Wikipedia talk:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/Announcements

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[edit] RfA announcements

Hi all! In order to prevent an edit war, it's probably best to "take it to the talk page", so to speak. It seems that announcing RfA's on WikiProjects of which one is a part is vote canvassing and an overt attempt to skew consensus. If one is interested in the current RfA's one can easily head over to WP:RFA, WP:BN, or a thousand of different other pages that do not exclude and elevate specific RfA's. gaillimh^{Conas tá tú?} 02:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

This is a longstanding solution to the problem of how to inform without canvassing. It is widely supported. Hesperian 02:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

How can informing people who will likely want to support a candidate not equivalent to canvassing, hehe? It is obviously an attempt to garner support for MichaelBillington, and apparently several other previous RfA candidates active on the Australian Wikipedians' notice board. This is a prime example of what isn't appropriate with regards to consensus-building on Wikipedia gaillimh^{Conas tá tú?} 03:02, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Evidently it's not "obvious" to anyone but you. This announcement box has been running since 11 November 2005, and until now no-one has ever seen it as other than a legitimate and good-faith tool for informing the Australian community of matters to which they may wish to attend.

I watch this board. I almost never vote in AfDs, because I prefer not to vote unless I have an informed opinion. When I do vote, I am as likely to oppose as support. I usually don't need this board to tell me about candidates that have my support, so on balance this board helps me to oppose candidates rather than support them.

Did it ever occur to you that the people best qualified to decide whether a person should be an administrator are the people who have worked closely with the candidate over a period of time? If we banned all such announcements, the only people who would vote in RfAs would be drive-by 2¢-ers who know nothing whatsoever about the candidate so instead vote on such irrelevant metrics as edit summary usage, number of featured articles, etc.

Hesperian 03:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It's certainly reasonable to assume that only those who are active on this notice board have seen this announcement page, so it's not, by any means, "widely supported" and to state that it is, is rather misleading. In any case, asking people to participate in an RfA which they are, of course, more than likely to support, is inappropriate and to assert otherwise seems a bit silly gaillimh^{Conas tá tú?} 03:33, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Once again, I dispute your assertion that this venue is partisan. Do you think it is partisan because people are more likely to vote for a candidate who shares their nationality; or because people are more likely to vote for a candidate with whom they have worked closely over a period of time. The first option is both ridiculous and repugnant; the second is unproblematic. Hesperian 03:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

When engaged in a discussion, it's best not to pigeonhole others' opinions. Social graces and the lack thereof aside, I believe that any attempt to vote-stack and skew process is harmful to Wikipedia and this practise certainly falls in that category gaillimh^{Conas tá tú?} 03:43, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that any attempt to vote-stack and skew process is harmful to Wikipedia. But this practice certainly does not fall into that category. Hesperian 03:51, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

This is exactly the point on which we differ. What do you suggest is a good venue for seeking an external opinion? We could use WP:AN, which is a potentially good place, as our disagreement is based, in part, on administration. We could also use the village pump to seek external viewpoints on the larger issue of what is and isn't canvassing. There's also the option of a more-formal RFC, which sometimes has negative connotations, but in our case it might just serve for another venue to continue our relatively amicable proceedings with fresh sets of eyes. gaillimh^{Conas tá tú?} 03:57, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

<-- I have seen one or two RfAs fail that were posted on this section, partly as a consequence of being posted here as the oppose votes came from respected members of the Australian Wikipedian community who clearly didn't feel the person was ready, having had the chance to observe their behaviour here. Any means by which a reliable estimate of the person's ability to perform as an admin should be commended, in my view. Orderinchaos78 10:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC)