I thought you were one already", imo. At least, that's what I've always meant when I've left that or a similar comment at an RfA.  YMMV, but I've tended to consider that a variety of "strong support". – Philosopher Let us reason together. 17:55, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Upon consideration, struck #80 above. North America1000 18:40, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * In view of the trend in the last few days, especially Supports switching to Oppose this is a classic case where an extension is appropriate. Leaky  Caldron  17:23, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Have extensions happened in the past? Sam Walton (talk) 17:37, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Extensions have happened, but only infrequently. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:47, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Support dropped from a steady 80% to 74% in the last 24 hrs. It may be appropriate to extend by a few days to see if this stabilises.  Catfish  Jim  and the soapdish  19:13, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Some votes are based on the candidate's performance and/or techncal abilities in other vital places of Wikipedia/Wikimedia. Those places are all part of Wikipedia and the candidate's work there is indicative of the candidate's character, maturity, and ability to react when under stress or having to make judgement calls. Discretionary range being 80 -70, some very careful attention should be given to the weight of the arguments. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:30, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Sure, but arguments that amount to telling the candidate where to spend their time should be dismissed - quickly. That's not a habit we want this project to get into, is it?--v/r - TP 19:33, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * TParis, I think I told you to stay out of 'crat discussions. Your RfA gives you no mandate here. Drmies (talk) 19:37, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I must be misreading what you've wrote; this discussion page is available for anyone to comment. –xenotalk 19:45, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Heh, pretty sure the Doc is having a joke at my expense. :) --v/r - TP 19:48, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * That makes much more sense, thanks. –xenotalk 19:54, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * TParis, I agree that this is a volunteer project and we can't tell someone how to spend their time or volunteer energy. That said, I commented overleaf how we can't just completely disregard such comments if they provide a cogent argument showing how their concerns relate to the candidate's suitability for adminship. –xenotalk 19:54, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, you're the crat, not me. But, I'd say that it is never okay, on this project, to tell a volunteer where to spend their time.  Nor do I think RfA creates a forum or opportunity to make such a claim on a volunteer's time.  But, further, I think this is an issue of technical ignorance.  Most of the general public do not know what is involved with writing code.  Besides that, many don't understand how WMFLabs works.  Kudpung, love him, wasn't even aware that Tool-Labs NFS completely crashed - a fault of the paid WMF staff - and that had a huge impact on the tools.  And of the technical folks here, Sigma has declined to answer about whether he thinks the complexity of code and the frequency of use impacts the discovery of bugs - or even how maintaining code from another developer impacts that.  I see a lot of folks basing their judgments on these two folks, but these two haven't given an accurate representation of what the actual problem is.  "Bug reports" alone are not an accurate evaluation of Cyberpower.  But it'd be easy to fool people into believing that they are.--v/r - TP 20:42, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * As I read it, the concern is not 'the candidate hasn't spent enough time doing xyz' or 'the candidate must spend more time on xyz until it is fixed', it's 'the candidate has taken on the tasks of xyz, yet he has underestimated his available time to contribute to these tasks or the amount of work involved and time required and thus tasks xyz are suffering'. We certainly cannot make demands upon a volunteer for more time, but we can ask them that they do not take on more responsibility than they can reasonably manage, and this concern can applied to administrative tasks by extrapolation. That said, this is mostly a matter of personal time management that can and hopefully, will, be addressed by the candidate. –xenotalk 21:21, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I was aware of the Labs crash actually. Nevertheless, I do not have an IT background and I do not pretent to know, or even want to know, the technicalities of it. What I do know is that Labs hasn't been crashed for the last seven months which is the the lenth of time users have been persistently begging the 'team' who took on the job of migrating those tools to get those tools up and running. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:12, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * TParis, I think you're drawing entirely the wrong conclusion here. No one is "telling" a volunteer how to spend their time, but we do have a nominee who is asking for more responsibility, and it's well within the community's purview to decide, on the basis of the available evidence, whether that person will have the time to put into the job to make it worthwhile to give him that additional responsibility.If, for instance, an editor was to say "I really want to be an admin and I'd be really good at it, but I have many real life responsibilities and obligations so I won't be able to spend much time at the job.", I think you'll agree that it would be unlikely for that RfA to succeed.  Obviously the case is different here, Cyberpower678 isn't saying that he won't have the time, but community members can certainty extrapolate from his previous behavior that a lack of time might be a problem.  That's not "telling" anyone to do anything, that's just saying "We don't think you really have the time necessary to put into this."  Although I understand that you disagree with it, that seems like a perfectly reasonable objection to me. BMK (talk) 22:30, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * To expand, I don't think the extrapolated concern is a simple lack of available time for administrative tasks, but one of time and task management. The position is essentially "the candidate has a tendency to take on a lot of work (perhaps more than he has time available for), and this trend may continue into adminship (e.g. taking on a closer role in a large dispute but not having the time or energy to successfully fulfill that role)". It's not an unreasonable concern, but it is one that could ultimately be overcome by the candidate. –xenotalk 22:54, 10 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I find the tenor of the bureaucrat discussion, and some of the comments here, more than a little disturbing, with strong undertones of distrusting/second-guessing the community. It is peculiar to see a bureaucrat saying "we do have some leeway to disregard opposing comments where the only or primary reasons given lack a basis in policy or a clear connection to the goals of the project", when to the extent the underlying principle is valid it applies to both suppoorting and opposing comments -- and a much greater proportion of the support votes are accompanied by superficial reasoning or no reasoning at all. I also think the suggestion of discounting "reluctant" opposes is particularly wrongheaded; such !votes often represent more carefully thought out and weighted opinions. Finally, I see the argument that closing the RFA as unsuccessful could "amount to telling the candidate where to spend their time" is something of a straw man -- what seems to be going on is a significantly shared opinion that the candidate's admirable work is nevertheless not sufficient to establish the level of trust to assure that the candidate will use the tools properly and effectively -- a higher, and to my mind more appropriate standard than the "not abuse the tools" standard some commenters seem ready to apply. And I believe that such an opinion has "a basis in policy [and] a clear connection to the goals of the project", even when it is phrased in a way (perhaps too euphemistically) to avoid giving offense to the candidate. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 20:49, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Let's not forget that there are far more supports than opposes, though. I don't think anybody is distrusting the community. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:57, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * As a side note, it's good to see some very rarely editing bureaucrats now sharing their views (although probably only because of the recent discussion of bureaucrat activity). Widr (talk) 21:00, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm a little concerned that the voice of people who blame Cyberpower for the recent issues with the tools are being given any weight, given how unreliable the WMF servers are known to be, and there are more than a few opposes that should be disregarded for blaming CP for the actions of others, or creating strawman arguments simply because CP has technical abilities (oppose 8 and 9 being classic examples of those two things.) Those citing content creation concerns or behavioural concerns, things along those lines, definitely are justifiable though. I also share the concerns of some here that some of the bureaucrats are either out of touch due to simply not editing enough recently, or that they appear to be second-guessing the community. Luke no 94  (tell Luke off here) 00:00, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
 * A bit of poking around only turned up three RfAs with a higher percentage that were closed as unsuccessful (75%, 2008; 74.8%, 2013; 74.6%, 2010 - it's possible I missed others). Those all suggest more substantive concerns in the opposition than exist in the current case, as did the most recent low-percentage successful close (74%; 2014 - which produced a highly active and productive admin). The most comparable unsuccessful one, in terms of numbers and contribution style, is Cobi 3, at 73%, from 2008 - who of course was successful later and somehow hasn't managed to break anything. In my opinion the reading the pattern of opposition for both Cobi and Cyberpower only reinforces the comments I made yesterday - there is a long-standing pattern in the community of under-appreciating the work of primarily technical contributors, and of commenting critically on that work without demonstrably understanding it. Opabinia regalis (talk) 02:33, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I see that I'm too late to make this point, unfortunately, but I had a more systematic look at the history and this is the fourth-highest-scoring RfA that ran to completion and did not result in a promotion since 2008 (which is 1037 total unsuccessful nominations). I stopped at 2008 only because the format changes in the candidacy archives. In the same time period, there have been nine successful RfAs with lower numerical percentages, out of 544 total successful nominations. Overall, of the RfAs in the 70-75% range, 9 have been promoted and 13 have not. (There were also two promotions under 70%, and one non-promotion at exactly 75%.) Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:44, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Question for Xeno
I was a bit confused by your last comment. When you wrote that members should be encouraged to add comments after the scheduled close, did you mean on the RfA's talk page, or are you saying that it's OK to continue supporting or opposing after the scheduled close, but before the RfA is official closed by a 'crat? I was under the impression that the scheduled close was an absolute endpoint - am I wrong about this? (n this particular case, after the rush of opposes, I would have seriously considered converting my !vote again if I had known that the endpoint wasn't actually an endpoint. (I was "neutral leaning oppose", then "weak support" and would have changed to "weak oppose") BMK (talk) 22:16, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The RfA isn't closed until the bureaucrat sings, it is live right up until it is decided or placed on hold. –xeno</b><sup style="color:#000">talk 22:19, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you, I did not know that! BMK (talk) 22:22, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. If this isn't clear in the literature or the ongoing RfA template (diligently maintained by our caller, with thanks) gives the wrong impression, we should fix that. –<b style="font-family:verdana;color:#000">xeno</b><sup style="color:#000">talk 22:24, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if it is or not, because I did not RTFM. <g> BMK (talk) 22:32, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * In the back of my mind, I believe I'm recalling some place where !votes entered after some deadline passed were removed. I don't remember where that was though. Maybe not at RfA. Wbm1058 (talk) 23:10, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * @Wbm1058 It happened in this RfA two years ago, though the !vote wasn't removed by a bureaucrat, just a regular user. Altamel (talk) 03:01, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
 * At least one user has endeavoured to add a vote at the current RfA since it was put on hold. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:45, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
 * One user who didn't read the sign that it was closed. How many others may have made a comment opposite that person except that they read it.  That 1 person should not be part of the equation here.--v/r - TP 03:50, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
 * It's not, and I didn't suggest it were. My observation was intended to focus on any mention of the potential for an extension. Whatever my feelings are in the outcome, I'm perfectly aware that an extension can draw new votes from all sides. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:20, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, my mistake, sorry. I read it as "Well, more people wanted to oppose" and I guess I should've had more faith in you.--v/r - TP 04:22, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

'crats
Sorry, this is probably not the place, but I'm kind of baffled: do we really have crats that put in a total of, like, 20 edits in the whole past year? And those are the people deciding who becomes an admin in borderline cases like this? Up till now, all the 'crats I ever saw have lots of edits and are trusted users. I'm very sorry, but I don't trust a user with that few edits with decisions that are this important and don't understand why somebody who clearly has lost interest in the project would cling to this position. Sorry,, nothing personal (not surprisingly, I don't recall ever running into you before). --Randykitty (talk) 23:26, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

What of a 'Crat split?
By my count, these are the general feelings of the crats: What happens if the 'Crat's are split?--v/r - TP 01:49, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
 * In past bureaucrat discussions, a failure to find sufficient agreement among bureaucrats typically resulted in a no consensus finding. –<b style="font-family:verdana;color:#000">xeno</b><sup style="color:#000">talk 01:54, 11 July 2015 (UTC) (Regarding the table: I believe you may not have noticed WJBscribe's 23:46 comment)
 * It seems I did miss that comment.--v/r - TP 01:58, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Table updated: I can't remember such a high turnout for a 'cratchat. Although I'm clearly biased as a voter on the RfA, I can't see any other result than 'no consensus' happening here. It's worth noting that this has been quite a 'clean' RfA (no trolling, no obvious disruption or inappropriate behaviour) with some very powerful rationales most of which encouraged the candiate to run again in the future - me included.

Blog: I do not see the blogpost as canvassing, it would have needed peoples' attention being deliberately drawn to it. In fact even as a very active user, although I have been vaguely aware of the existence of that Wikimedia blog, this was the first time I actually ever bothered to visit a post on it. I generally have no time for blogs. I hardly think it could have had any influence on the debate. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:10, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Extend for 3-7ish days or restart for community consensus
Would it be out of the Bureaucrat's discretion to extend the RFA for another 7, or at least 3, days to allow the community to provide additional comments? There were a significant number of comments added near the end of the discussion which suggests that the community may not have fully formed a consensus with regards to this nomination. Nakon 04:12, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
 * It is in their discretion, and they have discussed it / are discussing it here. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:53, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

No consensus
If the Bureaucrats are unable or unwilling to extend the RfA per the above thread, please close this as no consensus. Otherwise I would like to see more community input, to get at least a clear fail or a clear pass result.—cyberpower <sub style="margin-left:-11ex;color:red;font-family:Comic Sans MS"> Chat:Offline 04:41, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The discussion is clearly stuck in middle. I feel it should be closed as no consensus.—cyberpower <sub style="margin-left:-11ex;color:red;font-family:Comic Sans MS"> Chat:Offline 04:47, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
 * In other words. This RfA is considered withdrawn.—cyberpower <sub style="margin-left:-11ex;color:red;font-family:Comic Sans MS"> Chat:Offline 04:54, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I hope the result of this RfA does not discourage you from continuing your work here on Wikipedia. Since you withdrew, I added your RfA to Requests for adminship/Recent. I set the date of close as 11 Jul 2015 as that is the date you withdrew, but I noticed that the date you have as the end date on the RfA itself is 10 July 2015. If I am incorrect, please don't hesitate to fix it. Thanks! MJ94 (talk) 05:15, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Twinkle misclick
This was a Twinkle miclick, if anyone was wondering. My apologies. --<b style="color:grey">ceradon</b> ( talk •  contribs ) 05:18, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
 * It was big of you to point it out, instead of leaving it unmentioned completely, which no one would've blamed you for since you self-reverted. Cheers - L235 (t / c / ping in reply ) 05:26, 11 July 2015 (UTC)