[WikiEN-l] Re: RickK: How do you get from a mistake to "up to no good" and "vote rigging?"

Mon Nov 29 00:15:31 UTC 2004

>
> Well, I'm not the only one who understood, the person who left the
> original comment in his talk page
> [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk: 
> RickK&oldid=7921955#Teehee]
> said "I don't know if you realised, but at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion>, you cut
> User:Vague Rant <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Vague_Rant>'s  
> comment
> in half and declared that the first half of his comment was by an anon
> and was therefore not counted".

So, you're saying he made a careless mistake? That's the big deal?

Comments like RickK's are advisory to whatever sysop acts on the VfD.  
Unless he actions the item himself he doesn't control what votes "are  
counted." Secondly, if you advise a sysop to disregard half of a  
comment, even if the sysop accepts all of RickK's recommendations  
uncritically, that isn't going to affect the vote, is it? Third, VfD  
discussions are based on consensus, which means that exact vote counts  
are not supposed to be and usually are not important. It's not like  
we're talking about hanging chads. And, finally, the reason VfD  
discussions last for as long as they do is so that mistakes can be  
corrected.

How do you get from point A), an arguably careless mistake which _even  
if accepted uncritically by the acting sysop_ would not have affected  
the vote count, which isn't very important anyway, to point B), "up to  
no good" and "vote rigging?"

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
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