[WikiEN-l] We need a policy against vote-stacking

Mon May 8 20:16:46 UTC 2006

> From: Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com>
> That doesn't mean  
> their votes count more, less, or the same as
> everyone else's, because  
> AfD isn't supposed to be a vote.

<aol>Me too!</aol> I agree wholeheartedly with Phil,
including the rest of the email that I've snipped.

The main problem is that people love to vote; and "my
vote is to..." is a shorthand that continues to imply
that we're voting. (I've started to use "My opinion
is..." and the like to make it clear that I'm not
voting). We deny new users and anons a "vote" on AfD
to prevent "votestacking" by sockmeat, thus dismissing
what could be a very knowledgeable vote once in a
while; we sometimes announce at the top of a debate
that we will be ignoring votestacking by anons, thus
reinforcing the impression of a vote taking place.

AfD is often just putting a mark in a box - nn, del or
keep, WP:V - which again reinforces the idea that
we're voting /and/ newbies with their first article
suddenly feel bitten because the community is /voting/
against /them/.

I think we need to make it clearer that the process is
not a vote; that reasoned arguments are appreciated
(and therefore that unreasoned arguments - Xfoo has an
article so Yfoo deserves one; John Foobar is
well-known to all my friends in the greater
Nowheresville area who are into mud wrestling;
Wikipedia must keep my article else I'll leave before
my 3rd edit - don't hold water); and that the final
decision is made by an admin based on the debate and
/other factors/, not on the tally of "votes".

We also need greater protection for our admins from
being hounded for deleting an article where the
majority said keep or for keeping an article where the
majority said delete - some sort of nice big notice
somewhere that says "admins are just janitors, not
gods or new Hitlers - please take your argument to
[[X]] location" perhaps?

At the moment, I really can't see a difference between
the old VfD and the newer AfD, other than cosmetic
ones. Unless we do something to make it clear that
voting is not taking place, we'll be stuck with the
current broken process.

"Wikipedia:Opinions about removal", anyone?

=REDVERS=

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