Moved from Special:PermaLink/1112288436#Neutral

First neutral, ever. Oppose per FASTILY (bad nom) + support per Moneytrees (good nom) = neutral. Stop protesting!

El_C 14:18, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

1. Seems peculiar that you're neutral based on the nominators and not the candidate themselves... All power to you? That Coptic Guy 14:44, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   Based. Wow, that sig is overpowering. El_C 14:47, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   Helpful link: WP:BILLBOARD — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:09, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   Oops. Noted... That Coptic Guy 16:16, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   Is this reading right @El C, that you are not evaluating the candidate merely his nominators? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:47, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   No comment. El_C 14:50, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   @El C congrats on achieving the chaotic neutral vote 😅 I assume everyone else is either confused or playing along. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 14:56, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   Per bludgeoning. ~ 🐿️ El_C (he/him • talk) 14:59, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   I think the vote rationale (and the vote in general) is just here for the sake of humor. If so, then the joke certainly flew over my head and I guess it's a me-issue. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Just a tad silly. That Coptic Guy 15:03, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   Interesting take, but wrong. El_C 15:11, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   I'd love to be enlightened, then! That Coptic Guy 15:32, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   I'm sure you would, but not everything should be spoon-fed with neat little sugar cubes. El_C 15:42, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   LOL... alright then. Whatever makes you feel better--no skin off my nose. That Coptic Guy 15:54, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   Dude, must you? El_C 15:57, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   To be more direct: could you clarify your rationale, El C? On one hand, I'm not a fan of everyone jumping on opposes/neutrals; on the other, a venue that is inevitably very stressful for at least one person (and often more than one) generally isn't the best place for gleeful ambiguity. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:08, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   Not at this time, no. El_C 16:22, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   Neutral doesn't affect the outcome, of course, so the only point in registering one is to communicate what you think of the candidate without supporting/opposing. But here you're going out of your way to refuse to communicate anything at all. This is -- dare I say -- an uncool vote. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:13, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   No comment. El_C 17:16, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   Agree with @Rhododendrites. Seems a bit too WP:POINTy to me, even if the actual point is not clear... *shrug* –FlyingAce^✈hello 18:20, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   As a support !voter, this entire discussion strikes me as unnecessary, especially as this doesn't even affect the support percentage. El_C !voted neutral without giving an explanation and has refused to give one, but there are plenty of support !voters who gave no explanation. I think we should let this one go and enjoy the weekend. – Epicgenius (talk) 18:50, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   The weekend is almost done, but honestly, I don't think FASTILY gives a shit what I think. El_C 18:59, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   It's fairly uncommon that I reply to someone at RfA. The thing is, he did provide an explanation. It just happened to be a confusing bit of insinuation, with obscurantist game-playing as follow-up. Providing no explanation would have been an improvement IMO. YMMV. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:25, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   "Fairly uncommon?" I have doubts. El_C 20:29, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   @El C: To me, as a completely unaware and not involved third party, it looks like you hold a grudge against one of the nominators... Why use this against the candidate? If the candidate was nominated just by FASTILY, would you vote agaist the candidate? Best, Tymon.r Do you have any questions? 19:46, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

   No, I would not oppose on that basis. I wouldn't have neutral'd, either, if support for the candidate wasn't already overwhelming at the time of my submission. And I'll also reveal now of my intention all along of switching to support at the end, regardless, because I do think the candidate is worthy.

Unlike FASTILY, I take my opposes extremely seriously. I have opposed in an RfA probably less than 5 times in total, and I don't think more than once in the post-2010s. But as the nominator from last week to the nominator of this week, maybe I can get across, even if in a roundabout way, how participants like FASTILY make RfA such a toxic ecosystem. But now when they have an uncontroversial tech nominee, I'm supposed to play pretend? No thanks. I will WP:POINT out these gross disparities, even if it brings much ire upon me. El_C 19:56, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So a textbook case of WP:POINT then. Understood. –FlyingAce^✈hello 21:34, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, textbook, Jesus Christ. El_C 21:39, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note that Fastily was an early opposer at ScottishFinnishRadish's RFA,(With the rationale of I've reviewed a number of the candidate's early edits, and it's pretty clear this isn't their first account.I would like to see ScottishFinnishRadish be more forthcoming about their past editing history; that seems like it is the likely reason for EL_C's neutral vote here. Jackattack1597 (talk) 23:23, 25 September 2022 (UTC) {{tq}} added to make the quote more obvious, feel free to revert if you really want it to be plain text. Primefac (talk) 08:33, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That is correct, Jackattack1597 (oppose diff). Using FASTILY as a prominent example, my problem is that there are essentially two facets of their recent contributions to RfA: the constructive one, such as this nomination. And the destructive one, like last week, when they cast aspersions on my nominee as a potential sock without evidence, and opposed on that basis (not that they were the only one). El_C 02:22, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

El C, this is embarrassing. If you can't take people opposing "your" nominee, including for—shock horror!—reasons you don't agree with, in good faith, maybe don't nominate people for RfA? It's an election not a confirmation. – Joe (talk) 09:04, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I remember when former arbitrator Joe referred to me in that RfA as a member of The Cabal— I don't understand what making friends in the cabal means, current arbitrator Barkeep49 asked him (diff). Oh, but Joe wasn't referring to me, he later clarified when I shock horror'd (diff), but rather, some amorphous ether. I still think it doesn't track, but okay.

I also remember when another user opposed my nominee, because I, the nominator, had blocked them back in 2019, a block whose reasons I still do not recall, though the logs do show that TPA was revoked for a time soon thereafter (not by me). Oh well. Good (faith) times.

As for Joe positing to me: maybe don't nominate people for RfA? — I'll repeat yet again, and hopefully this time it'll resonate: that was my first and last RfA nomination. Thanks for bearing with me, everyone. El_C 14:35, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Neither Fastily's oppose, nor El C's neutral, were "in good faith". They're two textbook examples of bad faith votes. Still, one bad faith vote shouldn't be met by another. Levivich (talk) 14:37, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My neutral was a protest, admittedly. Could I have expressed it better? Undoubtedly. El_C 14:43, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I should probably better explain my neutral. While Fastily has never done anything worth being dragged to ANI or Arbcom over (at least not by me), I have seen him clash with Iridescent a few times (eg: "Why thank you, bot, for providing the notification your operator couldn't be arsed to provide when he nominated this for deletion. Seriously, someone needs to do something about these self-appointed Cleanser of the Wiki deletionists" and "I can undelete Image:Save Freedom of Speech.png if you want it, that deletion was just Fastily's "God will know his own" delete-everything-o-bot being overenthusiastic") and on several occasions I have seen an RfA comment along the lines of "Support Why not? Moved to oppose", which makes me question if Fastily is a good and thorough researcher. So, I spent yesterday trying to find reasons to oppose Whpq and found nothing, but just the fact I did that instead of the usual checking without any bias one way or the other, leads me to conclude I should just duck out of this RfA altogether and formally abstain (which, as I understand it, is what a neutral !vote is). It should imply I have no quarrels at all if, as I expect, the RfA passes. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:26, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Ritchie333 To be clear, one of the reasons I thought Whpq would have a chance of passing was because I saw you had reached out to them about running in 2018. I see you've now changed to support, thank you. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 14:49, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, Ritchie333's 2018 offer to nominate and Whpq's reply directly influenced my decision to ask that he run today. We currently have a shortage of admins in the file/copyright space and Whpq did say that he would run if the need arose. While I am surprised that Ritchie333 doesn't trust my judgement, it's worth noting that I do trust his when it comes to vetting admin candidates. Philosophically, I still believe (probably naively) that adminship is WP:NOBIGDEAL. Do I perfectly espouse this value in my day-to-day editing? Of course not. None of us do. But I'll certainly try my best. The 3 things I look for when reviewing candidates: 1) editors whom I trust vouch for a candidate, 2) there is no significant opposition from editors I trust, and 3) a quick review reveals nothing unusual. If these conditions are met, then it's "Support Why not?" from me. I've never found spending hours peering through a candidate's history looking for reasons to oppose to be a productive use of time. In fact, that's one of the very reasons cited by 5/6 editors who declined my recent offers to nominate them. -FASTILY 19:14, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

None of that (and 'that' includes words on Whpq's RFA page as well) has anything to to with this particular request for adminship. From the beginning, elements of 'that' could have been expressed on user talk pages, on ScottishFinnishRadish's RFA, that RFA's talk page, that RFA's crat-chat's talk page, or on WT:RFA. None of it belongs here. Not only is it a distraction, it's also unfair to Whpq, to the other co-nominator of Whpq's RFA, and to the process. I think it should be hatted here, or otherwie moved somewhere else. ---Sluzzelin talk 15:00, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• It's 100-something to zero, and a neutral gets everyone's nose out of joint? I'd tell El C that it was an excellent troll, except RFA is so easy to troll I'm not sure it justifies a congratulations. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:02, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of how it was expressed or how you choose to frame it now, it was heartfelt, and it came from a place of pain. El_C 16:14, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, so one of those "functionally indistinguishable from trolling" things then. We're amazingly susceptible to that too. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:25, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what to say to that. If you want to ridicule me, I'm certainly an easy target right now. El_C 16:27, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You don't need to say anything to that. I'm talking about how WP in general, and RFA in particular, can't seem to let go of 100/1/0 opposes, or (even more embarrassingly) 100/0/1 neutrals, or trolling (or what just looks like trolling) in general. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:46, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. El_C 16:48, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any reason why

"per FASTILY (bad nom)"

remains unstruck? GiantSnowman 19:54, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For emphasis. El_C 19:57, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]