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The Bureaucrats' noticeboard is a place where items related to the Bureaucrats can be discussed and coordinated. Any user is welcome to leave a message or join the discussion here. Please start a new section for each topic.

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It is 03:53:13 on December 27, 2024, according to the server's time and date.

Bureaucrat views RFA talk-page discussion as play and entertainment

I didn't know this editor was a bureaucrat until I started to review my options in regard to the latest edit.  For reference, here is a recent diff of the talk page.  The following diffs show that this editor's attitude toward the candidate is less than impartial, or show attempts to deflect the flow of discussion away from the topic at hand, , , , , , , , , .  There is an edit moved to the talk page from the Project Page with similar content posted at 17:12, 1 June 2013 (UTC). 

My discussions with this editor occurred in the "Traditional encyclopedic content" section (although there is also one exchange on the Project Page).  The editor was never able or willing to discuss the topic at hand.  After a few unproductive posts, this edit reveals the editor is looking at our discussion as "play".  If you review to the edit posted at 17:12, 1 June 2013 (UTC), the post reports that the RFA discussion is "becoming entertaining".  In the context, "play" and "entertain" are not constructive words.  Anything I say to him will be viewed as "play", and the response will be his idea of play.  As shown in the first diff, this has already happened.  I realize that the people here are volunteers.  I, too, am a volunteer.  Thank you, Unscintillating (talk) 11:00, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Looking at that first edit, The Rambling Man was calling out what he considered hypocrisy on your part; to be fair, I think that's a fair declaration when someone is criticizing someone else's writing and then has several errors in their own posts. I don't see how you can refer to this edit as him calling the whole discussion as play; are you genuinely not familiar with the phrase "well played"? It's akin to "touché", albeit used sarcastically here due to his disagreement with your and Kiefer.Wolfowitz's positions. TRM is simply frustrated at some rather poor attitudes and is getting his hands a bit dirtier than normal as a result (there's nothing saying that bureaucrats can't jump into the mix at RfA, though I trust TRM enough to know he won't likely close the RfA, so I don't have any concerns about him not being impartial), but considering how silly (and absurdly personal) some of the comments from the opposition are getting, I personally don't see it as a problem (and I don't think him saying that a situation is "becoming entertaining" is some egregious insult; I think you're misinterpreting his statements and taking them way too seriously).
Perhaps everyone should just step back and disengage. EVula // talk // ☯ // 11:24, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I was going to reply here, but I see that EVula has made all the points that I would have made (and then some), so I'll just note that I agree with his analysis. 28bytes (talk) 12:46, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Hey guys (mainly User:Unscintillating). Anyone fancied letting me know about this discussion? No great shakes, but it would have been nice to know, not that I'd have had much to say about it, EVula has covered it. As my mum says, "politeness costs nothing". The Rambling Man (talk) 20:14, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

(outdent) I think it was fairly clear throughout Mattythewhite's RfA that he was commenting in the discussion in his capacity as an editor, rather than as a bureaucrat. A bureaucrat is as free as anyone else to !vote in an RfA and to comment during the discussion, so long as he or she doesn't then act with his or her bureaucrat hat on during that RfA. (It's the same principle by which I be a party to a dispute that comes before ArbCom, but then I couldn't act as an arbitrator in that dispute.)

However, I think we can all agree that the snark and bickering on that RfA's talkpage got completely out of hand, and I hope we don't this sort of thing again. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:10, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

We probably will until some form of reform or policing of the system is finally introduced. But that would either need a top-down from the WMF (which is unlikely) or an RfC that is heavily subscribed from the commnuity. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:23, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

How about this proposal, which really represents a "least common denominator" situation: A bureaucrat has authority to ban a given editor from commenting further on a given RfA or its talkpage if (1) the bureaucrat reasonably believes that the editor's contributions have become disruptive or distracting, and (2) the editor has already made ten or more comments on that RfA? Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:50, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

They can use discretion to discount votes and probably even to strike them if they are egregiously inappropriate, but the power to ban probably falls outside the scope of a bureaucrat. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 02:56, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Better to use non-bureaucrat clerks (whether the clerks are formal or not), than to have the bureaucrats muddy their role by both guiding consensus negotiating behaviour, policing undefined rules, and judging. Past attempts to remove/prevent unsavory stuff have led into prolonged discussion, and it is better that bureaucrats are not committed to engaging in these discussions during a RfA. Any admin may block an editor who is disrupting, and then it goes to ANI, away from the RfA page. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:40, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Every time any admin tries to clerk an RfA, it explodes into controversy and can easily turn bad for the candidate. It goes to ANI, drama happens, that brings over more people from ANI to add more pointed votes at RfA, rinse, repeat. Striking or removing sock comments isn't a problem, but other than that, policy is unclear and failing us miserably. Dennis Brown / 2¢ / © / @ 17:39, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I never misused my admin or my 'crat tools in this RFA, I deliberately supported Matty because I think he's an excellent and long-standing contributor (few and far between) who is capable of making a net gain to the project. I wasn't specifically "clerking" the RFA, but making personal reactions to some of the nonsense that I saw there. I was never going to be anything but an "editor" in this RFA which EVula has already noted, I voted strong support first up of any !voters. The fact that Unscintillating doesn't understand the nuances of British English and one of KW's stick with which to beat Matty was similar (i.e. the appalling "review" of the lead of Matty's FA), and the ongoing saga with KW demonstrates that we should all pick and choose our language more clearly and unambiguously, particularly in inflammatory situations. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:50, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

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