Forum:RfA voting and reasoning

I know it seems ironic that I'm bringing this up given there's an RfA currently up but I feel regardless that it is something which should be discussed.

Looking at RfAs in general, I've noticed that in the reasoning for a vote there's more emphasis on the personal views of the nominee by the one who's voting and not enough emphasis on how they would benefit from and why they would need the administrator tools.

A common reason for a support vote I've noticed is along the lines of "X deserves this", which seems to be more to do with flattering the nominee rather than focusing on the need for the tools. Adminship isn't "deserved", it's just a set of tools which the community has entrusted onto a user to extend their role on-wiki based on how they would benefit from the tools.

I do also recall another two RfAs in the past where one user was supported by another user based on not only their edits but also on personal ties while on another RfA, the same user gave a "weak support" to a user based on editcount when actually that user had roughly the same (or slightly more, I can't really remember) editcount as the nominee in the first RfA, just not as strong with personal ties to the user who voted.

The reason I bring this up is because of the concern that users are supporting each other more on personal ties than actual suitability for the administrator tools. I'd like to discuss this with the aim that RfA (and probably RfB too) votes should be more to do with voting for the user as a candidate rather than a user who "deserves the rights for being a good friend".

What's everyone's stance on this? 18:51, May 3, 2013 (UTC)

Discussion
Quite frankly, yes indeed the rationale provided generally is less than descriptive. However, generally speaking the nominator usually supplies the reason, and in addition, successful nominations have rarely caused any issues, and those promoted are nearly always highly active trusted people. So I believe the reasoning behind voting is largely a nonissue. MILK FOR THE UNYUUFEX, FLAT CHEST FOR THE CUTENESS THRONE, SKULLS FOR THE SKULL PROBES (user talk:Mathetesalexandrou) 22:42, May 3, 2013 (UTC)

I think that that's a problem, too, but it's hard to see how to cut down on it. Maybe, there has to be five legitimate reasons on a nomination for it to count? Hurshbr (talk) 23:07, May 3, 2013 (UTC)Hurshbr

I'm aware of this and this has been going over and over for every certain amount of time, even though we seem to have discussed about it. There's something, however, I want to know about this. What will happen if someone's vote, say, is irrelevant based on the result of our discussion here? Will their vote be simply void, or we'd hold up the vote until said user can give a more relevant reasoning?  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  15:21, May 7, 2013 (UTC)


 * To Hurshbr: That's a little unnecessary - we've never had problems with the amount of reasoning
 * To Nikel: I'd have to argue that attempting to void an argument (strike out) is wrong. It'd be pretty hard to argue that the void wasn't based on bias.
 * To Mathetesalexandrou: I couldn't agree more.
 * Ѧüя◎ґ (talk) 15:49, May 11, 2013 (UTC)


 * To quote what is stated on the rfa page; Strength of argument is more important than the number of votes . This statement is clearly stated on the page and it is up to the user who is voting on a request to follow it or not. Yes, if their votes contained "x deserves this..." then it shouldn't be counted but the user who has said this should be given the chance to re-word their vote. Also, if a user has made a stab towards another user but has also voted on the request, then their vote should not be counted, unless the user agrees to remove the stab. If a user wishes to vote on a request, then they should follow the strength of argument rule. I also am in a weak neutral agreement with Math's statement, although I'm still thinking about that. HanaGoth96  Neigh...? ) 10:38, May 12, 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't see why anyone would be making a stab at anyone while there is a perfectly good feature we have called talk pages, where we can discuss things without having to involve everyone voting on the RfX... Anyway I disagree with Hana in her saying that Users should be allowed to reword their vote. If a user has already put up their thoughts on a matter, why should they be allowed to change something that came from their own mouths? I mean, if they honestly think that it is deserved by X User, then that vote should not be counted. If the vote is just a bunch of gibberish that makes no sense, we should allow them to explain their reasoning. 18:54, May 12, 2013 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't know how we can judge what is a good argument for an RfA. Perhaps simply having someone who has not voted in the RfA and has a neutral viewpoint go over the arguments and judge the strength themselves would be better? However, for consensus I think at least 65-70% for would be good. -- Bleeh (talk) (blog) 00:15, May 13, 2013 (UTC)

I'd think the "x deserve it" argument, as well as support without a reason tagged with it (which I consider equivalent in strength) is a moot issue if there aren't significant opposition. However, as the case with HanaGoth's nomination turned out to be, the argument of the opposing side was stronger than the supporting side, despite the support side having more votes. However, I disagree with the idea of nulling the votes with the "x deserves it" argument, since the user still has a right to support another user for RfA. As Bleeh said, the difficulty of judging an argument can cause further complications, and Bleeh's suggestion regarding using someone who hasn't voted in the RfA I find rather impractical, given that most active users generally actively vote on the RfA, and especially if it is highly contested one, as was the case with HanaGoth's nomination. I can only argue given the complication that might occur that the "x deserves it" get the lowest priority, although it simply puts a bad taste in my mouth to just void it outright. MILK FOR THE UNYUUFEX, FLAT CHEST FOR THE CUTENESS THRONE, SKULLS FOR THE SKULL PROBES (user talk:Mathetesalexandrou) 03:17, May 14, 2013 (UTC)

Closed - I have been watching this thread since its inception and I'm closing on the basis of it drying out. Mediating from a neutral viewpoint, it does appear that we're in agreement that reasoning and strength of argument does matter. However, given the (slow) progress being made with this thread, continuous discussion here would be pretty difficult given that we're currently discussing an overhaul in the other thread and as one of the suggestions in that thread suggests replacing votes with comments, it would make this particular thread very hard to work with. As such I'm going to close this and encourage everybody to go and express their views in the other thread. 12:17, June 2, 2013 (UTC)