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Hello, and welcome to this RfC concerning guidelines as to when a !vote in a requests for adminship discussion should be removed.

This RfC has been caused by controversy surrounding a vote being struck, unstruck, struck again, unstruck for a second time, struck for a third time, unstruck for a third time, struck for a fourth time, and then finally unstruck, with instructions from Cyberpower678 to not strike the vote again, and the dissent relating to the vote moved to the talk page.

I do not want to set the agenda -- that, friends, is up to you -- but the vote in question was not vandalism, and was not directly insulting Megalibrarygirl. Therefore, the RfC below is to establish clear guidance concerning removal of votes before the final count, and preventing incidents like above.

In addition, a similar incident occurred in the same RfA concerning questions, see [1], thus the RfC will establish the same as above but for questions. A previous question by the same editor who wrote the oppose vote above was also struck by Drmies. Both were answered anyway by the candidate.

Although not the same thing entirely, Paulmcdonald's oppose in TonyBallioni's RfA received heavy criticism from various editors, to the point where he felt pressured to move to the neutral section. As a result, I have extended this RfC to include discussion of whether threaded discussion of !votes should be allowed.

I said on the discussion on WT:RFA that this sort of oppose-hounding is new, but I am wrong, see this RFA from two years ago -- Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Wbm1058 with GregJackP's notorious oppose (see also the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Wbm1058#GregJackP that was moved there).

Pinging involved editors who have not participated yet: @Fuzheado:, @The ed17:, @Trooper1005:, @Inatan:, @Jdcomix:.

My name continues to not be dave (talk) 08:10, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Should votes which are not blatant vandalism or personal attacks be removed?

Survey

  • Generally no. There may be rare cases that are exceptions to the rule, but the only !votes that should be removed before the Crats get there should be those that violate policy. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:22, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • As a rule, no. We shouldn't be enforcing a rationale standard at RfA when we don't have any set criteria for adminship. If we made such criteria, then yes, it should be enforced. We can't have it both ways. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 23:52, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No; the impact of removing or striking a !vote actually itself becomes negative on the Rfa. Irrespective, a comment or an !vote, however silly in editors' opinions, should not be struck unless it is vandalism, personal attack or a deliberate sock/meat puppet edit. Lourdes 01:00, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Absolutely no (vandalism to RfA can be reverted like vandalism anywhere else). Antrocent (♫♬) 02:07, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No: Per my own comment in the discussion above, and per Samsara's comment in the discussion below. Also, per Lourdes. If any sort of activity (vote/comment/question) is pure vandalism usually any editor already reverts it. —usernamekiran(talk) 04:21, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Update: I think if it is out of the line, but not enough to be reverted or to be moved to talkpage, then only one editor should reply to that vote in civil manner, instead of gang-banging. —usernamekiran(talk) 05:16, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not struck, but moved to talk page if clearly out-of-band. Should probably be up to the admins policing RfAs. We're already routinely moving irrelevant chaff and inappropriate venting to an RfA's talk page; there is no reason this cannot be done with !votes that don't make any sense. That said, stupid votes have a tendency to immediately get slammed as stupid (in politer words), so leaving them is probably not harmful. It may be harmful to leave ones that make allegations that prove to be false, or even don't have evidence.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  05:01, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, nothing should be struck except a person's own entry, WP:SOCK violations and clear WP:NPA violations which should be dealt with in the normal manner. One man's bizarre rational is another man's guiding mantra. What's the point of asking for community consensus if you are not accepting opinions from all aspects. Most of them don't even warrant a response; most editors can see for themselves whether an oppose (or support) is facetious or not, and it reflects badly only on the poster, not the RfA candidate. One or two reasoned challenges to poor rationale should be enough. Also pretty sure the average crat can balance the value of comments when closing. ClubOranjeT 05:44, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not removed but indented and struck. This is the only way to show them and others that such trolling is not to be tolerated. And this should apply to any vote that appears to be mean spirited rather than genuinely objective. Being phrased politely should be no defence - such disingenuous behaviour is often disguised as being unctuously polite, and such voters will usually be found to have a longer history of less than friendly collaboration elsewhere. Above all those who leave an isolated oppose vote on a RfA that is quite clearly going to pass should be made to feel as uncomfortable and embarrassed as possible; they knowingly accept that they will engender flak and controversy so they should be big enough to take it.
If people are going to deliberately maintain RfA's reputation of being a horrible and broken process they should be made to feel as uncomfortable as possible for breaking it and making it horrible - the usual Wikipampering and AGFing doesn't work with these people as RfA history has clearly demonstrated with the blocks and bans that have needed to be imposed on such on voters. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:34, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, neither should they be struck or moved (except in clear cases of block evasion or sockpuppetry). WP:IDONTLIKEIT, even if there are multiple people who don't like it, is not cause to remove, move, or strike a !vote. If an RfA is borderline and the count hinges on a few !votes and goes to cratchat, 'crats will examine the merits of each individual !vote. That's their job, not the job of observers or participants of the RfA. Unpopular !votes will always be commented upon, and it is up to the !voter to decide how to respond to those critiques. It is not up to the community to police !votes and disallow unpopular ones. Softlavender (talk) 10:01, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, they should be allowed to stand. Voters displaying their stupidity or the axes they wish to grind are a traditional part of this process. These votes deserve to be called out, but striking or indenting them glorifies them by adding drama to the process that the candidate does not deserve. —Kusma (t·c) 17:52, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No They should be allowed to stand.Now vandalism ,socking or a WP:NPA violation should be dealt with as usual.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 20:11, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No I am all for editors irresponsibly shooting off their mouths the way I do. No one should feel empowered to remove others' comments per WP:REFACTOR. Anyone that does should face penalties. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:13, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, and these !votes should not be removed or struck either. I hate to take this position, but due to the events that led to this RfC, I have zero confidence that minority oppose !voters can expect to be afforded the proper assumption of good faith. Lepricavark (talk) 22:00, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No TonyBallioni (talk) 22:49, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. For the listed exceptions, only bureaucrats should be able to strike votes (though anyone can revert inappropriate content). power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:38, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, neither removed nor struck by other editors except in the case of duplicate !votes, banned editors !voting, clear policy violations, or obvious vandalism. An editor can strike or remove their own !votes, of course, subject to talk page guidelines if discussion has occurred. If !votes do need to be struck or removed, then it should be 'crats (or RfA clerks, which don't currently exist) that do it. 'Crats are responsible for judging consensus and it is up to them to determine the appropriate weight given to a particular !vote or if a !vote should be removed. The act of removing or striking !votes by non-crats seems to be a magnet for drama; one person's trolling is another person's reasonable if fringe-y rationale. Better to leave the questionable !votes in place and let the 'crats deal with them. Ca2james (talk) 05:06, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No Any editor tempted to remove or strike out "foolish" votes should instead remind participants that our highly trained bureaucrats just ignore foolishness when closing RfAs. A 100% positive RfA is not a solid gold trophy and a 98% positive RfA is not a blot. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 05:37, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, though god knows I'm tempted to say yes. There were a bunch of votes at my RFA which alleged bias sans evidence. While they bothered me a good deal at the time, I believe they were handled the right way; they were challenged (called out, if you will) but left in place; and I think ultimately they had the effect of enhancing my credentials to other voters. It's too easy to remove a comment, and ignore the sentiments behind it; the harder but more productive approach is to challenge the statements in question, and demonstrate that the community at large finds them despicable, even if we do not remove a person's ability to express themselves. Vanamonde (talk) 06:40, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. Unless we can give clear objective policies on what votes are not permitted (duplicates and socks, banned editors, personal attacks and obvious vandalism), no vote should ever be removed. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:23, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. What has started to occur at RfA is people are becoming intolerant of any dissenting opinion against a candidate they like. They need to get some tougher skin. It's the job of the closing bureaucrat to weigh the comments presented. They are not morons. They can spot vacuous and troll comments. If you can't tolerate someone voicing a bad opinion, you don't belong participating in an open community where anybody can edit. Jason Quinn (talk) 08:38, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. I'm very sympathetic to the problems that clueless/POV/etc !votes cause, and the fear of animosity from editors they've had run-ins with in the past surely does dissuade some good candidates from running. But the ability to cancel !votes unless there's a clear case of vandalism/trolling/block evasion/Personal attack is too close to a very dangerous slope. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:05, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. Don't strike, move, or otherwise edit !votes that are not blatant vandalism, personal attacks, or made by a sockpuppet. There is no reason to treat comments at RfA and differently to comments anywhere else. You would not strike my comments on a talk page, unless they were clearly and unequivocally out of line. Mr rnddude (talk) 18:36, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, for the reasons noted above, unless the comment would be removed if it was posted elsewhere—e.g. a threat or disclosure of pesronal information (this does not extend to requests for the candidate to voluntarily disclose personal information, which the candidate of course is free to decline). We have no need of comments to be policed at RfA or elsewhere. -- Black Falcon (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Threaded discussion

  • If nothing else, at the close of the RfA, the closing bureaucrat should strike any not-vote they would completely discount in a crat chat, whether due to transparent bad faith, prima facie absurd rationale, or whatever, irrespective of the final tally. I feel this would tamp down somewhat on bad-faith not-votes whilst maintaining something of an upper bound on the drama during the RfA proper. Snuge purveyor (talk) 23:23, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's not a workable model - different crats will consider different votes as weak. Samsara 03:03, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Pehaps I should have said "irrespective of the final tally, unless doing so would push the result out of the discretionary zone." Apart from that case, I don't see how bureaucratic discretion is unworkable. Snuge purveyor (talk) 03:48, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • If crats should clerk Rfas, then it might be sensible to have a policy or guideline that prohibits anyone else (except crats) from striking any !vote, however silly (leave the vandalism exceptions). Lourdes 01:02, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think people should not edit war a(n un)striking of a !vote. To be perfectly frank, "making one's opinion clear on an RfA" is not so important as to justify edit warring like the one mentioned at the top of this section. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:37, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Uh-huh. I think there would need to clear consensus regarding the removal of a vote first, though. I did raise this as one of my principal questions on WT:RFA. We need to establish first whether removal of votes is blanket acceptable. My name continues to not be dave (talk) 09:55, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    To tell the truth, I've always thought that the "just ignore the stupid ones" attitude is the root cause for all the reputation problems the RfA process has. It doesn't work and encourages people to use the RfA process as a soapbox for every peeve they have. Asking for a consensus before removing a vote is reasonable but edit warring around it is not. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:00, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can understand all those saying 'No', really I can, but it's not as simple as that. Something needs to be done however, because the status quo just maintains RfA as "a horrible and broken process" and as such does not encourage potential candidates of the right calibre to come forward. I think we should make harder for users who make fake-founded or bad faith votes (and that includes being a lone oppose at a RfA that is very obviously going to pass with flying colours). And that means striking and leaving for all to see that we mean business. If everyone would vote reasonably, we wouldn't need to be having these discussions which (with one or two exceptions) are really just preaching to the choir. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:51, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem is, who gets to decide what's "reasonable" and how? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:07, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That's the conundrum: these discussions are preaching to choir, but the choir is not all singing from the same page. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:54, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Should questions which are not blatant vandalism or personal attacks be removed?

Survey

  • It depends of course on the questions. Totally ridiculous, impertinent, or otherwise inappropriate questions, and also especially those that refuse to comply with the 2-question rule (which we still keep seeing time and time again), should be struck - but not removed. An in-depth research of questions was made here. It's not quite up to date but but the situation has never improved. The examples are as relevant as they were then.
If people are going to deliberately maintain RfA's reputation of being a horrible and broken process they should be made to feel as uncomfortable as possible for breaking it and making it horrible - the usual Wikipampering and AGFing doesn't work with these people as RfA history has clearly demonstrated with the blocks and bans that have needed to be imposed on such on voters. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:34, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. Part of adminship is making value judgments, and if a candidate wants to answer a question, let them answer it. If they want to skip a question (or reply saying they will respond later), let them skip it. If they want to comment/reply that the question seems inappropriate or that they are dumbfounded or have no answer, let them do that. If they want to go to the talkpage and express their bafflement or request that an administrator consider striking or removing the question because it appears inappropriate, let them do that. Whatever action the candidate takes will reflect on how they handle the infinite number of judgments an admin has to make every day, even in the face of frustrating/irritating/foolish people or circumstances. It is not up to the community to police questions out of hand, except in the case of blatant vandalism or personal attacks.

    If an observer or participant thinks a question is egregious, they should ping the questioner on the talkpage (or go to their usertalk) and ask them to remove it, but not do anything themselves. Unless it comes to pass that RfAs are simply filling up with more questions than a candidate has time to answer (and please note that it really behooves a candidate to ensure they are free for the duration of that week), I don't personally see a cause to remove or strike any of them. Softlavender (talk) 10:45, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Yes, sometimes. There are questions that obviously have no bearing on a candidate's qualifications, such as the returning troll who posts math problems. That specific individual is perma-blocked or banned so their questions are usually removed quickly but there are others that have just as little validity. The perennial "Here's 11 usernames I made up, which are invalid?" one (which, oddly enough, none of the current three RFA's includes) or "What do you think of my essay?" ones that pop up from time to time are nothing more than timesinks. A RFA candidate can choose to not answer those, but that is guaranteed to increase the opposes on the basis of "they lack communication skills"-type reasoning. The candidate should not be placed onto the tines of Morton's Fork out of sheer contrariness. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 17:58, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Generally, no. Let the RfA candidate decide how to deal with (ie, answer or not answer) such questions. But the 2 question rule should be strictly enforced. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:51, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ugh. I wanted this one to be a simple no like above. Thoughts here (as someone who as of this typing is going through RfA): I would answer almost any question asked (unless it asked me to reveal personal information that would be equivalent of self-outing.) I'd leave this to bureaucrats discretion as to if a question is disruptive, expecting that the overwhelming majority of times they would do nothing. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:52, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No except in the case of vandalism, banned editors asking questions, or questions over the two question limit (or at 'crats discretion). Some questions do appear to be irrelevant but it's up to the candidate to deal with those ones. The way a candidate responds (or doesn't respond) to these questions can be informative as an indicator of their approach to dealing with oddball questions and requests from editors. Ca2james (talk) 05:20, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No - as I stated above, we need objective policies to define what's disallowed, and never remove anything else. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:25, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm torn on this one. As TonyBallioni, I'd like to be able to say a clear No, as a candidate can always ignore an inappropriate question. But I've seen candidates opposed simply for doing that, with some !voters requiring candidates to answer all questions - though having said that, it's probably rare, and I can't think of an actual example right now. But there are some questions that undoubtedly should not be asked, without being blatant vandalism or personal attacks. I'll go with Kudpung's It depends and Tony's bureaucrats discretion. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:13, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    I have to strike that last clause as I've just reverted some questions that appear to be just trolling - totally unrelated to adminship anyway. Sometimes the answer must be Yes. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:30, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's probably rare, but so are RfAs these days, but they do happen. Dig deep enough and you'll find plenty of examples of oppose votes because a candidate declined a perfectly optional question. Usually the question was invalid, so the vote is invalid, and the voter should be slapped on the wrist. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:24, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No per Softlavender and Od Mishehu. On the one hand, I concur that some of the questions asked at RfA are utterly ridiculous, but, that's an entirely subjective metric to measure things against. Further, SL brings up a good point, in that admin candidates need to be able to make judgement calls. One thing I disagree with SL on is the suggestion of having admins clerk questions, having recently undone an admins striking of two good faith questions, I have to say no, only bureaucrats should be able to exercise discretion with regards to the questions asked at RfA - unless of course obvious vandalism, sockpuppetry, or personal attacks are involved. That said, if there were concrete policy as to what kind of questions were allowed or disallowed at RfA, then at least there'd be an objective basis for admins or non-admins to clerk the questions asked at RfA. Mr rnddude (talk) 18:51, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, sometimes. I've seen enough questions crafted such that they don't represent vandalism or personal attacks in the very worst and obvious sense, but are still irrelevant, needlessly provocative, and disruptive to the process. I don't like the idea of leaving this responsibility of dealing with bad questions to the candidate. RfA is a highly visible process that is already associated with a tremendous amount of scrutiny and expectations on the candidate. I think that is enough on its own. If potential candidates see that folks are permitted to ask provocative and stupid questions that they have to strategically decide whether to answer or not, they will not run. Is that really what we want? I JethroBT drop me a line 19:48, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, a candidate is free to decline to answer any question presented to them, including their thoughts on the question's pertinence or silliness. I know some people automatically oppose candidates who don't answer every question, but so be it. I do, however, think we need to enforce the two-question limit per editor. -- Black Falcon (talk) 20:26, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Threaded discussion

  • I can understand all those saying 'No', really I can, but it's not as simple as that. Something needs to be done however, because the status quo just maintains RfA as "a horrible and broken process" and as such does not encourage potential candidates of the right calibre to come forward. I think we should make it more challenging for those who express unreasonable opinions, for some definition of unreasonable. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:38, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • SecurePoll always looms in my mind. You once said the community doesn't want it -- has it ever been !voted upon though? My name isnotdave (talk/contribs) 09:59, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The big problem with that is that SecurePoll is not a discussion, and RFA is very much (and, in my view, should be) discussion-based and dependent on expressed reasons for Supporting or Opposing. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:15, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • How are ArbCom elections and an RfA different, then, in your view? Obviously, in an ArbCom election, we are voting for multiple candidates at once. My name isnotdave (talk/contribs) 10:22, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Actually Arbcom elections are even more horrible and broken than RfA. The so called 'voter guides', and question sections are used to mercilessly attack the candidates and make fake character assassinations, and unlike RfA, nobody is around to refute them, because there is no discussion allowed. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:00, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd suggest that if anything were to change, then introducing Support/Oppose discussion of Arbcom candidates would preferable to eliminating Support/Oppose discussion of RFA candidates - but as there are so many of them running at the same time, I could see that as being a bit of a nightmare to organize. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:18, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I like the idea of using SecurePoll. Maybe we could have a discussion AND use SecurePoll, separating the election campaign from the voting. That voters are able to influence other voters with the comment next to their support or oppose vote is among my least favourite parts of the process. —Kusma (t·c) 19:45, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Black Falcon: What if that was to sink a perfectly good RfA? A response of "so be it" in that case would seem a bit inappropriately apathetic. 81.106.34.193 (talk) 20:51, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Should threaded responses to RfA votes be allowed?

Survey

  • Yes of course, and any thread can be moved to the talkpage (by the !voter, or by another editor unless the !voter objects) if it gets lengthy or contentious. Softlavender (talk) 09:52, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, generally. There is no "don't disagree with me" right for !voters. Also, while some threaded discussions turn into arguments sometimes someone makes a mistake (e.g on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Cyclonebiskit 2). Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:53, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes and !votes are not votes— they are, in fact, not-votes, the exclamation point prefix being the operator of binary negation in C and C-affine programming languages. The practice of calling not-votes "!votes" makes a distinction which is clearly lost on some contributors, and is even glossed over or confused in the header of this RfC. RfA is a discussion, and if someone makes an illogical, grudgeholdy, or WP:POINTy comment in a discussion, they can and should expect to be challenged for it, regardless of venue. Snuge purveyor (talk) 16:14, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, as long as we allow people to provide a rationale, it must also be allowed to challenge it, especially as other voters are often influenced by these rationales. —Kusma (t·c) 17:48, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes At the risk of repeating myself: the freedom to voice one's opinion is accompanied by the responsibility to accept the reaction to one's opinion; otherwise, that freedom is meaningless. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:06, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, absolutely. That's what the spirit of a discussion, and not just a vote, is all about. Overly lengthy threads can be moved to the RfA talk page. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:53, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes RfA is a discussion, not a vote. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:53, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes--after all, the reason we call it a "!vote" instead of a "vote" is because consensus, formed by discussion, is what counts. --Joshualouie711talk 02:04, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes but it should be expected that long discussions will be moved to the talk page. power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:40, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes as RfA is a discussion. Discussions can involve clarification or challenges to !votes. I expect that long discussions (im thinking more than three or four indents levels) or anything like the recent "I oppose this oppose" will be moved to the Talk page, preferably by a 'crat or an RfA clerk. Ca2james (talk) 05:27, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes . As Eggishorn recently stated: The freedom to voice one's opinion is accompanied by the responsibility to accept the reaction to one's opinion; otherwise, that freedom is meaningless. There is a lot of malicious oppose voting as we have seen in the current RfAs as we discuss this. Sometimes, peer pressure can get them to change their vote. There has been too much tolerance over the years of allowing RfA to be the one venue where users can be as nasty as they like and get away with it. If the process is to survive (or any that replaces it), irresponsible voting needs to be stopped somehow, because like any other collaborative web site, blog, or forum, Wikipedia needs moderators, and that's why we need admins. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:47, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Absolutely, per my comments above, and the statement from Eggishorn highlighted by Kudpung above. Vanamonde (talk) 08:27, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Of course, and if the discussion gets too long, it should be moved elsewhere just like we normally do. Jason Quinn (talk) 08:30, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:07, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, absolutely. They should be treated with same accord as any other !vote or comment. Large threaded discussions should be moved to RfA talk and clearly linked on the RfA main page. Otherwise, do not strike or remove comments that are not blatant vandalism, personal attacks, or made by sockpuppets. Mr rnddude (talk) 18:38, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, per above, otherwise we might as well just use SurveyMonkey. -- Black Falcon (talk) 20:27, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Threaded discussion

If I understand the genesis of this question correctly, the intent is not to eliminate any threaded discussion, but to move it from directly beneath each person's "support" or "oppose" statement to the "General discussion" section? isaacl (talk) 10:04, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The question is whether threaded responses should be allowed on (individual) RfA votes. "General discussion" is separate from votes. (And to further clarify, sometimes threaded responses under a given vote are moved to the talkpage, but never to the "General discussion" section, although sometimes various editor's votes or points are mentioned in "General discussion".) Softlavender (talk) 10:13, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate that for person Z wishing to comment on person A's vote that it's easier to respond immediately below it, but it's a classic tragedy of the commons. It's a lot easier for everyone else if all discussion about a specific raised concern is grouped together in one spot, rather than under the votes from persons A, B, C, and so forth. The ability to discuss anyone's vote is not eliminated; the conversation would just be consolidated, thereby reducing redundancy and making the discussion easier to follow. isaacl (talk) 01:03, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Your proposal would make conversations and discussion more difficult to follow, since comments would be separated from what they are comments on. That's why nested threading exists, rather than a message-board single-unindented-post at a time format. Concerns common to more than one vote or voter take place in General Discussion (or on the talk page), thereby keeping "all discussion about a specific raised concern" together. Softlavender (talk) 01:13, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, discussion about a concern raised by multiple people is typically fragmented, as people feel a need to comment on each one (the "General discussion" section often lies nearly empty, or much smaller than the responses beneath the expressed viewpoints). Yes, it makes it harder on person Z and person A. But if the relevant portion being commented on is quoted/paraphrased, it's much simpler for everyone else, who only have to look at one section for ongoing discussion, instead of continually going through all of the previous comments looking for new responses (or trying to read comments in raw wikitext from the diff screen). isaacl (talk) 01:30, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Isaacl, in your more than 9 years here you haven't voted on or even commented in a single RfA. May I ask where this seemingly unfounded concern is coming from, and can you provide specific evidence of instances where any threaded discussions on RfA votes were "redundant" or "hard to follow"? I'm asking because your position defies logic, since paraphrasing someone, or quoting them in their entirety, and pasting that elsewhere and forcing them to reply in a different and already very cluttered space, would greatly exacerbate confusion and endless walls of text, and add significantly to the already large byte count of an RfA. General Discussion sections at RfAs already have the problem that most of its sections are separated with page-wide scores instead of headers. The last thing we need are even more of those clunky seas of text in that section. Softlavender (talk) 01:57, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've read plenty of RfAs where a concern was raised by multiple commenters, particularly because simply saying "per X" is discouraged, and so people have commented on each of them, often with nearly identical responses, and all of the threads proceeded with independent discussions. As a result, following the comments means having to follow all of those threads. A comment might get refuted in one of them, but not the others, and then a resulting meta discussion occurs, sometimes on the talk page, about whether or not commenters have seen the refutation. I appreciate your desire to keep comments next to the original stated viewpoints, and how that makes it easier for original commenter and responder to follow a specific discussion between the two of them. But for someone trying to keep up-to-date, it's really difficult following an ever-growing number of discussion threads branching off from the support/oppose sections. Consolidating discussion reduces the amount of text overall, as everyone can see all of the responses on one place, rather than having to look through multiple locations, and then ask if everyone has seen the responses in each place. isaacl (talk) 02:13, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Please provide evidence of a situation you found difficult to follow, and examples of how you would change the format to change that. Personally, I've never found it difficult to follow any RFA conversation that I actually wanted to follow, any more than I find it difficult to follow endlessly long RfCs or AfDs or other discussions. In fact, RfAs are the easiest types of surveys to follow because people don't interrupt the flow with "Comments" or unrelated points or subthreads. The !votes are all numbered, so that never happens. That's why an RfA is much easier to follow or analyze than an RfC or an AfD or a rambling article-talk discussion. Softlavender (talk) 02:25, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's a matter of personal ways of keeping abreast, I suppose: I'd have to show you how I look at the diffs regularly to find new comments and try to understand their context, sometimes switching to the current page to browse through the scores of comments to try to find the new ones. It's not that easy to reconstruct after the fact. I've already proposed ways to change the format, but the participants here have made it clear they like the straw poll format with threaded responses trying to win over other commenters. Unfortunately this tends to personalize the discussion which makes it more acrimonious than necessary. (There are some who think we should make it more challenging for those who express unreasonable opinions, for some definition of unreasonable. While I understand the desire to set up negative incentives for unwanted behaviour, I think in many situations ignoring the commenter is one of the best negative incentives. Unfortunately, it's hard to put into practice.) isaacl (talk) 03:53, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Another question might be: Should !votes even be public, or should the voting be an anonymous process (while, of course, maintaining the possibility to ask questions and discuss candidates). The votes (or !votes) aren't just that for two reasons: 1) They usually include a rationale/explanation (in fact this is expected, particularly in the case of opposes) and 2) They include a name and identity which can range from user:super-cool-super-wikipedia-user-and-admin-and-arb to implausibly-obscure-dull-user-with-no-clout-whatsoever and (not ideally, but realistically) will influence opinions accordingly. Just an ignorant thought, but it might be worth handling RFAs more like we currently handle ARBCOM elections. ---Sluzzelin talk 19:13, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Sluzzelin: This has been discussed above in the second clarification. Since it has received some talk about it, and there are other proposals that I have unrelated to this specific topic, we might make an WP:RFA2017 out of it. My name isnotdave (talk/contribs) 19:22, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oops, ok, I stay away from RFAs anyway, sorry. (￣ー￣) ---Sluzzelin talk 19:25, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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