Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Isabelle Belato

Technical question
I have struck my neutral !vote and changed it to support but is there anything else that I have to do to make it not appear in the neutral column? Gusfriend (talk) 10:04, 8 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Nothing more to do, dealt with by Dreamy Jazz. &#8212;CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 11:09, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Question 13
I think that Question 13 by LilianaUwU should be removed, because it is a personal question that has nothing to do with Wikipedia. Please remove it before Question 14 gets added. Number 13 should then be reused for a legitimate question that would otherwise be Question 14. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 01:18, 10 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Fair, I'll remove it. Liliana UwU  (talk / contribs) 02:04, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Gusfriend's (struck) neutral

 * Neutral I think that their contributions are good and they have been nominated by users who's judgement I trust. Unfortuately I cannot support anyone for Admin whilst their signature does not contain their full username. Having the displayed signature being different to the user name makes things just that little bit harder for newcomers (and even more experienced users sometimes). It means that when editors look at a talk page conversation there is a disconnect between how the user may be referred to and how their signature is presented. This can become more acute as admins are often dealing with situations where editors will already be stressed or frustrated. I realise that this may seem somewhat arbitrary and having signatures like this is supported by consensus but that is how I feel. Gusfriend (talk) 22:01, 7 October 2022 (UTC) 10:00, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * This is a good point. Although I may find myself in the Support column soon, I hope Isabelle takes note of the issue you raise here. &#8212;CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 22:18, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Just to be clear, you're objecting to them signing with Isabelle instead of Isabelle Belato? Valereee (talk) 22:48, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I can see where this comes from, but I don't think this would be a reason for me to be neutral or oppose especially as this shortening is just removing what seems to be to be a last name. Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 23:29, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I am not objecting to them signing with Isabelle rather than Isabelle Belato, that is acting within consensus and a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I am however choosing to be Neutral rather than Support for their application for administratorship based on it. In the last month I have seen the wrong people pinged due to this and it has caught me out several times where I have followed a link to a user talk page and then had to go back to confirm that I am in the right place. I have no trouble with use of colours, etc. or clever talk page link text but this is where I have the concern. I realise that my reasoning may put me in a minority of one and it is a quixotic approach and otherwise they look like an excellent choice but that is where I am coming from. Gusfriend (talk) 00:01, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Would a simple correction to a signature change your stance on this candidate, Gusfriend? I agree that some signatures I've seen are indecipherable but I usually leave a comment about this on the editor's talk page and they make a change. Liz Read! Talk! 00:03, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's fair to call Isabelle's signature indecipherable. Obviously they're going to see this discussion and can, as CX Zoom suggests, decide if they wish to tweak their signature. I do appreciate Gusfriend noting that what Isabelle has done is well with-in current community consensus for signatures. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:09, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Certainly Liz and if I hadn't been giving it some thought over the last few weeks I would have been really happy to support such a strong candidate. Overall they appear to be an excellent candidate and are receiving broad support from a large number of trusted editors. Gusfriend (talk) 00:09, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I must say I struggle to understand why this would warrant an oppose !vote. Many administrators and experienced users shorten their signatures, or put their real names in instead, because they are able to be personalised and as such people will have their own unique ways of doing this. Plus, they have only removed their surname, and one can simply hover over the username/look in the signature in the source code to see the full username. If the signature had clashing colours that were difficult to read, I would understand, but this is not the case. Patient Zerotalk 02:12, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think the signature is a problem, but I do a lot of editing using the desktop site on my phone, and the hover-to-see-full-username thing doesn't work when using a phone (or a tablet I assume). There's a growing share of editors that edit from mobile, so hovering shouldn't be seen as a workaround. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 02:18, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Then you could always look in the signature code instead - for example, say I decided to go by "PZ" in my signature, when editing a Wikipedia page you can see the user's full username in the signature code, so you would be able to see my username is in fact Patient Zero. I understand it may take a while to get used to for newer editors, granted. Patient Zerotalk 02:24, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @ScottishFinnishRadish: when using desktop view on the phone, leaving a link pressed for a few seconds makes the navigation popup pop up (heehee ). –FlyingAce✈hello 03:27, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Neither of these is good, as one requires opening a different page and looking for the signature to see the username, and the navigation popup seldom displays the full length of the url, and you can't copy the username to ping. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:50, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * What is needed here is neither a neutral !vote nor a pile-on condemnation, but a question to the user, which I have now asked (#7). — Bilorv ( talk ) 07:30, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * There are around a dozen user names that begin with 'Isabelle', if not more. What is needed is a good faith minor tweak to the signature. In any case, as far as this RfA is concerned, it's not a dealbreaker. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:38, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. Did you mean RfA, ? Happy days ~ LindsayHello 09:14, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I did. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:24, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * This is the second time I've heard this criticism from Gus recently. Once again it strikes me as utterly detached from the norms of communication in the English-speaking world. Are the people confused about Isabelle's old signature confused when they turn on the radio and hear e.g. Mary Elizabeth Truss referred to as "Liz", as "Truss", or (gasp) as "the Prime Minister"? Are they baffled that their colleague Richard Smith answers to "Dicky"? Do they sign texts and emails with their full legal name? It's one thing if the signature is completely different from the username, but for the minority of us that edit under our real names (or a pseudonym that looks like a real name), signing with an abbreviated form is normal and expected. And I have to say, : it's fine to have a minority opinion on a policy, but shoehorning it into unrelated discussions is less than ideal. I think at this point you should either try to get consensus to change the signature policy, or stop holding other editors to a standard that does not exist. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 05:55, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It's a valid position to hold, and to be honest I agree with it and I'm glad that the candidate has now amended their signature. The purpose of a signature is primarily to identify who made a particular comment. If people want to have fun and style it up or put some emojis after it, then fine, but to have it render as a username that isn't your own, forcing people to either remember it's you or click a link, is mildly disruptive and confusing for other editors. I suppose WP policy doesn't prohibit it, but it seems like a valid objection at RFA to me. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 07:51, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The purpose of a signature is to identify who made a comment, yes. The difference of opinion seems to be whether that who is a person ("Isabelle") or a username ("User:Isabelle Belato"). Anyway, while it might be a reasonable position to articulate if we were talking about signatures, since even Gus himself says this is not a reason to oppose adminship, I think it is WP:POINTy to bring it up here. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 09:42, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Primefac's moving of the neutral discussion to the talk page
I think, given the ongoing consensus that RfAs are a discussion, that the repeated moving of discussions to the talk page is a bit heavy handed. I think decision to move the entirity of a discussion that had existed for days without seemingly any action needed or warranted is not actually in keeping with the community's ongoing consensus that RfA needs to be moderated. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:07, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
 * IMHO, moving it wasn't necessary, but also wasn't harmful. I've seen stuff like this left alone before, and I've seen it moved before. A good first step might be to talk with Primefac about it? --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:14, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

I trust Primefac’s judgment, but would be supportive of a policy like “struck votes can be moved to talk page with original comment remaining” ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 14:44, 11 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Personally I think the better option would be to "close" the discussion thread on the main page and say it can be continued on the talk page. The idea that it's OK for a little discussion to happen but if there's too much it becomes disruptive to the whole makes sense. But what doesn't make sense to me is the idea that a comment that spurred that discussion can just be left there but any of the thoughts it spurred are relegated from view. In this particular instance it feels like comment is what tipped the balance so I think a more nuanced version could have been done where the discussion was closed, and Joe's comment, the reply, and Joe's response, all could have been moved here without changing the original discussion which again had been there for days without doing anything to disrupt the RfA. In fact I would suggest that discussion helped the RfA's discussion with several editors noting that Isabelle's reaction to it as a reason for their support. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:14, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
 * This type of clerking has been done as far back as 2015, though I suspect if I went back further I would find more of the same; threads that become overly long, rambling, inappropriate, or otherwise off-topic get shunted to the talk page. There probably are some instances where only part of a thread was moved, but they are in the minority. We (the crats) currently have no guidance for what should be done in these situations, largely because the community has given us nothing more than a vague "crats should clerk RFAs". If you have better ideas for how we can shift the momentum of "this is how we've always done it" (which is why I suspect this how we continue to do it) I am (genuinely) willing to have a conversation on the matter at WP:BN. I am not overly opposed to the idea of hatting extended discussions (in fact, I might have thrown a hat/hab combo on a discussion once myself, if I vaguely remember correctly), but I stand by this decision, especially as the original !vote was struck. Primefac (talk) 18:57, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The idea that a thread which was genuinely helpful to multiple participants choice of vote gets shunted entirely as "overly long, rambling, inappropriate, or otherwise off-topic" harms the quality of the discussion in this particular instance. The idea of moderating is to help the quality of the discussion. I am suggesting that this specific moderating decision harmed the quality of discussion and we have actual proof of that in the time where no action was taken. So I'm all for a general discussion of mod practices, but also feel that this particular choice was not a good decision. We also have precedent that even extended discussion is allowed to stay and have real impacts on people's decision making such as the Hammersoft discussion at Tamzin's RfA. I am not disputing general practice, I am disputing that this was an appropriate application of that practice. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:04, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I will not contest it if you feel that parts should be re-added. Primefac (talk) 19:35, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks Primefac. I hope you will be OK with me slightly changing your wording from discussion moved to discussion continued. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:16, 11 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I've never understood this. If you watch a page, you watch its talk page, so what difference does it make whether extended discussion of a vote are on the page or on the talk page? I imagine most people (like me) don't even watch RfAs, they just share their opinion then move on, and so won't notice back-and-forths at all, wherever they are. But you know, crats don't have so much to do these days... –&#8239;Joe (talk) 05:37, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll give a recent example - when I moved the discussion related to El C's neutral to the talk page of Whpq's RFA, it was only about +3k. The section as it currently stands is over 25k long. That is a massive amount of excess text that someone would have to scroll through, and the majority of that discussion has nothing to do with Whpq at all. Thus, there is no reason to leave it on the RFA itself. Similarly, when you added your comment, the thread went in an entirely different direction unrelated to Isabelle, and so I moved the discussion here. Since the neutral was struck (due to the issue being sorted), I did not feel that the remainder of the discussion was relevant either, which is why I moved it here as well. As I mentioned above, if you think crats shouldn't clerk RFA, or if you have better ideas, I am more than happy to discuss the generalities at BN; apparently we have nothing better to do anyway. Primefac (talk) 10:14, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It's nothing personal, but I do sometimes wonder whether putting our most selective and august user group in charge of calculating  and saving people from unnecessary scrolling is a smart use of resources, yes. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 14:27, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * User:Primefac. “if you think crats shouldn't clerk RFA, or if you have better ideas”.  Seeing as you mentioned it here …. Definitely, someone should clerk RfA.  It was under-done previously and I think you have done it well.  Definitely, bureacrats should be in charge of clerking, whether doing it themselves or appointing clerks. There’s a possible problem with bureacrats steering a discussion through clerking and then closing as compromised-involved, but that possibility is miles and miles away from this. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:16, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

votes based on racism
hello fellow wikipedians, i want to ask something important not only just for this RFA but for the next ones too, do we really count racist/insulting or any kinds of inappropriate votes that goes against Universal_Code_of_Conduct? if we're not counting them as a valid vote then are we going to decline them (after discussing it with voter if necessary)? —— 🌸 Sakura emad 💖 (talk) 10:21, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The vote and subsequent comments seem to have already been removed by . But for the sake of clarity, I am also interested on whether that is the appropriate action to take (or if the vote should e.g. rather be struck). – LordPeterII ( talk ) 10:28, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Clearly inappropriate or offensive !votes can and should be removed, and had I seen the !vote in question before TrangaBellam removed it I would have done the same. Primefac (talk) 10:33, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * such act is not allowed anyway, i was not sure whether removing them or simply just decline the vote. —— 🌸 Sakura emad 💖 (talk) 10:39, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * If the entire post is a PA, then it should be removed. If only part of it should be removed, then it should be trimmed and indicated as such with RPA while keeping the !vote. The !vote itself in those cases should not be struck, unless it is a SOCKSTRIKE (which is a separate issue). Primefac (talk) 10:59, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

revdel of Athaenara's comment
I'm not sure where this should go, so if there's a better place, feel free to move it. Anyways:

Athaenara's oppose comment was revdeleted (under RD2) by on this page, but it's been reproduced both at WP:ARC  by  and now at WP:AN/I  by. Now, I understand the desire for the comment to be shown in those venues for context, but it seems a bit strange to me that it's been hidden here but is still openly visible in other places. ansh. 666 19:21, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * EvergreenFir quoted the comment the same minute SFR revdelled it. I included it in my post since it's currently visible, so no harm added. One solution would be to redact (and maybe revdel) the relevant threads once all is said and done. --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she&#124;they&#124;xe) 19:25, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * That may work, though I'm always leery at losing so much revision history, especially on a high-traffic page like AN/I where there are lots of other discussions going on simultaneously (less of a concern at ARC). ansh. 666 19:27, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * My first comment in any of this circus: it should never have been rev/deleted in the first place. Generally, personal attacks, unless they are offensive in the sense of extraordinarly vulgar (I won't give examples), are not rev/deleted. There's no question this was a vicious personal attack, but it did not need to be deleted.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:35, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I was kind of thinking that way as well. If it's fine to be shown publicly in other places, it's probably not necessary to revdel here. (of course, that doesn't make it any more appropriate, if that needed to be said.) Either way, it should be consistent across all locations where it's present, and I'll let you all figure that one out I guess. ansh. 666 19:52, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I have no objections if anyone wants to undelete the revision. Cat's out of the bag now anyway. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:24, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks,, I've undeleted. If you or any other administrator wants to double-check my work, please do.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:46, 12 October 2022 (UTC)