Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Uncle G

The voting period is now closed and as of right now, the vote is 32/11/4. For what it's worth, one of the "oppose" votes was after the conclusion of the voting period.

The percentage of "support" votes is either 74% or 76%, depending on whether the last "oppose" is counted. I believe that this places the vote in the area where judgement on the part of the bureaucrats is called for in reading the consensus, because the consensus is not entirely clear from numerical vote totals alone.

Please note that I am personally unfamiliar with User:Uncle G, having never encountered him while working on articles. While I did update the end time of his RFA listing, I have been involved in no other way up until now.

Here are my observations regarding the nomination:


 * 1) While I include the last "oppose" vote on the theory that votes are valuable even if late, I do not include User:Lst27's vote in my tally because I am troubled by Lst27's overall pattern of RFA voting.  I cannot remember a single instance of an Lst27 vote that was not essentailly a "me too" vote, and this one is no exception.  Lst27 has long had a fascination with the adminship process, yet has had little other engagement with the project.  Therefore, I observe that the present support ratio is 76%, making this a judgement call.
 * 2) Several very senior Wikipedians, who have a history of being extremely conservative in their support of adminship candidates, have voiced their support.  These include User:RickK, User:Kingturtle. and User:SimonP.
 * 3) Certain longstanding Wikipedians have expressed their opposition, notably User:DropDeadGorgias, User:Cecropia, and User:Taxman
 * 4) Among the support voters, many reasons for support were voiced.
 * 5) With two exceptions, the oppose votes solely cite the candidate's lack of a user page.  The four neutral votes cite support except for the lack of a user page.
 * 6) User page states "As a tradition, Wikipedia offers wide latitude to users to manage their user space as they see fit."  There is no policy requirement that users must have a user page.  When the subject has been discussed in the past (usually in the context of an adminship vote), there has been no clear consensus, but most participants have opposed any policy requiring a user page for adminship candidates.
 * 7) With 47 voters, this vote has achieved more than adequate turnout.
 * 8) There have been no concerns with irregular voting, inappropriate soliciting of votes via spam, or the like.

Here are my conclusions regarding the nomination:

With 76% support and a large turnout, this nomination is suitable for promotion, albeit marginally so. Substantially all the opposition is based on the candidate's nonconformist refusal to have a user page. While there is support in the "Wikipedia tradition" for this view, there is no policy support for it. Further, this view is unrelated to the superordinate goal of building an encyclopedia, except for the minor objection of the matter of red links on recent changes. I conclude that justification for opposition is based primarily on Wikipedia social norms unrelated to the project objectives themselves.

Finally, I note that the discussion of any possible requirement that admins must have user pages may be carried forward regardless of the outcome of this particular nomination. WP:RFA is itself not a policymaking forum, and unresolved policy matters are best addressed elsewhere.

I plan to promote this candidate but will wait for a day or two to permit time for discussion. While all are welcome to comment, I would particularly invite other bureaucrats to share their views.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 02:28, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Please forgive my intervention, for I am not a bureaucrat, or even an admin for that matter. For the record, I voted against Uncle G, but now I realized that red link thing does not matter that much, so I will not mind if Uncle G is elected.

There is something else troubling me though. I do not think ignoring a user's vote, in this case User:Lst27's, is a good precendent. This generally speaking. Going into details, I must say that while I never encountered this user personally, by taking a look at his/her last 500 edits, and checking around 50 diffs, I must say that we deal with a very good user; with work in classyfing stubs, disambiguation, welcoming new users, fixing typos, almost always posting edit summaries, very polite comments on talk pages, and and a total of 3872 edits.

And how can we describe a "me too" vote? Just because he each time happens to agree with one side and the arguments on that side? If so, my current vote is surely a "me too", as I voted with eight or so other people against for the sole reason of the red link. Just wonder what other people think. Oleg Alexandrov 03:42, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, you know where I stand on this, though since I have formally stood aside on the decision itself, I will respect whatever decision you finally make. However, I can't agree to UC's discounting of Lst27's vote. S/he is a logged-in, regular editor, and, numerically, a vote is a vote. There is no precedent to completely discount it. As to timing, it is fairly well established that editors can continue to vote until a bureaucrat takes formal action. This places the current vote below the 75% threshhold.


 * If you discount Lst27's "me-too" vote, the only oppose not to have some discussion, then it raises the question of dumping the following "support" votes:
 * JuntungWu: "Fine"
 * BrokenSegue: "Ditto"
 * Mailer Diablo: (no discussion)
 * MikeX: (no discussion)
 * Mirv: (no discussion)
 * utcursch: (no discussion)
 * Xezbeth: (no discussion).
 * So my tally is 25 support, 10 opposed, 3 neutral. That is 71.5%. The neutral are support IF he had a user page. He has no user page. q.e.d. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 03:44, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Extension notice
I have posted a 48-hour (from the original end time) extension on this nomination. With all due respect to Uninvited Company's good intentions, there is no precedent for closing a vote, but not promoting or removing. UC and I are not the only bureaucrats. With a formal extension, Wikipedians can put their opinion in concrete form in affirming or revoking their votes, or extending their remarks. Those who have not voted can decide to do so. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 04:01, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * An extension is a good idea. It is one thing that I support Uncle G's nomination, and another thing for a promotion to go through without solid support from across the community. Judging from the numbers as I write this (35/15/4) this is going to be a very close call. However, I oppose excluding Lst27's vote, simply because unless he's been banned by ArbCom or Jimbo from participating in RFA, his vote should be counted in a decision. Also, he frequently does "me too" votes - but so what? A lot of nominations are very straight forward "yes" or "no" cases (in my view anyway) so this behaviour should not be odd. --JuntungWu 05:20, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

wiktionary
Just in case it hasnt been included here, Uncle G is on the path for adminship over at Wiktionary too (See this page), where he spends a bit of time doing good transwiki-ing. He would have my support for adminship on both projects, getting rid of finished transwiki jobs and such. --Mountaga Tall) 14:52, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

So what's happening?!
The vote - and this discussion - seems to be in limbo. I don't think it's worth me commenting further - I've voted and said why. I implore the bureaucrats to come to a decision. Dan100 11:40, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
 * Cecropia waited until several hours past the revised deadline, and then removed the discussion as no consensus (Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship). The discussion of changing the rules, that UninvitedCompany mentioned and that I suggested, has not occurred.  Dbiv made some additions to his entry on Requests for adminship/Standards, but he is the only one and that is all that has happened.  No discussion of changing Requests for adminship has ensued, possibly because those who assert that there is a consensus to do so can count as well as User:Lord Emsworth can. &#9786;  Uncle G 12:19, 2005 Apr 21 (UTC)
 * Apropos my entry on the RFA standards page, I added it after this nomination - the debate on it had set a train of thought in my mind. However I don't think it's reasonable to change the rules after a nomination has commenced. Just wanted to make that clear. Dbiv 20:06, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)