On 7/16/05, Michael Turley <michael.turley(a)gmail.com> wrote:
The reason 70/30 can be a "no" is a core
principle of Wikipedia:
Wikipedia operates on consensus, not majority.
Instead of counting votes, consider the standard to be "serve the
majority, but don't take any actions that seriously offend a
significant number of minority members".
If you think of it this way, it becomes much clearer why we don't
simply count votes, and why a bureaucrat may even use their discretion
to not promote at 80/20 occasionally.
70/30 in favour of something would probably do on VfD, for example,
but bear in mind that most admins are elected basically unopposed. For
30% of the users who have schlepped all the way to [[WP:RFA]] to vote
against someone is fairly high within that particular context.
--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain(a)gmail.com