Poetlister wrote:52/52/8 - exactly 50%. It takes a pretty stubborn person to persist in the face of that. I expect that if he insists on going the full seven days, it will break some sort of record.
Oh purrlease.
How far is 50% from 63.7% really, in the grand scheme of things? And as we saw, RexxS and all of his massive support base of 163 would have quite happily ridden that train right down to 50% if they had to, if they knew at the end of it there was still going to be a Bureaucrat chat to declare that civility is not a major reason to oppose an RfA candidate.
There is no actual lower limit to the discretionary zone, that's what they argued. There is no point at which a numerical result is so shameful, so embarrassing, that you simply must withdraw. There is no future benefit to be had from such a withdrawal, your support will always have your back, your opposition will not be given a chance to be convinced after a period of problem free editing, they are to be defeated there and then, know nothing fucks that they are, all 92 of them.
To be assured of victory, the opposition has to keep going, keep piling on, to the very end. Trends don't matter. Neutrals don't matter. Only a result so inarguably a failure, is what counts. Is 50% a failure? Arguably no, because rounding errors don't count either, and you can make that an absolute majority here simply by declaring just three opposes carry zero weight. Zero weight now being applied not just to socks or obvious trolls, but to people with supposedly absurd opinions like disapproving of a candidate who shows contempt for the process by standing as a joke, only taking it seriously when he realized he might have half a chance.
Below 75%, there is only what the consensus says about their fitness to serve. No argument is too strong to be discounted, no support too weak to be amplified. You do not even need a nomination statement for simple no reason supports to be counted as 'per nom'.
Above 75%, it is a vote. Below 75%, it is an exercise in bribery and corruption. And the people who can be bribed to ensure their man wins at any cost? The Bureaucrats. Dweller coronated RexxS, and he coronated Floquenbeam. He used logic no more absurd than that which moves him to argue The Rambling Man would make a fine Administrator. So if any RfA was to pass at 50% by some sketchy means, it's the one filed by Dweller, convinced he has picked a good 'un.
These were all principles of RfA that were laid firmly down by the debacle that was RexxS. Who
won. So they can hardly complain when other people live by them also, in their own desperate pursuit of victory.
There is nothing about RfA that can ever be called stubborn or dishonorable or vainglorious or unedifying or even farcical now. We have seen RexxS. He swept away all those concerns. Now there is only the result, as it stands, at the end of the full seven days.
That a Bureaucrat could be so lacking in judgement that their pick for a good second chance will in reality finish as low as Hawkeye probably will, in a process he has helped ensure has to pummel a candidate that low to be sure it is actually a defeat, is the real story here.
The Wikipedians will ignore it. So will you bunch of chuckleheads.