Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Clovermoss

extra nom

@Ritchie333: see notes at support vote 7. I'm not going to revert your extra nom unless Clovermoss actually asks for it (which I doubt they will since why mess with a supporter) --- however, I suggest you pull that and convert it to a Support !vote instead to lessen any confusion. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:04, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

It has already been moved and removed. Primefac (talk) 15:08, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, and thanks for the change Ritchie333; your participation in the numbered or general section of the request is certainly still welcome. Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 15:12, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

While this threw my off-guard a bit because obviously I wasn't expecting a co-nom, I really do appreciate the intention behind Ritchie333's enthiuastic support there. To some extent, I'm honoured that they think I'm so great that they just IAR'd a co-nom and it's not like it's some unforgiveable mistake. We're all human. I think it's best for everyone if we just move on :) Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 15:24, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: I hate to break the news, but Ritchie went from being sufficiently keen on the candidate (whom he "had my eye on") to IAR-nominate, to withdrawing his support entirely. From Nom to Nowhere in 20 minutes. Depth of commitment to candidate to be adduced. ——Serial 18:04, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

That's up to him of course, it is certainly possible they just didn't want that specific statement used in the discussion, other than if it was a conom. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:38, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

 Courtesy link: Special:MobileDiff/1189881543. Folly Mox (talk) 23:15, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Lightburst's oppose

I find Lightburst's rationale amusingly similar to this humorous essay. — Frostly (talk) 17:52, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

@Frostly: It is better to ping people when you talk about them. Try to focus on the other part of my oppose. No need for tools, and no expertise. We can contrast Clover with the other person running right now that has a need for the tools and 15 year quarter million edit body of work. But the other person did not blow kisses and sunshine at everyone so they are not supported as vociferously. Also try to imagine what would happen if I added my oppose ivote the same way you added your support. Lightburst (talk) 18:33, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

I don’t know why but yourà reply reads harsh to my ears. Why should Clovermoss' request for the mop be declined? If he has a GA, that means they understands a thing or two about content creation and would be able to make a good judgement in times of dispute, and would help in AfD (that's left for Liz and a handful of others btw). So, you see, they need the tool. If we’re trying to lessen the stress at RfA, I think we should always remember that adminship is really not a big deal. If I’m reading the opposes at Ellsworth's RfA, I think communication if key for the encyclopaedia, don’t you think so. I’m not trying to badger you though. Just my 2¢. Best, Reading Beans (talk) 19:11, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks @Reading Beans: Sorry for harshness perceived. I avoid using gender specific pronouns for the very reason that you can get it wrong or offend someone. But back to the tools... for every permission one has to demonstrate a need. Want to be a page mover? Go to perms and see if they give it to you without demonstrating a need. Want to work in NPP? Try to get the perm if you have very little content creation. So being an admin with a lifetime appointment is not WP:NOBIGDEAL, in fact it is even more significant and with no margin for error. The candidate says give me the tools even though they demonstrate zero need for the tools. This is backwards IMO. It seems that the support folks are saying, I met her once, she is really nice, she is kind, she talks nice, so lets give her the tools. Lightburst (talk) 19:46, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Lightburst,
My apologies for not pinging you; that was an oversight.
Clovermoss’ self-nomination states that they would aim to deal with obvious vandals, username blocks, and some of the requests at WP:PERM if selected as an administrator. Could you please clarify the reasoning behind your comment regarding “need for the tools”?
As for my !vote, note that Historically, there has not been the same obligation on supporters to explain their reasons for supporting (assumed to be "per nom" or a confirmation that the candidate is regarded as fully qualified) as there has been on opposers. (WP:RFA.)
Thank you for participation in this essential community process. — Frostly (talk) 03:21, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Clovermoss has an average of 10.39 edits per day. I wonder if that's a lot? Of recent successful candidates: Ganesha811 3.482; JPxG 31.657; 0xDeadbeef 7.434; Hey man im josh 197.8; theleekycauldron 17.3. So pretty much average. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:22, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

If you lop off my long period of inactivity from 2013-2017 or so, I'm probably up around 9-10 edits/day, so directly comparable. But the only important measure of admin activity, in my view, is whether they will be around to answer questions and clarify their actions as needed. —Ganesha811 (talk) 00:30, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Meh, Ganesha811 and Leeky and others that passed RFA had a need for the tools. This is a curious RFA, when I said Clovermoss did not have a need for the tools SFR actually said this: give the woman a chainsaw and she'll find some trees. I have been participating in RFAs for many years and this is a first for me. Lightburst (talk) 03:11, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

@AirshipJungleman29, the number I find more interesting is that the person deriding 10 edits per day has only averaged 6 edits per day over their wiki-career. It's not common for editors to complain that someone else "only" has an editing rate that is 170% their own.

WP:Editcountitis is a persistent problem. I've been looking at my watchlist in despair recently, as I see articles with 20 edits, but not a single sentence added. In the discussions around the Wikipedia:Large language models, I've sometimes had to go back more than a year to find even one edit in which an editor opining about content creation actually added a non-trivial amount of content (the LLM "detectors" do best with 150+ consecutive words) – and sometimes, I go through their entire contributions without ever finding a full paragraph added to an article. We often value editors who show up with confidence in their own rectitude, who can name the most WP:UPPERCASE (and we don't necessarily click on the shortcut to find out whether their claims about what's behind that shortcut are accurate), and who revert other editors. We know this isn't good – some of us even know what the Wikipedia:Editing policy says about Wikipedia being its best when we have the most information – but we do it, because "spent two hours making sure that sentence was right" doesn't turn up in XTools' Edit Count, but reverting everyone else does. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:47, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

It was a mistake mentioning the ten edits - and @WhatamIdoing: I am not running for anything but FYI, I took about six years off from editing and still managed 6 per day? Not bad huh? In my vote I was commenting on the sporadic and low monthly editing patterns of the candidate but after quoting ten edits it invalidated all other truth or fact in my vote. So talk amongst yourselves and reinforce your strong feelings about this editor's need for administrator tools to do something... not sure what but something. I feel more strongly about opposing the candidate after I saw that 11th hour schmooze job the candidate did with the "survey" of the muckety-muck Wikipedians (see general comments section). I will now leave this nomination to do other WP work. Lightburst (talk) 15:18, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

It's not necessarily just a question of whether she needs the tools. It's also a question of whether we need more capable, trustworthy editors to have the tools. It's ideal if trustworthy editors can deal with little admin problems here and there, as they happen to run across them, instead of needing to find the one high-volume admin who handles all of it. Our bus factor is poor. Restricting the tools to people who can prove that not having the tools is already causing practical problems reinforces the concentration of admin work in a small pool of people, and it piles the whole load on those few admins.

(I don't think that User research should be described as an "11th hour schmooze job".) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:51, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Sorry for skewing the average! Hey man im josh (talk) 21:15, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Lightburst, does it ever happen that you don't show up on RfAs to oppose for questionable reasons? There's a reason people often support per your oppose. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 01:39, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

@LilianaUwU: Why is it questionable to oppose giving powerful admin tools to someone who has zero need, zero expertise and apparently zero desire. They claim they only gave in and ran after being begged and begged. Have a look at my votes they are all public record. On this project we never hand out tools to anyone who does not need them. I am ok standing by myself because I vote based on what is best for the project not based on likability or the ability to blow smoke up arses. Not sure why editors wring their hands over oppose votes. Check the recent RFA votes to see how out or process my votes have been. I only sort of regret my vote about Novem. By the way, I think we should vote in secret so that folks don't badger and ridicule. It would be as easy as doing it like the arb voting. Some advice: just be confident in your own vote. Lightburst (talk) 02:51, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

On this project we never hand out tools to anyone who does not need them. – Um, really? Where does it say that in policy? How do you square that with the community's dislike for that claim at Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in adminship discussions#Doesn't need the tools ? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:12, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Manboobies's question

Asking a candidate about their religious beliefs and suggesting that those beliefs could impact their neutrality is wildly inappropriate. Bureaucrats, please consider removing the question. Brandon (talk) 07:12, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

I have already taken a look and given my thoughts. If another crat feels that the questions should be removed I will not stop them, but I will note that traditionally once a candidate has answered a question we do not remove them, as it indicates they were willing to do so. Primefac (talk) 08:07, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

I am not a crat so my opinion doesn't mean anything in terms of the moderation decision but in this instance if I had been a crat I too would have left the questions. However, as someone who cares deeply about the RfA process and who talks to a lot of RfA candidates and potential candidates, I do feel OK saying that the repeated sop that a candidate could just not answer a question should be retired. Candidates are under tremendous pressure to answer questions and if anything a crat making an explicit decision that the question is with-in bounds makes it harder than if a crat says nothing to avoid answering a question. If candidate after candidate after candidate, even the ones who are passing with-out any real opposition show through their actions that they don't feel comfortable skipping questions I think crats should stop blaming the victim when a bad question is asked and the candidate then answers it. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:35, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

I'd like to see us draw a hard line at asking candidates about their religious affiliation (and race/ethnicity/sexuality/etc.). While absurd questions are fine as they give us good insight into how the candidate will react in administrative settings, candidates are under a lot of pressure and may provide personal details that they may later regret sharing. What if someone opposed this candidate now on the basis of their religion? We'd obviously strike that, so similarly we should strike the question. – bradv 15:54, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

People can become really unreasonably incensed when they see an optional question has been left unanswered. For better or worse, it's actually viewed as the inverse of what you're describing -- it indicates a wanton unwillingness to answer what might be a difficult question, which could potentially reflect poorly on the candidate. I'm with Barkeep49 on this. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 20:19, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

"Wildly inappropriate" is absolutely right, if an understatement, and Manboobies should be blocked for trolling. We don't allow questions as to editors' politics, and their religion or lack thereof should be no different. ——Serial 16:45, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129 based on a discussion at WP:BN there is a belief that we actually have no rules about questions at all, so if we want to prohibit any of those things we need to pass a new rule. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:48, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

You do not. You treat trolling as trolling. The venue is irrelevant, merely geography. The next time someone complains about the toxic environment at RfA, we can look back on this without wonder. And yes, I've seen the discussion at WP:BN; what am I to conclude, that some are more interested in meta-philosophy and process wonkery than making a stressful week for a candidate ("we always need more administrators", huh?) slightly less stressful. Insinuating crap like this—weaponizing the experience if anything—wouldn't be tolerated anywhere else on the site! Anyway, I've voted, said my piece, now I'll fuck off. On a lighter note, I hope all is well. ——Serial 17:04, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree with the above that the question was at best inappropriate and at worst trolling. I didn't revert because by the time I saw it a crate had already allowed it to stand, and removing it at that point would only derail the RFA. Isabelle Belato ^{🏴‍☠️} 19:54, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

If anyone is curious for my thoughts on this... I completely understand why someone would take issue with these questions and shouldn't feel pressured to answer a question like this if they were in my shoes, but it didn't bother me personally all that much. I grew up with beliefs and practices that a lot of people perceive as unconventional. Some of these have broader implications for writing a reliable encyclopedia (e.g. theocratic warfare). But even in a more generalized sense, people notice the girl that sits down during the national anthem every day, the girl that can't accept the invitation to your birthday party, and the girl that doesn't celebrate any holidays at all. Sometimes the reaction to those sort of things aren't always pleasant. I'd rather someone ask me about a question about my beliefs and treat me like an individual than to immediately jump to conclusions. I think my reaction would be much different if say, someone !voted and explicitly mentioned my religious beliefs or lack thereof and equated that with it being impossible for me to be a good editor. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 21:01, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

+1 on asking rather than opposing without asking. Valereee (talk) 21:56, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Very well put. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 11:53, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Well said indeed, and I appreciate your candor and your willingness to be forthcoming. Of course, though personally you said you are okay with such questions, I also appreciate that you feel others should not be expected to answer them. There are reasons why questions related to age, race, gender, religion or nationality are forbidden in job interviews; not only does it not provide any answers that are actually relevant to ability to complete the job, but it can unnecessarily dredge up past negative experiences or encounters that manifested on such dividing lines, which reflects poorly on the employer and can actually hurt chances of recruitment. Since "we need admins", I hope other potential admin candidates realize that these are after all optional questions.

But I think we can both agree that !voting to oppose (or support!) on the grounds of religion or whichever else would have been far more disruptive than the question itself was. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:39, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I would be sorry to see people decide not to undergo RFA because they don't want to be asked questions about their identity or similarly sensitive subjects, but it's very difficult to convince candidates and voters that questions truly don't need to be answered. There will always be a questioner who is disappointed that their question hasn't been answered, and there will be others who wonder why the candidate didn't answer it and judge that negatively. Candidates who have the soft skills that we need in admins will know this; therefore, they will answer all questions.

If we want to change that, we have some options. We could forbid additional questions entirely, or require them to be asked on the talk page (a little more "out of sight, out of mind"). We could reduce the formality by letting others reply as well (e.g., normal talk page discussion rules, which permit responses from talk page stalkers).

We could alternatively require some level of pre-approval for questions. For example, we could require that questions be posted to the talk page for 24 hours before becoming an "official" optional question that is eligible for an answer, or that questions can only be posted to the main page if the question is seconded by a sufficient number of other editors (requires extra work/clerking; also, our two-question rule would have to be expanded to include a two-support rule [so that an editor who wants all questions to be answered, no matter what they are, can't support all of them], and probably to specify that editors who are asking questions can't support any [to avoid logrolling]). This would give others a chance to object to (or not support) questions that aren't appropriate or of general interest. We could also have a bureaucrat post messages after some/all optional questions to reiterate that the candidate is not required to answer this question and state that if the candidate does not answer this question, that choice should not be held against them by any editor. Over time, that would establish a norm that optional questions are optional, and we could reinforce that norm by invalidating the vote of anyone who says "Oppose because you didn't answer question n". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:10, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I've wondered if we could do an "endorsement" system for questions. A candidate might feel OK about ignoring a question with 1 interested person when they have answered questions that have 5, 10, 15 endorsements behind them. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:49, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

I kinda think an inverse process might work better. Adding endorsements to questions creates additional paperwork for !voters, and in most cases the candidate will end up answering them and may well already be preparing an answer.

The outliers here are the questions that multiple people think are inappropriate, so to my mind it makes more sense to try to address those. I'm not especially fond of the term "downvoting" (although it's probably superior to "disendorsement"), but if there were a way for !voters to mark a question as "candidate should not bother answering this", that could still address the issue while reducing a lot of the anticipated problems with the "endorsement" idea (too many questions + endorsements from a single editor, logrolling, likely lack of necessity for most cases, greatly increased edit rate on the RfA page, unclear boundaries on what might constitute "sufficiently endorsed" and the interplay with !voters feeling they should use up their endorsements for strategic purposes). Folly Mox (talk) 17:50, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Could you give a genuine reason as to ✨why✨ it would be ‘wildly inappropriate’ to look into whether a JW editing an article on JW could potentially nudge said article to bias, and even enforce bias with an admin position? Talking about people’s biases should be a significant part of a RFA.

In response to accusations of discrimination - I did not say a JW should not be allowed to be an admin, and that is actually an outrageous twisting of my words. In response to the person who mentioned discrimination in recruitment: I work in recruitment. It is common for people to be screened in ways that can be sensitive. For example, the UK police check to see if candidates/employees have debts and can be blackmailed.

I note the suggestion of a block for asking a question too. Disappointed but not surprised.

There is a huge issue with stonewalling of articles on Wikipedia, and enforced bias in articles by admins. I have returned from a 4 year absence because of an admin on this platform. Give or take the odd edit. They’ve finally been noticed and appear to be on some form of final warning, only took 4 years! So my interest is based on that.

I am neutral on this candidate. I’ve read the answers. I’m not seeing any ringing alarm bells. I don’t see anything wrong with the candidate seeking feedback / experiences on a personal essay about editing Wiki. I’m confused as to why ✨that✨ was brought up, as that literally will have zero bearing on administrating here, but I can’t say I want to get into it given I am now being threatened with blocks. Manboobies (talk) 03:48, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Since you say you work in recruitment, you are doubtless familiar with the principle that all candidates should be asked the same questions, because asking only people of certain protected groups about how their identity will affect their performance creates, at minimum, an opportunity for discrimination. Thus one might ask everyone "Do you anticipate any difficulties with working late on Friday evenings?", and not just candidates who seem to be Jewish, or "Do you anticipate any difficulty with attendance?" to everyone and not just single mothers, and so forth. There was a way to get relevant information without asking someone "Are you a Jehovas Witness". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:00, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I had to comment here. Manboobie's second question was highly inappropriate. A person's religious upbringing should not be questioned at RFA unless it is obvious they are actively espousing pseudoscience or conspiracy theories. This is the second time this year I have seen an established editor assume that being secular = being unbiased. Scorpions1325 (talk) 21:35, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

The wiki has editors with an axe to grind about any subject. For any subject there will be someone with a bias. My question was checking for a bias that admin access used on the page could exarcerbate. The subject itself has no relevance. Due diligence should never be off limit in RFAs. Manboobies (talk) 03:57, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Noting that there is a thread about these questions at the Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 09:37, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

FWIW, @Manboobies, it's not possible bias that matters, IMO. What matters is whether an editor should be operating as an admin where they've edited heavily. If instead of asking about her religion you'd asked, "Since your primary editing interest is in articles surrounding Jehovah's Witnesses and Niagara Falls, would you consider that as an admin you would be WP:INVOLVED at those topics?", probably no one would have even commented on the question. Valereee (talk) 11:24, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Valereee. Additionally, there definitely are elements of due diligence off limits at RfA. For instance, RfA is not an exception to WP:OUTING. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:58, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Nobody was outed. The candidate disclosed themselves Manboobies (talk) 08:28, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Valereee I agree. Scorpions1325 (talk) 07:42, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Clerk adjust a mission oppose

There's a second oppose missing, “ WP:NONEED Twilight Nawi (talk)” can a bureaucrat fix this? ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 09:18, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Given what it links to, I think it was meant to be a response to Lightburst's !vote. I'd double check with the person in question what they intended their comment to be meant as. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 09:32, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Ah true it was a rebuttal of no need argument ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 11:44, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Homeostasis07's oppose

I don't enjoy Homeostasis07's reasoning for their oppose. SCB had a history of transphobia (such as this diff), and Clovermoss did the right thing removing an infobox that basically said "I enjoy this transphobic movie" (this diff). I've seen new editors get blocked for way less than this infobox, but since SCB was an established editor, now it's okay? It's not like SCB would've necessarily agreed to do so, judging by how transphobes often like to proclaim loudly they hate people just because their gender isn't the same as when they were born. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 21:27, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

From my perspective, you appear to have taken what I've said and morphed it into me somehow excusing or defending an alleged transphobe, when I did nothing of the sort. I never remotely came anywhere close to claiming that userbox was "okay", merely that there were potentially other ways of dealing with it in that initial stage. No-one can claim knowledge of what that user would have done with friendly, collegial prodding. I feel I should give you fair warning at this point: the insinuations here literally made the blood in my face boil red when first reading this, and I will have zero tolerance for further misrepresentations or accusations of me defending a transphobe. Homeostasis07 (talk/contributions) 00:47, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

SCB is one of those editors that reverts anything on their user talk they don't like with a snarky edit summary instead of responding. Talk page history. They were unlikely to have been open to taking it down, in my opinion. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:56, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae I still could've tried asking. I understand where Homeostasis07 is coming from a process perspective on that specifically. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 13:25, 17 December 2023 (UTC)