[WikiEN-l] Worrying trends

Mon Jul 25 07:11:20 UTC 2005

On 7/20/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org>
> >
> >I must say that I think that everyone who does not respond to a (good
> >faith) questioning comment asking them why should have their
> >vote/opinion on the matter disregarded. If they are not willing to say
> >why they believe what they do then they should not be considered
> >contributing to the discussion. Wikipedia is rightfully not a democracy
> >where you can vote for whatever reason you like. Any position someone
> >takes must be able to be challenged.
> 
> Well, speaking personally, I've probably voted in support of 3 dozen RFAs,
> and only voted against 3 applications, each time listing my reasons.  In
> each case I was challenged, sometimes in a most rude way, for more detail.
> When I provided it, giving links to examples of policy violations etc.,  I
> was attacked again.  Those who did not give reasons  for rejecting the
> applications were not subject to these violations of [[Wikipedia:Civility]]
> policy.  It would be most tempting, in the future, to simply vote "No" and
> refuse to give a reason, in order to avoid this kind of unpleasant
> treatment.

I am the only one who feels that votes for adminship is a slightly
different matters than other polls? You are discussing a particular
individual, and it gets a lot more personal than discussing other
matters. Saying that voting yes is to agree with the nomination and
voting no is the only version that needs to be explained is really to
ask for rough behaviour against those who oppose the nomination, like
Jay describes. If I know that if I vote no I have to give a
motivation, someone will think I am cruel and the consequence is I get
into a hailstorm - then maybe I choose not to vote.

 Maybe you need either a culture where the votes are always motivated,
really _always_ and votes that are not motivated are removed -
including votes agreeing with the nomination - or an exception
regarding votes for adminship. The election for the Wikimedia board,
that recently was finished, was done not only without motivation but
closed, so you did not display who you voted for. In Wikipedia
context, with the ideals of concensus etc. it would be interesting to
hear why this method was chosen.

/ Habj