RexxS for Adminship

[CrowsNest]

The fix is definitely in.....

Given this logic, why write something that might be disprovable or taken as pointy when you can just put "#'''Support''' ~~~~" like #s 27, 28, 44, 103, 120, 138, and 149 did, or something equally empty like #82? What, precisely, would a discountable support vote look like? Even explicit "moral support"s for a candidate under 50% at the time it was written have been weighted at full face value in cratchats in the past. —Cryptic 06:49, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

While it's always better to provide a rationale for any opinion, accepted tradition is that naked supports are considered per nom where naked opposes are not. That is why providing a rationale is more important for an oppose opinion......

There was no nomination, or rather, it was a joke nomination. Nobody can in all seriousness endorse the tripe written by that joke account, no matter how seriously the candidate took the process after that.

If ever there was a time that the convention is ignorable and these not not votes get discounted, this was it. Especially if it is the case those who opposed solely on the fact this was a disrespectful abuse of the process, is to be considered as weak reasoning. If they are considered to have not fully assessed the candidate, which is arguably wrong anyway, then it is equally wrong to assume the people who did expend more than one word in registering their support, were equally deficient. Did they even notice the nomination was a joke? This RfA was undoubtedly publicly canvassed (Montanabw) and it seems highly likely given all the personal relationships involved, canvassed mercilessly in private too. So you can bet your life some will have been tempted just to vote.

If we are considering these votes to be valid endorsements of an acutal nomination, then everyone might as well get Her Holiness to write them a joke statement too. She's willing and capable of doing that for anyone who meets her criteria, namely, someone who will join her in the task of the immediate destruction of AE, considered an affront to her Royal Perogative to dictate the life and times of her subjects as she sees fit. Typically with soft power, but also the occasional thunderbolt from on high (and bestowment of the invisibility cloak - three months usually does it).

[CrowsNest]

Tip to the wise......

Since the reason we have enshrined civility as a policy is that in a diverse volunteer community, individuals will have differing perceptions and tolerances, I would urge the crats not to discount the votes of those who shared personal experiences that they found had a chilling effect, in addition to the arguments of those who made arguments weighing civility/temperament concerns more seriously than those in support. Yngvadottir (talk) 04:59, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

....if even this person is arguing that the civility concerns were valid and should be given full weight, then you have to know you are on the wrong side of the lens if you are arguing otherwise. This is the woman who sacrificed her own Adminship on the idea Eric Corbett is a not a vicious little bastard, just occasionally blunt and forceful, an ultimately pointless sacrifice.

She either recognises something in RexxS' approach that even she isn't willing to endorse, or she has learnt valuable lessons about the damage done in tolerating people based on nothing but the most generous and gullible interpretations of their true intent and the potential darkness of their soul, over and above the concerns of others.

I'd say it was the rather easily spotted pattern of RexxS calling people who pushed back sufficiently hard against his position in any given dispute, as prats. When combined with the sheer unlikelihood that after eleven years, he would be capable of preventing this recent and ongoing behaviour, no matter how much he wanted to, then you have the reality of passing this guy and thus probably testing what would have happened if Eric Corbett had become an Administrator. Trouble in Paradise, or genuine personal growth from the old white dude who doesn't suffer fools gladly?

RexxS is not obviously as bad tempered as Eric, nor does he have his history of conflict, but there are parallels if you know what to look for, if you understand the ultimate source of these behaviours, the mindset, the philosophy. I guess the question is, is RexxS just more of a politician than Eric ever was? Smart enough to know when to reflect and promise to do better, when your own actions pretty much show you don't even back your own ability to do so.

Such was the principle of Eric - he knew he was never sorry and never going to change, so he challenged you to accept him as he is, warts and all, a net positive. He would have bitten your arm off for a chance to run for RfA on the basis just a few more tools was no big deal and you just had to trust him. But he would not have offered you false hope that he was something he was not. He would not have treated it as a joke, and he would not have left you wondering if the civility and reasonableness in the proceedings was merely a temporary act of self-interest. He didn't even reject the idea of coming back a second time. As futile as it was.

They asked RexxS to go to rehab, he said no, no, no.

One for the boys to enjoy over a beer at the next Mancheter meetup.

[CrowsNest]

You do realize that "!vote" means "nonvote", right? The whole point of calling it a "!vote" is that the strict numerical tally doesn't matter, and that the underlying argument is all that matters, just like in any other discussion. Suggesting that crats should rigidly abide by "!vote" tallies and not factor in strength of arguments is very straightforwardly paradoxical and nonsensical. ~Swarm~ {sting} 08:30, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Makes you wonder just how badly RexxS would have had to have done, for them to concede that whatever his final tally was, it was sufficiently under 65%.

I can accept the fact the vote tally is not final until obviously invalid votes are discounted, which is not discretion, merely proper procedure. I can accept Bureaucrats finding specific reasons as to why, after removing invalid votes, if the result is 63.9%, using their discretion, to decide that is still close enough to 65%, in exceptional circumstances, to ignore the generally understood limit (and purpose) of the range, for reasons that are relevant to the specific RfA passing or failing.

What is unacceptable, for its sheer paradoxical nature, is them playing fast and loose with the two concepts above, to come up with an absolute fudge, for pretty obvious reasons (ILIKEIT). They have redefined what is an invalid vote, for the sole purposes of making it seem like RexxS finished inside the zone, when he manifestly did not, and in addition to that, they are also claiming their right to discretion to ignore the range anyway, but are insulting everyone's intelligence by using a reason that has absolutely nothing to do with his specific case.

Nobody ever would or could argue length of service alone, has any role to play in whether or not someone landed inside, outside, or close enough, to the discretionary zone. To argue otherwise goes against a fundamental tenet of Wikipedia, namely it is not your tenure, but your contribution, that counts. He was at RfA to have his contribution measured, and it was. He finished outside the zone, despite everyone knowing what it was and now to keep him inside it. No valid reasons exist to ignore that in his case, and if there were, we would have seen them, not this fudge. They had long enough to think through all the possibilities.

Obviously it is a waste of time explaining this to Swarm, but to other people a little less biased, they can surely see the real issue here.

The fix is in.

[CrowsNest]

Turning into a standard civility erosion exercise......

As there was really only one concern raised about the candidate, I’d argue that this tips the scale in their favour. A single issue is easier to remedy, monitor, or address. In matters of civility, aministrators are held to a higher standard; the candidate is now “on notice”, and has committed to examine their own behaviour and make changes.

That "one" concern wasn't even really incivility alone, but incivility as a symptom of poor temperament and lack of judgement, the three usually being intertwined if the issue is a pattern of behaviour, not merely having a bad day.

Even the Bureaucrats seem to be readily buying into this idea that when people said civility, they meant rude words. The old OMFG can't we even say FUCK anyyyyymoooree schtick. Tiresome. Opposers clearly didn't mean that. He wasn't just rude, calling people prats and persistent little buggers are flat out personal attacks. Questioning the competence of established editors, being polite but condescending and threatening, asserting ownership, and a variety of other disrespectful but not profane behaviour, was identified. People said they saw patterns emerging, from examples and their own research. And nobody was on drugs that I could see.

If anything, this RfA perhaps revealed the sense in RexxS that he can be rude so long as he isn't using bad language and isn't doing it all the time, while also getting much reassurance, quite wrongly, that yes, he can use bad language on rare occasions, if he feels it is justifiable. Not excusable, but justifiable. See the parallels with the infamous Eric Corbett? If you don't want to be called a ..... don't act like a ......

They're trying to argue there was pushback against the concerns, but was there really? Simply stating, I see no incivility, or that you see nothing but him being just being blunt and forceful, is hardly addressing the matter at hand, namely others do not see it differently, so the onus is to establish why.

They are at least recognising that there were supporters who admitted he was incivil. Will they go so far as looking at how few supporters flatly denied there was any civility presented, to show just how much of a minority position this was (so as to gain the true consensus on the RfA as to whether or not the discussion itself concluded RexxS is too uncivil to be an Administrator)?

[CrowsNest]

The fix is definitely in. Now we know why Maxim wasn't all that bothered that RexxS fell short of even the lower end of the widely understood discretionary range......

I see consensus to promote. My reasoning is two-fold. First, there is a considerable amount of opposes are of questionable to no merit. Second, the overwhelming majority of opposition is predicated on civility, and the support column has refuted to an extent where I feel we have consensus to promote.

.......

To fail an RfA in a borderline case would create (or even reinforce) a never-ending grandfather clause of admins permitted to be "more" incivil compared to an RfA candidate. We can't be about to set a precedent for admin civility based on a minority (~30–35% of commenters) at an RfA. Maxim(talk) 16:12, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

"Considerable" is a strong word, so strong yet so not supported by the facts, that it looks like a deliberate lie.

RexxS has been promoted because Drmies is already an Administrator, and he and others like him have ensured civility complaints to AN/I, certainly concerning established editors with powerful friends, is a waste of time. The policy exists, it is just worthless, the bits not relating to NPA might as well not exist. To deny RexxS his seat at that table therefore, is apparently unfair, basically.

There is also apparently explanatory context for RexxS calling people prats and little buggers. The unstated presumption being either that he was right or he was frustrated or on his period, and that the civility policy has exemptions for such. It does not.

What a joke. It admittedly sounds impressive when you claim you can't set a precedent on Admin civility based on 30-35% of editors. Less impressive when said as 92 editors. Even less when said as second highest level opposition to an RfA in eight years.

That statement of course completely ignores the fact many neutrals had exactly the same concerns, and many of the supporters only supported on the idea the civility they saw will not be the civility he has as an Administrator. The assumption being that if they were betrayed, something could be done about it. This Bureaucrat has just said RexxS should be promoted based on the fact nothing would be done about, because according to the majority, it is not sanctionable. Quite the trick, no?

A better trick is pretending not to even see RexxS' own admission that not only does he agree he sometimes does not meet the expected standard, the RfA opened his eyes as to just how poor his behaviour can be seen. Hence his promise, without which he undoubtedly finishes on something like 50%.

I also quite like this trick of RexxS saying just before closure that he did not want those opposing based on the manner of his nomination, to have their opposition discounted. It has been so discounted.

[CrowsNest]

RexxS is trying to withdraw. They won't let him. We might be about to witness the first involuntary sysopping.

This always had the taint of WP:POINT about it - this puts the top hat on it. Everybody ignored how unfussed RexxS was about the prospect of not passing, everybody ignored what he said about his wishes for those who opposed based on his conscious choices of how to stand, were ignored.

It is beyond obvious Littleolive oil would kill her own granny to get him promoted. She's expended another 500 words just to basically argue the concerns of 92 editors are superficial.

These people are insane.

Want more proof?

They're so insistent RfA is a discussion not a vote, they want to fix its shortcomings by making it a secret ballot.

WTF?



Oh, and RexxS has repeated his insistence that he will never run again. If more people had paid attention to the fact that was his settled view all the way through, he probably would have lost by an even bigger margin.

So much for context. Supporters saw what they wanted to see.

[CrowsNest]

Just been a car crash all round, this thing. I did say, the time to withdraw was about day 3. The point had been proven, RfA is still a big deal, and so is temperament, especially if you don't know how you are perceived by everyone (perhaps because you have lived a charmed life beneath the protective wings of a terrible dragon).

He stayed the course, and for some reason only at the very last second, clarified that he was happy to stand behind the decisions he made regarding how, when and why he stood. Too late, it seems, for any Bureaucrats to even realise it, meaning several established editors, his current colleagues, have been treated to their views being cast aside as worthless.

Cue drama and division, and a literal Bureacratic clusterfuck. Quel surprise.

He has brought out the worst in the community. Not the majority, but the minority, who turned up to say pure nasty shit like this....

Support Consider this an ad hominem support, based on who's signed above and who's signed below. But I've also met the nominee and found that he's a nice guy. He'll do alright. --Pgallert (talk) 09:24, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

...and this...

One can't expect everyone voting down there in the dungeon and torture chamber to really know what they are talking about, especially when simply piling on.....Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:03, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

.....and this...

I'll be quite honest and frank, I'd take 1 RexxS over 50 Oshwahs, at least they're not as likely to make stupid blocks. See here. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:29, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Still. Not. Stricken.

In such an environment, we were treated to patronisation of the highest quality......

It's not escaped my notice that some of the comments directed at the candidate are far less kind than the diffs for which he's being criticized, yet he is handling those comments in stride with dignity. I predict this will be an example people will point to in the future when they talk about how RfA is broken. 28bytes (talk) 15:32, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

We were told he was good people, by some pretty bad people. We were told the process is broken, by some pretty blind people. We were told the people who think otherwise are, well, pretty damn stupid. He forced name after name, Big Beasts of The Cult, to sign up to be considered part of that group, in what was a clear attempt on their part to make sure, futile as it was, that he did not get the thing he didn't really want and didn't really need. Those people won't forget that. They will be out for blood more than the damaged world views of Littleolive oil and the rest of the fan club.

It is hard to over-state the absolute shellacking he got, for the candidate we were being sold. People are looking at the range and the percentage, as if that wasn't damning enough, when they should be looking at the historical record, the relative size of opposition and relative lack of support.

His was the edgiest of edge cases, clear as day from day five at least. But he pushed on, regardless. Hoping for what? People who do that manifestly don't have good judgement. We know his personal motive - this was a one time deal. A hostage situation. Take me to bed, or lose me forever! No, you may not use a condom. It's not a big deal. You remember our past competition winners? Whitman! Price! Haddad!

Now he has added to his ignominy by withdrawn at the worst possible moment. Was he waiting to be numerically defeated? Victory of a sorts?

It is all simply more evidence his judgement is just not there. It baffles me that this was even a hard decision. They were there to test his judgement. What have they possibly seen that proved he had it?

He's actually getting credit for staying calm during the RfA.

The prosecution calls Chris Rock.

Judgement is making the right decisions, at the right times, for the right reasons.

[CrowsNest]

Fittingly, the desperate last hope, that all sign of Pppery can be deleted from the RfA, not just his vote, but every one who referenced it, on grounds he was a dirty evil sock, is proving to be the usual product of Wikipediocracy. They really should remove their affiliate status.

RexxS didn't think he was a sock (and is still unconvinced), is the only relevant detail (that and the fact he's only revealing this view now, not when it was mentioned during the RfA). At best, you can strike the vote, if proven, and that's it.

[CrowsNest]

Classic Ritchie.....

Thoughts
I've been mulling this over this afternoon, and what I would advise at this time is to voluntary withdraw from the RfA, in a similar manner to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Cyberpower678.

As you can probably guess, this is not personally the outcome I wanted. However, it would prove to the community that you are genuinely not worried about having the tools, and can clearly and obviously accept criticism with grace. It also avoids the situation that you would be in if the 'crats decided there was consensus to add the bit, which is you would immediately have 30 angry editors watching your every contribution looking for their pound of flesh and screaming the minute you made anything resembling a mistake. The temperature at the 'crat chat is getting hotter, with people starting to argue again, and it's probably best for the project to find a way to nip that in the bud.

I realise that you have said that you don't want another run at this, and frankly, who can blame you? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:26, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Ever the diplomat.

Not true of course. Not likely even an accurate reflection of the strength of feeling.

[CrowsNest]

The rookie got promoted just in time.....

In truth, I find that there is no consensus on the issue of whether RexxS's civility (recent, ongoing, or otherwise) is significant enough to provide a sufficient barrier to promotion. That being said, there were very few opposes that mentioned technical or Article-space issues and plenty of support in those fields. Consensus to promote. Primefac (talk) 20:57, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

.....but I think he needs more training.

No consensus defaults to the status quo, does it not? I think I read that somewhere, one or a billion times......

Still, the attempt at the highest levels of Wikipedia to downgrade WP:CIV continues.

We all stupidly thought they were trying to undermine ArbCom to achieve their aims. Turns out The Cabal was targeting the 'Crat Hut instead.

Clever.