Forum:Omitting the voting procedure and clarifying consensus in RfA/RfBs

So with regards to the confusion over how consensus is interpreted with RfA and RfB, I feel a modest change to the system would help us overcome this and make things more clear.

I'd like to propose that we omit the voting procedure that takes place with RfA and RfB if consensus isn't clear from the discussion. From what I remember, the voting procedure was primarily implemented as a compromise to us needing the system yet the community didn't quite want to do away with voting completely. The discussion-based system has been mostly successful for us and determining whether or not a nomination needs to progress to a vote is often rather confusing and frankly the vote itself doesn't really make things any clearer.

With this, I'd like for us to clarify that consensus in these discussions is meant to be a general agreement on promoting a user and that a rough consensus of two-thirds (66%) is needed for a promotion to take place. This eliminates the situation of one being confused as into whether or not there is a consensus as it would be a case of either there is a favourable consensus to promote the nominee, in which case the RfA/RfB is successful, or there isn't and therefore it's unsuccessful, so we wouldn't have to worry about things being split 50/50 or whatever.

While it may seem like I'm looking for the easy way out, I feel this move would solve a lot of the confusion regarding RfX consensus and would ultimately make the process a lot clearer.

Note that I'm not proposing we close down RfA/RfB while we discuss this, as this isn't a major overhaul, but any RfAs or RfBs that take place while this is being discussed should use the current system as it stands.

Please discuss below. 13:39, February 5, 2014 (UTC)

Discussion
Support. Voting really doesn't get a nomination anywhere. If the community clearly disagrees with the promotion, a vote isn't going to change that. K6ka (talk &#124; contribs) 14:20, February 5, 2014 (UTC)
 * Removing the voting process from requests with no support whatsoever in the request seems to be our best bet here. I'm all for it. Beds (parlare - da leggere ) 15:21, February 5, 2014 (UTC)

I support. I think K6ka hit the nail on the head - if there's consensus for a candidate, then we shouldn't need to resort to a formal vote. If consensus is lacking, then a vote is already redundant. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 19:00, February 5, 2014 (UTC)

Although I do support removing the voting process from determining consensus, I'm not sure how the community would be able to interpret the results of the discussion. As it's in paragraph-form, it can be a bit unclear what is the commenter's the ultimate decision in relation to supporting or opposing a request. As well, it could be difficult to put all the results of the comments into a strict support or lack of support. However, The Sims Wiki mightn't even need a system to really solve this, as there are not often issues with rights requests. --Bleeh (talk!) (edits) 03:06, February 6, 2014 (UTC)
 * It isn't really necessary to weigh whether a particular comment is in support or oppose... the text of the comment would generally illustrate how they feel about a particular nominee without needing to explicitly state so. For a hypothetical example, let's say you were applying for administrator and I was commenting on the RfA discussion; I could say something like this:
 * I feel that Bleeh is a highly-productive user that is very active. She is helpful to users and very knowledgable. - 
 * In that example you'll note that I never specifically stated whether or not I supported her, but the meaning of what I say makes it clear that I do. For another example:
 * Bleeh does not always act in the best interests of the community and doesn't seem to be very helpful with other users. - 
 * Again, in this example it's pretty clear how I feel about the applicant without explicitly stating my opposition. But, it seems that we often do state whether we support or oppose in our comment, so it's ultimately pretty easy to tell how a user generally feels about an applicant.


 * As for the overall results... the idea of consensus is that the community reaches a general agreement about some sort of decision. That means you don't really need to rank people up strictly on a support/doesn't support basis, as the general tone of the discussion should make it pretty apparent whether or not enough people agree. For instance, if you were to look at this discussion, while removing any explicit mentions of support, you could still determine that (presently) there is consensus for this decision. That's where "strength of argument" comes into play - a person commenting should do more than simply say 'support' or 'oppose'; in order to really help forge a consensus, their comments should be more detailed in their reasons for support or opposition. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 04:20, February 6, 2014 (UTC)


 * Fairly often in rights requests users will discuss both sides of the argument for promoting the user. Although, it is true and the general stance is more often than not apparent without a strict support or no support. As well, I don't think voting is really the best system to deal with confusion with rights requests anyway. So I do support omitting the voting procedure, although if there were to be a discussion about possible substitutions ever I'd contribute. I'm not 100% sure that it's necessary, but just in case, I suppose. --Bleeh (talk!) (edits) 04:21, February 9, 2014 (UTC)

Conclusion
I've done my best to incorporate the points outlined in the proposal and discussion into practical language on the requests page. Here is the structure of the RfA procedure as I've written it out. A similar change will also be made to the RfB procedure. While this discussion has run its course, I would encourage anyone so inclined to clean up what I've written if you feel it doesn't align with what was decided by this discussion.

In any case, this is what I've written:

The following steps should be followed by applicants and nominees.
 * Procedure for Applications
 * Stage 1 - Nomination/Application


 * Users may nominate themselves or be nominated by another user for administratorship. The nominee then has to accept the nomination before discussion can begin. Nominations or applications should be made here.
 * If the nominee accepts the nomination, they should also choose two Administrative projects when stating their acceptance.
 * After a user applies or accepts a nomination, a bureaucrat should determine whether the user is eligible to apply. If they are eligible, the bureaucrat will create a page for the nomination (typically 'The Sims Wiki:Requests for administratorship/ ') and begin the discussion there.
 * Multiple nominations can be queued at one time. Nominations which aren't responded to by the nominee within 2 weeks are subject to removal.


 * Stage 2 - Discussion


 * A period of discussion shall last at least five days.
 * After the five day period of discussion has elapsed, it shall be determined whether a consensus in favor of or against promotion has been reached.
 * Consensus for these requests is defined as a general agreement among users engaged in the discussion (including the nominating user, if applicable). If necessary, consensus can be roughly measured as a general agreement between at least two-thirds of users engaged in the discussion (including the nominating user, if applicable).
 * If the discussion shows consensus for a nominee, the nomination is successful and the user is promoted. If the discussion shows consensus against a promotion, the nomination will end and the nominee will not be promoted.
 * After the initial five-day discussion period, if consensus either for or against promotion is not present, discussion will continue until there is a two-day long period, or longer, in which nothing is added to the discussion.
 * If this occurs and a consensus for promotion exists, the nomination is successful and the user is promoted.
 * If this occurs and a consensus for promotion does not exist, the nomination will end and the nominee will not be promoted. This will occur even if a consensus against promotion does not exist.
 * If discussion continues for ten or more days, and it is determined by ay least two bureaucrats that progress towards consensus is not occurring, the nomination will end and the nominee will not be promoted.

If you want to make minor modifications to what is written out, feel free to do so boldly. Major revisions should be discussed in a new thread. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 18:46, February 22, 2014 (UTC)