Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/SoM

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[edit] Response to David Levy

Oppose. Someone who hurls unfounded accusations of "very, very bad faith" ("at best") and attempts to wiki-lawyer around common sense, purely to force the use of a term from his variety of English, is likely to abuse admin powers. —David Levy 14:42, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I have an inbuilt hatred of WP:IAR. At the end of the day, I would (and did) abide by consensus, but the point of WP:RM's existance is to alert people to move requests, and trying to cut the notification period on that page to two days in a contentious move (of ANY kind, not just a UK/Int Eng vs. US Eng situation) is a Very Very Bad example IMO. - SoM 15:47, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

WP:IAR had nothing to do with it. At the time, the instructions at WP:RM indicated that "the move should usually be discussed on the talk pages of any relevant articles first, particularly where a page move may be controversial" and "requested moves may be actioned if there is a rough consensus (60% or more) supporting the moving of an article after five (5) days under discussion on the talk page of the article to be moved, or earlier at the discretion of an administrator." I interpreted this to mean that the matter should be discussed for five days, and then, if a consensus emerged, a move request should be listed. This was an honest misunderstanding on my part, but you immediately assumed "very, very bad faith." And of course, you ignored the "or earlier at the discretion of an administrator" text. Also, a formal request for comment had been filed, so it wasn't as though the discussion was being carried out in secret.

You also asserted that the move from Gasoline to Petrol should be deemed sacrosanct (despite the fact that no request was listed at WP:RM or any other outside page), simply because no one objected at the time (because no one was watching the page). In other words, you believed that if it became known that neither title was backed by consensus, we should have automatically defaulted to Petrol (or Petrol (gasoline)) instead of undoing the move that had no consensus in the first place. That's patently illogical, and while I won't accuse you of acting in bad faith, I believe that you allowed your linguistic preference to cloud your judgement. Wikipedia administrators should apply common sense and fairness over technicalities, and they certainly shouldn't twist the rules to suit their personal agendas. —David Levy 16:21/16:30, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you've felt that way for so long, and I certainly wouldn't accuse you (or anyone) of bad faith in a similar situation now as my WikiExperience has grown. At the same time, I wasn't pushing for the page to default to Petrol, but to the compromise page where it had been moved FROM petrol, until a consensus could be found (and, of course, there was a consensus to move [back] to Gasoline at the end of the day).

The fact is though, that not everyone haunts every page at WP, or checks the page(s) every day, and there is a reasonable expectation that anyone interested in a move debate, especially a controversial one, could find it for five days at WP:RM (with the possible exception of where the person who proposed the move withdraws it, which of course didn't apply in the case). To say otherwise, even if it follows the absolute letter of the rule, doesn't follow the spirit, and if I was made an admin, I would hope to aid in upholding the rules both in letter AND in spirit. - SoM 18:28, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't attempting to skirt the spirit of the rule; I was following it to the best of my understanding. I was under the impression that WP:RM was a page on which move requests were to be listed after consensus was established. (At the time, the discussion's duration had exceeded five days, and 100% of respondents—including speakers of Commonwealth English—had supported the move back to Gasoline.) Subsequently, a much clearer set of instructions was added to the page.

I realize that you respected the eventual consensus, but I'm distressed by your opinion that in the absence of one, the page should have remained at Petrol (gasoline) (because "the vote was on moving it TO gasoline"), despite the fact that there was no consensus for its original move from Gasoline (which was performed without a listing at WP:RM or any outside page, so it slipped under nearly everyone’s radar).

This is the same logic that allowed the Yogurt article to be moved to Yoghurt. No one complained at the time, so the latter became the new default. When it was shown that neither title was backed by consensus, this was interpreted as "no consensus to move the page from Yoghurt." I see that you supported that stance as well: 1, 2. You also rudely defended another user's decision to stack the vote by rallying support from the members of a UK-specific message board (by claiming that the article was "under attack again for not using the American spelling," despite the fact that he had moved it from the American spelling under which it originally was written), without notifying anyone else. This determined the aforementioned outcome of the move request (no consensus), of which you approved. —David Levy 19:33, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Cutting in here, but mightn't this issue be better discussed on the talk page if it is to become so verbose. Although increasing the word count, I'll add I've found SoM guilty of blunt speaking myself in the past, and have been guilty of it myself. But I have always found him to respect a consensus when it is determined. I've also admired the way he's learnt from experiences and exchanges such as the one above, and I also appreciated his recent wikibreak after his recent block, which suggests to me that he is perfectly capable of appreciating the responsibility of adminship. Hiding talk 21:12, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Basically, I feel that in the absence of consensus, the status quo should be maintained unless it is absolutely untenable (which was not the case in either the petrol/gasoline, nor yog(h)urt situations).

You just stressed your belief that when a move is controversial, it's important to notify the community by listing it at WP:RM. This was not done when Yogurt was moved to Yoghurt, nor was it done when Gasoline was moved to Petrol. It's reasonable to assume that these proposals otherwise would have drawn a great deal of opposition. In all fairness, I'm more than willing to assume that the individuals responsible weren't aware of this at the time. Nonetheless, it subsequently became known that these acts were extremely controversial. Therefore, the only fair course of action was to retroactively address the original issues. It's downright ludicrous to claim that the first move should be upheld simply because it wasn't known to lack consensus until later. If neither title is inherently better or preferred by consensus, we should return to the original author's selection. The alternative punishes people for not keeping tabs on every article that might be moved elsewhere, and it rewards people for failing to provide effective notification of impending moves. (Just post a message on a talk page that no one's watching, wait a couple of weeks, move the article, and add it to your watchlist. Then, when someone notices and tries to move it back, take whatever steps are necessary to prevent this from occurring.)

And I don't view it as "stacking the vote", despite DR's tone, but as informing people of the situation (and wouldn't have objected had anyone posted at the equivalent US noticeboard).

His comment was utterly outrageous. Someone merely wanted to restore the article to its original location (from which he moved it, because he wanted it to use his variety of English), and he attributed this to nationalistic bigotry.

If someone from the other camp had known about this in the beginning, perhaps a message would have been posted to the US board. That still would have been far from ideal, because people shouldn't be voting on the basis of blind national allegiance or the misguided notion that some sort of international language war is underway.

And for such a message to have been comparable, it would have required language along the lines of "Yogurt has been colonized by those British with their extra letters" (which, while offensive and highly inappropriate, would have been somewhat closer to the truth).

Informing people is good, and then people can make their own decisions.

He deliberately informed only the people who were likely to support his cause, and he did so in an extraordinarily misleading and inflammatory manner.

I've informed potentially interested parties of discussions, but I would never provide such information strictly to people who I believe share my viewpoint. I always attempt to contact everyone who has expressed an opinion on the matter (including my direct opponents). That allows for fair and balanced discourse. Mr. Ross obviously wasn't interested in fairness or balance.

As I mentioned to you when you accused me of acting in very, very bad faith, "had someone rallied blind, patriotic support by posting the message 'Gasoline is under attack for not using the British term!' to the U.S. Wikipedians' notice board, that would have been bad faith." But of course, no one did that.

As you yourself note, just because someone is a UK/International English speaker doesn't mean they will automatically vote for the UK/Int English alternative, and treating people as sheep in a herd does no-one any favours, as I'm certain you will agree. - SoM 16:33, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

There's a major distinction between a speaker of UK English and a member of a UK-specific group who's been led to believe that his/her language variety is "under attack" by American imperialists. In the Gasoline/Petrol debate, many UK respondents supported the move back to Gasoline (despite their personal preference for Petrol). Conversely, the Yogurt/Yoghurt debate's outcome was decided by the members of the UK board, almost all of whom opposed the move back to the original (and more common) spelling. Gee, I wonder why. —David Levy 03:18, 21 February 2006 (UTC)