Final (125/0/2). Closed as successful by WJBscribe @ 14:20, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
WilliamH (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) – WilliamH has been a Wikipedian since May 2006 and an admin since August 2008. He has also been a Checkuser and Oversighter since October of last year. I'm nominating him because he is clearly trusted to the requisite level by the community, as evidenced by his long tenure and use of advanced permissions. Also, he will actually use the crat tools to help in our areas most in need; of his five most edited WP: pages, three involve usernames/renames and one involves userrights.
While crats do need to close RFAs and William has not been one of the usual suspects at WT:RFA, I am impressed by this lack of politicalization or involvement in the various debates on WT:RFA. It is strong evidence to me that he has not sought this position as a means to level up or impose his views; he legitimately seeks to help an area with a backlog. Also, as he has shown a capacity in SPI to deal with sensitive matters requiring a neutral eye, I believe he is more than capable of reading community consensus.
Finally, WilliamH has shown skills beyond those of a simple Wikimandarin in his 18 DYKs and 3 GAs/2 FLs. These are more content contributions than I had when I passed and certainly show an appreciation of and involvement in the primary mission of the project. Given this track record, I approached William some weeks ago to nominate him and he has finally assented to this nomination. Therefore, I am happy to put him forward today for bureaucratship. MBisanz talk 02:32, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as a bureaucrat. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:
... I have to say that I do not regard this as a particularly borderline call. I think the discussion between users in this RfA shows a consensus for promotion.
The final tally of the RfB was 75/29/8 at 72.1%.
On the closing bureaucrat's talk page, an opposer wrote:
I think the rationale Scribe posted is symptomatic of a recent trend among bureaucrats to be too dismissive of legitimate opposition, while weighing unexplained supports too heavily. Just one editor's opinion.
The closing bureaucrat replied:
Earlier in the year, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Connormah 2 was closed as unsuccessful at a tally of 88/30/11 at 74.6%. Commentators at User talk:WJBscribe#Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Bsadowski1 generally believed that the consensus was to promote Connormah.It is hard to please all of the people all of the time. If it can be said with certainty that users with x% support will pass/fail RfA, users complain that RfA is a vote rather than a discussion and that this is bad. If bureaucrats analyse the discussions and determine consensus according (leading to different outcomes for those with the same % support), results are criticised for being inconsistent and that this is bad. I suspect bureaucrats tend to be resigned to someone telling us we are wrong whatever we do, but (for the record) I am loathe to "dismiss" any opposition, though I do think examples of misconduct are weightier concerns than general worries about inexperience.
Nsk92 (talk · contribs) wrote: "HJ Mitchell make a good point that in cases where the outcome is likely to be a close call, having a crat chat would be useful ... Having crat chats in close cases like these is useful, both for more accurate determination of consensus and for greater consistency, particularly so that future RfA candidates better know what to expect."
Should bureaucrat discussions have been opened for the above two RfAs?
The closing bureaucrat at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/GorillaWarfare (70.7%) wrote:... I note that (as has been the case for a number of years) there remains no consensus as to whether a proven record of article-writing ability should be a prerequisite for a contributor to Wikipedia to become an administrator ...
Several months later, an RfA participant wrote:To quote WJBScribe, "there remains no consensus as to whether a proven record of article-writing ability should be a prerequisite for a contributor to Wikipedia to become an administrator."
Last time I checked, the closing bureaucrats here have stated that "lack of content building" as an oppose rationale carries zero weight.
Your opinion, one with which I agree, seems to be at odds with the statements in the two RfA closes by WJBScribe (talk · contribs) and X! (talk · contribs). In cases such as these, when bureaucrats can reasonably have differing opinions about community expectations, should bureaucrat discussions be held? What weight would opposes based on content creation carry in relation to opposes based on (1) maturity, (2) inactivity, (3) lack of edit summaries, and (4) knowledge of policy?Given that the opposes are pertinent, that 70% support is the low end of the scale, and that both sets of voters are quite clearly consolidated, I would probably lean towards no consensus to promote. The two schools of thought when it comes to article creation and content credits in relationship to administratorship are relevant not only to said candidacy but RFA in general, and I do not think such a closure is a departure from community expectations.
For more recent discussion about whether bureaucrats should "police" RfAs, see Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard/Archive 23#RfA behaviours in November 2011. See also the commentary at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard/Archive 23#Civility and vote weighing for borderline RfAs on 14 January 2012, as well as Surturz (talk · contribs)'s comments at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Dpmuk#Oppose on 13 February 2012. What are your thoughts about these issues?
What is your opinion about this proposal?I propose that when an admin or crat requests desysopping and states they are "invoking RTV," "requesting a courtesy vanishing," "vanishing," or otherwise making a direct allusion to WP:RTV, the reviewing crat would specifically inform them that by doing so, they could never reclaim the bit without re-seeking RFA and require the user to confirm they are aware that what they are requesting is permanent and different from retirement, leaving, or taking a break.
Your answer (bolding added by questioner for emphasis): "Given that the opposes are pertinent, that 70% support is the low end of the scale, and that both sets of voters are quite clearly consolidated, I would probably lean towards no consensus to promote. The two schools of thought when it comes to article creation and content credits in relationship to administratorship are relevant not only to said candidacy but RFA in general, and I do not think such a closure is a departure from community expectations."
Question 17a asked about how you would close Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/GorillaWarfare, which was closed as successful on 16 August 2010 at (87/36/8) at 70.7%.
Your answer: "Successful. Some opposes are weightier than others, some are quite broad, and some are irrelevant. There is definitely consensus that the candidate is trustworthy and has WP:CLUE, and this to me appears the most consolidated perspective".
I've reviewed the oppose section of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/GorillaWarfare and 20 of the 36 opposes were based on lack of or unsatisfactory content creation. Opposes #4 ("I would like to see more content editing"), 5 ("Less than 50% of your edits are to article space"), 6 ("limited content creation"; "you should write a few articles"), 7 ("Write some stuff"), 9 ("lack of content building"), 10 ("not having much content experience"), 11 ("a bit more content work would certainly be a plus"), 12 ("Little experience of building the encyclopedia"), 15 ("Low number of edits to article space; meager article creations (4 articles/11 redirects)"), 16 ("I would also like to see more content building"), 17 ("On the question of creations, I think it's reasonable to expect an RfA candidate's own creations, however few they are, to demonstrate that the candidate has a fairly sound knowledge of content policy. GorillaWarfare's contributions do not."), 18 ("the limited articles"), 25 ("I do like to see some content creation"), 27 ("There is also problems with some of the articles you created with your first account."), 28 ("I am not as willing to overlook a lack of high-level content creation."), 30 ("nobody seems to have shown a concern here that this editor has only ever created 4 articles in his existence on here"), 31 ("the candidate's lack of content creation"), 32 ("Statistics don't usually tell the whole story, but when I see virtually all of a candidate's article and article talk edits in the single digits, alarm bells begin to sound"), 35 ("Insufficient experience because very little content provided."), and 36 (" believe an admin should have some significant content work. I ask not for GAs or FAs, but simply major effort into article or articles.")
Some of these opposes, as well as others that did not mention content creation as a concern, were worried about the candidate's deletion-related contributions. For example, oppose #10: "Looking at your recent history I see several things that concern me over your knowledge of policy. The speedy tagging identified by WereSpielChequers above and at Serwan Baban concern me over you knowledge of the speedy criteria, which is an area you say you want to work in. The Route M4 (Manhattan) article where you restored the prod tag to the article twice after it was removed, was only a couple of weeks ago and how this was wrong had to be pointed out to you on your talk page. The AFD comment brought up by SarekOfVulcan is also concerning."
In your answer to question 5, you write that you would "lean towards no consensus to promote" in an RfA with 70% support when the opposes are based on "no article creations/DYKs/GAs/FAs to the candidate's name" and the supports are based on "the candidate is a capable CSD tagger and will be quite a capable hand at the deletion desk".
In Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/GorillaWarfare, there was 70% support, concerns about lack of content contributions, and well-grounded concerns about deletion policy knowledge. This RfA seems to mirror the hypothetical example asked by Wifione in question 5. The most noticeable difference is that in Wifione's example, the hypothetical candidate was a "capable CSD tagger" who would be "quite a capable hand at the deletion desk". In GorillaWarfare's case, the RfA participants had significant doubts about GorillaWarfare's deletion policy knowledge, another factor against closing as successful. Based on your answer to question 5, I thought you would close this RfA as no consensus. Would you expand upon your reasoning about how you found consensus to promote?
I have not seen this kind of closure in closes of contentious or divided RfAs. Such detailed reasoning would likely assuage the concerns of RfA participants who when faced with insufficient reasoning occasionally believe the consensus was incorrectly assessed (examples are here, here, and here). If you were to close a contentious or divided RfA, would you consider providing such a detailed rationale: a breakdown of the arguments you disqualified or to which you accorded less weight and a summary of the support and oppose reasons with the degree of support for each?
Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review their contributions before commenting.
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William's lengthy tenure as a trusted checkuser and oversighter, his willingness to recuse from closing RfAs when he feels he may have bias, however slight (Q20), and his dedication to working at the frequently backlogged WP:CHU prove that the community would be well served with him as a bureaucrat. William, thank you for your untiring replies to my numerous difficult questions. Best, Cunard (talk) 23:25, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]