User talk:Acalamari/RfA views

I agree

This is a bit random but I found this page in my wiki-wandering :) . Anyway I do agree with what you say, that there's not really much wrong with RfA except the stress associated with it. And people not willing to see reason. I myself have been rather curt and mildly insulting in response to a few opposes; but it's just amazing that people go to such lengths to oppose an RfA that they actually invent so-called "personal standards". I don't see how a "consensus" (as we like to call the RfA process) can work if all parties concerned are not willing to listen to reason. (But now someone will come along and say: what is reasonable to you is not reasonable to me. :) . All I can say is that "reason" is not subjective.) Anyway, things would have been much better if all RfA participants were like Pascal.Tesson. Because I think the flaw is not in the RfA, it's in us. - TwoOars (Rev) 07:09, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree to some extent, but I don't think civility per se is the main problem with RfA; it's a superficial symptom of the underlying malaise. The problem really is that RfA standards are much too high, and the reason they are much too high is that it's so hard to get rid of admins once they are promoted, so RfA voters are extremely cautious about promotions. I agree with TwoOars that opposers need to be able to rationally justify their views, and that some don't seem to see reason. However, I think that RfA would become easier to pass, and less stressful, if we had an easier community desysopping process; there would be fewer petty opposes, because people would be willing to give the benefit of the doubt, knowing that a poor admin could have their tools removed. Walton^One 10:40, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

And three-and-a-half years further down the line, those civility issues have still not improved - they appear in fact, to have got worse. There are also other newer issues. THe problem is that all talk on improvement is perennial and cyclic. --Kudpung (talk) 13:08, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree: I thought things were pretty bad when I wrote this back in late 2007 (I think that was our best year for successful RfAs), but things appear to be a lot worse now. Unfortunately, in it's current state this essay mainly seems to apply to hostile opposition, but in RfAs I've read over the last year or more, I think the lack of civility applies equally to both supporters and opposition: I didn't write this back then as an "anti-oppose" essay, though it probably does come across a bit like one (well, to me anyway, and I wrote it!). As for WT:RFA, I can't remember the last time I commented there, but I do read the page regularly: while the people posting to it have changed, the discussions remain the same. Acalamari 14:36, 3 March 2011 (UTC)