Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Everyking

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Some people are pointing to my block log; I point out in return that one should look for the unblocks as well, because they make the list appear longer. A good gauge of what was going on with these blocks is to look at how many of them were quickly overturned by somebody else (answer: virtually all of them—it looks as if one stuck for the duration of 24 hours last December, and the only other one that stuck was the mandated 2-week ArbCom ban). Everyking 06:24, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but eliminating all of the "mistake" blocks and leaving the blocks were you actually did do something wrong, you would get...
And perhaps some of the January blocks might have been warranted too. -- tariqabjotu 06:38, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
OK, now that I look back on some of the early 2005 blocks I see that some of those stuck, too. However, many of the blocks you are listing were overturned as I stated, and two of them were already accounted for in my earlier comment. If you include the recent ArbCom ban, I believe that comes out to a total of six blocks that stuck, but only one (the ArbCom ban) in 2006. Everyking 06:47, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps I could settle with six. But I'm using my block log as the standard. -- tariqabjotu 06:49, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Closed far too early

This RFA has been open for ten hours only. Because the matter is controversial, we should expect people who have been involved in some way in these matters to vote early. However, I believe that the RFA should stay open longer to allow the community at large to voice their opinion, not only the few people who happened to be online in these ten hours. I don't think this has anything to do with WP:SNOWBALL at this point. — mark ✎ 18:41, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

(I'll crosspost this to Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship) — mark ✎ 18:42, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree, this seems early to me. I haven't heard from Everyking but I suspect he may want this to continue. Even when people oppose many of them make useful comments on what might persuade them to support in the future so I don't think this is a waste of time. Haukur 18:44, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
I also agree. However, I believe Tony Sidaway closed the discussion early because it was starting to be more of a pileon than of a constructive discussion (my oppose vote was the tenth, and I think the tally was 6/10/0 then). --physicq210 18:54, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree the snowball clause was invoked a little too early, considering this wasn't a unanimous oppose. However, I don't feel the RfA should remain open just so Everyking can get some feedback on where to go from here. If he would like to seek that kind of feedback, he should open an editor review; RfAs are not meant to serve that purpose. -- tariqabjotu 18:57, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
My feeling was that he wasn't going to get his bit back this time, and the reasons given already (general lack of trust in his judgement, too early after desysopping) were quite convincing enough. Those who want to chat with Everyking about his adminship prospects can use his talk page without the risk of an ugly mess developing on RFA. --Tony Sidaway 19:00, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Please note that I did not at all suggest that we should re-open it to 'let people chat with Everyking'. I am saying that the community has not been sufficiently heard on this one, and that more people should be allowed to voice their opinion on whether Everyking should get his sysop bit back or not -- which is what this RFA was started for. Additionally, I see no signs whatsoever of this RFA developing into an ugly mess (if you do, please point them out). — mark ✎ 19:16, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I had intended to wait another day or two and if the percentages were still bad I was going to withdraw it. I would have much preferred to have made this decision myself, and at a time when I could more accurately gauge feelings. Notice how Tony includes what he believes are "convincing" reasons for opposing the nom as part of his justification for pulling it. Everyking 21:41, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Tony has to say something like that to be intellectually consistent with his strongly held position that RFA is not a vote (hence, he can't pull it just because the numbers are bad - he has to cite 'convincing reasons'). Want us to plug it back in or have you got enough for now? Haukur 21:50, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
No, I could have said I pulled it because the numbers were bad. However the reasons given for not pulling (above) were related to community feedback ("to allow the community at large to voice their opinion"). I therefore addressed the argument. If the writer simply meant that the numbers weren't clear, I would have said that this is transparently incorrect.
In reply to Everyking's observation, yes I made the call on my belief that the reasons given are convincing. They are. --Tony Sidaway 22:02, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Apparently I still don't understand how your mind works, Tony. Oh well. Haukur 22:07, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
I'd rather it stay down; it isn't worth it to restore a failing nom and in the process possibly have to fight Tony over it. I'll try again towards the end of the year, I suppose. Everyking 22:10, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
You wouldn't have to fight me over a Snowball. Either people agree with me or they don't. That's the way Ignore all rules works. If you wanted it back I wouldn't have stood in your way. --Tony Sidaway 22:13, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Also, this seems to be a bad time for an RfA in general. Nobody can tell what's going to happen with the process, what it will take for nominations to succeed or fail. Everyking 22:15, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Besides that I'm now utterly confused... Bureaucrats may use their discretion to close nominations early if a promotion is unlikely and they see no further benefit from leaving the application open. Only bureaucrats may close or de-list a nomination as a definitive promotion or non-promotion. In the case of vandalism, improper formatting or a declined or withdrawn nomination, non-bureaucrats may choose to de-list a nomination but they are never empowered to decide on whether consensus has been achieved. I think we can exclude the "vandalisms, improver formatting etc." clause, so a bureaucrat should have been the (only) one with the right to close and de-list that nomination, right? Especially in such a controversial case... Unless somebody made Tony or Chacor a bureaucrat and forgot to tell the rest of us. --Charon 00:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Not everything on Wikipedia is written down, and not everything written down is correct. --Tony Sidaway 00:11, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Tony does what he wants to do. Everyking 00:14, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Of course! It's policy. --Tony Sidaway 00:17, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
not everything written down is correct --Kbdank71 10:32, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Man, I wish I'd thought of that one. Everyking 10:40, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
I need to clarify this. I supported Everyking, mind. All I did was apply the appropriate header/footer as is done with closed RFAs, as people were still adding stuff after Tony declared it closed. Please assume good faith. – Chacor 08:52, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Tony, I disagree with your seemingly random invokement of WP:SNOWBALL. Ten hours is simply too short a time to determine whether the snowball clause applies or not. What is worse, you seem to offer people that disagree with you no other choice than throwing snowballs back at you. I did not relist the RFA because I thought it better to talk about the pros and cons of re- or delisting it. It appears that your brusque usage of WP:IAR undercuts such attempts at productive discussion, and offers no other choice than simply undoing your action without further ado. This seems to me an unwelcome result, although I will remember to do just that when I encounter another instance of premature invokement of the snowball clause. — mark ✎ 12:08, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

The nice thing about IAR is that you can snowball right back :-) Kim Bruning 12:15, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking of seconding Marks request for a moment there, but on checking, I notice that the poll was already at 11 to 32. Yikes!
I think that in this case, the best approach might be for Everyking to talk with the current opposition first. Once he's got some kind of agreement with everyone on the current list, he can then go and try RFA again. Sort of like a version of Bold revert discuss for RFA :-) Kim Bruning 12:33, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, but I pointed out above that people with some kind of involvement in the issue will tend to vote early (and in this particular case, many of these people will probably be oppose voters). Therefore, we cannot be sure that the result of the first ten hours of voting really are indicative of what the community at large thinks. That's why I'm arguing that it would have been much better to let the whole thing run for a longer time, and that WP:SNOWBALL may well be irrelevant here. Anyway, I think snowball fighting is unproductive. — mark ✎ 13:30, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
How about we pretend that Tony never said that forbidden word sn-----l? The word seems to upset people sometimes, and is perhaps set aside in the present circumstances.
As Kim notes above, the tally stood at 11/32/5. In order to clear 75% support, 85 subsequent, unanimously supportive votes would have been required. In the absence of bad faith – sockpuppets, vandals, or trolls out to sink this RfA – it seems unlikely that such a thorough turnarount would occur. Rather, the nomination has met with an entirely divided response, with contributors of long history, solid productivity, reasonable judgement, and good faith on both sides. It is reasonable to assume that further contributions to the discussion would have been divided, though perhaps in slightly different proportion. (If we wish to invoke the late-voting, uninvolved, hypothetical support voters, it is only fair to also consider the oppose voters who until this point chose to stand aside in order to avoid an unseemly pileon.)
In any case, there would not have been sufficient support to present a clear consensus to promote. In that light we can ask a few questions. Did the early close cause any harm? Probably not. Would waiting an extra day have caused any trouble? Probably not. Is there any point to further beating this horse? Probably not. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:56, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Not that I necessarily disagree with your analysis, I just wanted to point out that an RFA-recommendation is not final, people sometimes change their mind. A bunch of people changing their mind would have been a far likelier (though still unlikely) scenario than 85 new people all going the same way. But this is all academic at this point. Haukur 16:33, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

There's always the possibility that some bureaucrat will just decide on his/her own to promote Everyking just because they feel they have the right to. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:28, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of snowballs, they call that a snowball's chance. Since I don't believe in arbitrary decision-making I would of course reject this even if it did happen. Everyking 17:14, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm not seeing any substantive reason here to doubt that I made the correct decision here. --Tony Sidaway 17:34, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Ignoring the fact that you aren't actually empowered to make these decisions, you should have said something to me about it first. Why not let the candidate decide? Everyking 18:43, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
It wasn't your call. --Tony Sidaway 18:45, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
How is that? It was my nomination. Certainly it's more my call than yours, since as I stated you aren't empowered to make the decision anyway. Everyking 18:51, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
And yet...I did. --Tony Sidaway 18:58, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm not involved, know little about it other than what I've read since it happened, and have no wish to become involved. With regards to the comment that something should have been said to Everyking first though, surely it would quite simply have been common courtesy to do so - especially in such a high profile case, where any closure was likely to become highly contraversial anyway? --Crimsone 20:48, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Normally it might be a good idea, though in view of the nature of Everyking's arbitration cases I think it might not have been a good idea. This case isn't controversial; he obviously wasn't going to get his bit back on this occasion. --Tony Sidaway 21:09, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Possibly it wasn't going to get Everyking re-sysoped on this occasion, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't have gone 50/50. Besides - the high feelings surrounding it are self evident - sounds like controversy to me at least. Personally, I'm of the opinion that common courtesy is common to all, regardless of circumstances. Maybe that's just me though. --Crimsone 21:19, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
"In view of the nature of my arbitration cases" asking me whether I wanted to keep the nom open longer wasn't a good idea? What? Everyking 21:41, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Bad closing. Bad. RfA is not a vote and most of opposes are bullshit. A few more supports and 'crats would've promoted him.  Grue  06:09, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm! Kim Bruning 10:17, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I, too, think that this was closed to early. I was actively looking for it, and still got here to late. Of course, if this was a "vote", there was no way Everyking could of made it. I have heard in the past both "Requests for adminship is not a vote" and "WP:SNOW is not an actionable policy". I'm just glad that the wikischolars are trying out a new system for sysops over at wikiversity so that it doesn't turn out like this.--Rayc 02:18, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Curious -- what's the new system? Newyorkbrad 00:16, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Since the emergency had long passed, I wouldn't mind if a bureaucrat IARs and gives Everyking his sysop rights back. --Ixfd64 00:12, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

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