Talk:Stewards/Confirm/2014

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

Invisible translations[edit]

At least from my point of view, the translations of these confirmation statements aren't displayed (properly). Is this something that could be fixed? Mathonius (talk) 02:01, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Update: the translations turn out to be displayed properly on the subpages. Mathonius (talk) 02:36, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

section end=...[edit]

Whooooopss, too many users ignored the "<section end="comments" />".--Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 12:32, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template[edit]

Maybe a dumb question, but why is Template:Se2014 statements page a template? It can't be transcluded properly because of MediaWiki's transclusion limits or some such, but when you go to the template page the contents show as intended there. Couldn't the contents of that page simply be copied to the confirm page instead of using a transclusion? Jafeluv (talk) 09:30, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I personally have no idea. Probably it made sense in a previous election, from which we copied it (e.g. maybe because formerly there used to be an /en subpage as the confirmations' "main page"). I replaced this page now with the content of the template and redirected the template to here.
It is strange however that this template transclusion error does not appear now, while it did when we simply transcluded the template ([1]). The problem itself is already known from last year. --MF-W 05:16, 26 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Confirmations - closing discussion for stewards[edit]

This section is for steward discussion only. Please do not comment in this box unless you are a steward. Other community members, please discuss in a separate section.

After considering the comments and discussions, ElectCom has come up with the following results on the annual re-confirmation of existing Stewards. All stewards are welcome to comment on the results below.

On behalf of the Election Committee,
Snowolf How can I help? 01:32, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

User Confirmed? Tally (k/r/n) Notes
Amqui no 2/5/0
Avraham yes 6/0/0
Barras yes 6/0/0
Bencmq yes 7/0/0
Bennylin yes 7/0/0
Billinghurst yes 7/0/0
Bsadowski1 yes 7/0/0
DerHexer yes 6/0/0
Elfix yes 7/0/0
J.delanoy yes 7/0/0
Jon Harald Søby resigned - This user has resigned.
Jusjih no 3/4/0
Jyothis yes 7/0/0
Leinad no 0/7/0
M7 yes 6/0/0
Mardetanha yes 7/0/0
Matanya yes 6/0/0
Mathonius yes 7/0/0
MBisanz yes 7/0/0
Melos yes 7/0/0
Mentifisto yes 7/0/0
MF-Warburg yes 6/0/0
Pathoschild resigned - This user has resigned.
Pundit yes 6/0/1
Quentinv57 yes 7/0/0
QuiteUnusual yes 7/0/0
Ruslik0 yes 7/0/0
Shizhao yes 7/0/0
Snowolf yes 6/0/0
Tegel yes 7/0/0
Teles yes 7/0/0
Thogo yes 5/0/1
Trijnstel yes 7/0/0
Vituzzu yes 7/0/0
Wikitanvir yes 7/0/0
Wpedzich yes 7/0/0


Comments[edit]

Stewards (including those who are newly-elected) may express their questions, concerns or agreement to the results below.
Done Closed per above. Thank you all for your opinions and comments.

On behalf of the Election Committee, Matanya (talk) 21:22, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Jusjih's result[edit]

"Tally"???[edit]

There was no consensus to remove Jusjih's stewardship. I count more supports than opposes in the discussion. Perhaps next year the "election committee" should clarify its criteria (perhaps %) for who gets to keep their stewardship. Otherwise, this anonymous "tally" (that I honestly don't understand) is what becomes decisive, a sort of super-election by stewards only, which is not very transparent. ~ DanielTom (talk) 12:11, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The first thing to be noted here is that the confirmation process is not a straight voting process where only the numbers of supports and opposes are being considered. On the confirmations, the arguments given are being reviewed and considered to determine whether a steward should keep their tool or not. The confirmation is explicit labeled as discussion, not a vote, so, I would generally act here like I'd do as a 'crat. I don't go and simply count the votes. It's much more important to look at the arguments given. Meaningless keep or remove comments may have a less deep impact on the outcome than a well-explained and often endorsed comment to keep or remove a steward, especially when the result is obviously not a clear cut. I think that is exactly what has happened here and explains the result. So while there might be no strong consensus to remove Jusjih's stewardship, there is also no substantial consensus to keep him as a steward. Hopefully that explains the result above a bit. Regards, -Barras talk 12:34, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Right, as I said, it was a discussion. And in that discussion there was no consensus to remove Jusjih's stewardship. The only "vote" happening here is by stewards, anonymously, in the "tally" above. (To be fair, apparently even those in the election committee couldn't decide. "3/4/0" – what is that? Who were the 3 stewards who thought Jusjih should remain a steward, and the 4 that "voted" against it? In close calls like this, why shouldn't we be able to know who "voted" in what way? [Or was the "tally" just made up?] As far as I know, on other wikis, "no consensus" to remove, in confirmation discussions, means the rights aren't removed. If this is different here, the criteria should be clarified, for next year.) ~ DanielTom (talk) 13:11, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The header of the table might be little unclear, however, it is keep/remove/neutral. Actually, there is no policy on how stewards have to find consensus here. On stewards it says the following: Current stewards are confirmed during the elections through an open call for community feedback and commentary, followed by discussion and consensus-building among the stewards. There is no mention how the stewards are supposed to discuss and build consensus. On stewards policy is written Should the stewards determine that consensus exists for a steward's rights be removed, the steward will lose their status. Also no mention on how we should determine that consensus or what possible percentage can be considered as consensus or not. As I said before, this is not a plain vote, it's about the comments. Those are weight up. So a plain tally like 10 keeps and 8 removes might still be considered consensus to remove when the reasons for removal are good, understandable etc. While it could also be vice versa. 10 keeps and 12 removes could be considered as consensus to keep a steward, when the remove reasons are vague while the keep reasons are well-explained with good background etc. Stewards have chosen to discuss that anonymously, which is ok as there is no rule against that. There is also no mention that we've even to publish a tally, reasoning or whatever for the results. We could just publish the result without any other words and implement it. If you want that changed, then a discussion elsewhere is needed, as this is not the right place for such a discussion and won't change the process on this years confirmation. What other wikis do on elections is pretty much uninteresting for steward confirmations. Other wikis may have other rules. We can't go there saying we do it this way on meta so this must be right and you've to implement our system on your wiki now. Same as it doesn't work the other way around. Stewardship gives users way more rights and accesses than maybe adminship or cratship on local wikis, with that the rules to retain stewardship should also be stronger than for retaining admin or other rights (my very personal opinion). With that, at least I think that to retain steward access, users should clearly gain consensus to be kept during the confirmation. -Barras talk 14:10, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
As Barras said, steward confirmations are not a vote but a discussion, and the decision is made by the stewards, and in most recent years the election committee, taking into account the listed arguments and their own (obviously somewhat deeper) understanding of the steward role, its requirements, and the expectations of a steward. In this case, the seven mebers of the election committee stated their understanding of the discussion made by both community members and stewards, and applied this, together with their own opinions, and stated this. Once the seven opinions were stated, there were three who felt that Jusjih should be reconfirmed and four who felt he should not be reconfirmed. Histroically, that tally has been considered final. There is some thought to allowing for more detailed back-and-forth in these cases going forward, but in this case, it did not seem that further discussion would flip any of the seven (although they can do so here if they desire) and so Jusjih was listed as not reconfirmed. I hope that clarifies the process better. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 17:01, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Just a personal comment from my side: I have to agree with DanielTom that the Jusjih case is a pretty difficult one and probably neither consensus, not even among the stewards as also comments by non-ElectCom members like Ajraddatz or Trijnstel above show, nor even a valid argument in favour of removal were provided (per definition Jusjih is not inactive). Furthermore, one should also keep in mind that such a "consensus" on a confirmation page doesn't really have to reflect the opinion of our global community and as already said, even within this small circle of users who commented there didn't seem to be a strong motion towards a removal, as apart from the "inactivity" concern not much was raised and the majority requested said user to be kept. Thus, my personal advise is not to remove Jusjih unless clear consensus among the stewards towards this step occurs. Vogone talk 20:57, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Vogone. —DerHexer (Talk) 21:01, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Me too. Trijnsteltalk 22:10, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There was no visible consensus one way or the other. I think the overarching question is: does that mean keep or remove, since those are our only two options. --Rschen7754 22:29, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The policy is rather clear on this. It says there needs to be consensus in favour of removal ("Should the stewards determine that consensus exists for a steward's rights be removed, the steward will lose their status"). Vogone talk 22:58, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe we should ask all stewards to raise their voices regarding Jusjih's confirmation. Cheers, —DerHexer (Talk) 23:04, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, that would be beneficial in this case. Vogone makes an incredibly good point - Jusjih is not inactive by policy, and in a system focussed on arguments, this should have some weight. I don't want to make it impossible to remove inactive stewards, but Jusjih is clearly still active and still willing to do steward actions. It should also be noted that he focusses on local rights requests, something which doesn't generate a large number of logged actions, but is still necessary. Ajraddatz (Talk) 23:11, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it seems that we don't enforce this policy that much anymore... --Rschen7754 08:54, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Any user would have a legit reason for going ahead and requesting such a removal, but since apparently nobody does that the confirmation process is considered to be sufficient to determine inactivity in sense of the policy. Since inactive stewards are obviously still getting removed during the process, you can't really say that the policy is not enforced anymore. Vogone talk 22:24, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
See Snowolf's comments on Amqui's confirmation. --Rschen7754 23:49, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that also Snowolf is only stating his personal view. If he considers to propose the removal of the inactivity clause that's fine but as of now it is still in place. Vogone talk 23:53, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The motion on the table (as I saw it) was from the ElectCom, which was to comment on their process, which I did, especially in reviewing their closing comments where they summarised. If the ElectCom believes that the steward commentary has affected their initial position, then to note the steward opinion on JusJih's confirmation page was 5/1/2. If you want a definitive vote on our direct opinions on this one confirmation, close the confirmations that you can, and then call for that opinion on any outstanding results.  — billinghurst sDrewth 10:56, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Very well, DerHexer and Ajraddatz, I will post my personal opinion in the stewards section above. -- Avi (talk) 01:41, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As I cannot self-support keeping myself as a steward, I would like to say something for you stewards' consideration:
  1. THANKS so much for everyone supporting my steward role.
  2. I do have important matters in my life, but I do always remember my being a steward and which wikis I am an administrators.
  3. I do periodically check Steward requests/Permissions and related requests, but sometimes all requests are already done in one check, thus meaning no steward action logged. Sometimes I do mark a request "not done" and my edits but not steward actions are logged.
  4. During our confirmation, I spoke to remove Leinad only, only because of this steward's no more action and no statement, suggesting no more willingness to do steward actions. This is a clear-cut case of inactivity. Conversely, I spoke to keep you all as I would trust your willingness. Thanks for your work.
  5. Apparently we stewards already have more than "global deleted image review" because we seem to be able to see deleted edits around Wikimedia without local administrator flags. As an administrator on Wikimedia Commons who may encounter files ever dependent on local but already deleted uploads, I feel that should I no longer be a steward someday for any reason, I still consider "global deleted image review" needed for my administration in the future, and likely for any other Commons administrator.
These are my follow-up thoughts for your information after our confirmation is closed to the public. I will be waiting for what you think. Thanks again.--Jusjih (talk) 07:00, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
4 also applies to me. —DerHexer (Talk) 11:04, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
We should just change the policy to reflect current practice then. "Should the stewards determine that no consensus exists for keeping a stewards' rights, the steward will lose their status." TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 22:56, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the closure[edit]

I am stunned by this closure, particlularly regarding the removal of Jusjih. In my humble opinion, the ElectCom has failed as a whole with this decision. The most terrible thing is that all the complaints about the pretty close decision by the ElectCom were simply ignored and apparently not taken into consideration (the closing ElectCom member Matanya didn't even provide a reason why the removal of Jusjih was enforced now, regardless of several complaints by fellow stewards and Wikimedians). This removal is in my opinion a clear violation of the Stewards policy which requires consensus for a removal (which was neither provided by the community (the majority of the commenting users wanted to keep Jusjih), nor the stewards, nor the ElectCom and on top of that not even a single concern regarding Jusjih's steward work was raised by multiple Wikimedians. The only thing which was mentioned by several users was the inactivity concern, which is a quite weak argument (as the policy requires even less activity for a steward to be called "inactive") and didn't even represent the opinion of the majority. The complete ignorance of the complaints, the impatience regarding input on this matter by fellow stewards and the lack of any justification for this decision (even if there was, it wasn't provided publicly) let me think of this year's ElectCom as an arbitrarily acting coterie rather than a committee which can be trusted to decide about the stewards confirmation process. This is the reason why I will refrain from participating in the SE process from now on and probably won't change that before something has significantly changed. Please note that ElectCom member Snowolf would probably treat my personal opinion as "irrelevant" like he did on IRC but I wanted to write it down somewhere, anyway. Thank you. Vogone talk 22:17, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Given the details provided by the tally, your accusation towards the ElectCom has no grounds. Calling this a "coterie" while its members had very different opinions on certain confirmations (2 of them, to be exact) is incorrect, not to say untruthful. If there is anything that failed here, it's the whole confirmation process where each has their own view of what argument is "weak" (or strong), of what is "consensus" (or absence of it). Community voice prevails over policies. Time for steward confirmations votings? Elfix 10:35, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I explained why the ElectCom has failed and this has nothing to do with "very different opinions on certain confirmations". What annoyed me was the complete ignorance of the complaints regarding the outcome provided by non-ElectCom stewards and the lacking reasoning why all those complaints were simply ignored. And if a minority (there were more users who wanted to see Jusjih confirmed than those who wanted to see him removed during this process) with a, per policy, weak argument can override the majority plus a significant number of non-ElectCom stewards there must be something wrong, really. And this intransparency towards all involved parties justifies the use of the term "coterie" in my humble opinion, although it might sound harsh. Vogone talk 15:33, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Another interesting point is that Matanya closed the comment section with the comment " Done Closed per above." while only 8 of the 14 commenting stewards agreed with the results in all points (not including Teles' comment as he didn't make a comment about the outcome itself on this page). This makes the whole closure even more concerning. Maybe Matanya himself might want to say something regarding this situation as I also don't believe that he was even able to close this discussion "On behalf of the Election Committee" since at least 1 ElectCom member (MF-Warburg) is currently on vacation. Vogone talk 15:43, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure where exactly you see that majority of non ElectCom stewards. Only 8 people who didn't disagree? In fact, a lot more. I see some comments which express sadness about the outcome of Jusjih's confirmation. Yes, they are right to be sad, and in fact, I too was sad about it, though I didn't express it, but that's a personal feeling, not a mark of disagreement on the result of the confirmations. Other stewards were invited to sign on the list above but apparently didn't care to (and I was one of them, up until yesterday when I read on IRC they weren't sure how to close the confirmation process).
Now, does that mean one has to resign to the results if they weren't what they expected? Not necessarily. Stewards discussed this matter for several hours last night and perhaps we'll find a way to sort this out. But I think we should already be discussing the confirmation process itself, if it causes that much trouble on borderline cases. Elfix 16:14, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Please read the discussion again and you will see that Trijnstel, Avraham, M7 and Vituzzu clearly objected to the outcome and DerHexer/Ajraddatz did so in the section below. The absence of consensus has nothing to do with personal feelings. Though, I agree that we should discuss this process and this year's one was clearly the most intransparent and in my opinion also unfair one in history of the steward confirmations, which is a sad thing. Vogone talk 16:32, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I feel the outcome was a bit unfair, too. However, I place the "blame" with the community; ElectCom was simply doing their job. --Rschen7754 17:58, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have anything to add to what we spoke yesterday on IRC. Matanya (talk) 18:41, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is more than sad as I brang some new points up here which now stay unanswered. Besides, the IRC is also not the most transparent place for explaining a closure, especially since I do not seem to be the only one who thinks damage has been done. Vogone talk 18:44, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Can you please point at the new points? i just see same points as yesterday, basically it is: electcom interpreted community's input in a different way i believe they should have and hence they failed. I wish you would give us the minimal credit that we are interpreting community's input in good faith, and not accuse us with such unpleasant words, we are people too, even if we disagree. Moreover, i'm very sad to see all of them go, i have had a lot of joy serving with them, so attacking us in such a way just hurts more. Matanya (talk) 18:52, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My points were that the ElectCom hasn't provided a justification why Jusjih was removed (and the majority of the commenters overridden) in your closure comment above, why the complaints regarding the outcome were ignored (even though almost every second commenting steward complained), and how it was possible to close this "On behalf of the Election Committee" even though at least one ElectCom member (MF-Warburg) was absent and probably had no possibility to state his view about the complaints (meaning that the ElectCom wasn't even able to determine how to react to the complaints about the outcome as it wasn't complete at the point of time when it decided to ignore the complaints). I appreciate your work, but I also think it wasn't done in a transparent and fair manner towards both, the candidates and the community and hope this will improve significantly next year. Vogone talk 19:03, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I probably also have to add that I don't intend to hurt you and indeed might sound a bit harsh at some points but my comments are never meant to be personally offending. Vogone talk 19:13, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is my last comment on the matter, so i'll try to provide the best answers I can.
  1. the ElectCom hasn't provided a justification why Jusjih was removed - The electcom was divided as you can see from the table above. Though, without disclosing reasoning, the private discussion outcome was more in favor for removal, rather than keep. The reason we provided - no community consensus to keep as billinghurst wrote above. I agree it should have been in the table at first.
  2. the majority of the commenters overridden - i don't know how you define majority here, but this is not a vote. If i would get so many 'remove' comments i would have stepped down, and i think this is what the commenter's tried to point out, and we took this into consideration when we decided.
  3. why the complaints regarding the outcome were ignored - They simply weren't ignored, the majority of the stewards commenting agreed with the result.
  4. even though almost every second commenting steward complained - sad seeing someone go != complain. See above.
  5. how it was possible to close this "On behalf of the Election Committee" even though at least one ElectCom member (MF-Warburg) was absent - two answers here : A. on behalf of present members. b. I knew his opinion.
  6. I appreciate your work - Thank you.
  7. I also think it wasn't done in a transparent and fair manner towards both - we should improve in the future. This is the reason for postmortem.
As said, i hope i answered all your questions and concerns. Any comment is of course welcome but i won't be replying anymore, any comments for now i think should go on the postmortem, in order to improve next year SE. Thank you for your time, dedication and caring so much. With deep appreciation Matanya (talk) 19:26, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your answers but I'd still like to respond to some of them:
1. This reasoning stands contradiction to the current Stewards policy which states that there needs to be community consensus to remove and not community consensus to keep. This is a point where I would like to know why the ElectCom decided to act in contradiction to the policy although it is currently in place.
4. I only counted those who clearly said they disagree with the results. Those who just felt sad for him weren't included by me.
5. b. I don't think it is possible for you to know his opinion on that matter as he hasn't even read all those comments. You can only assume what he could possibly have thought about this but not know it.
7. Thanks for that.
Vogone talk 20:57, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Since Matanya doesn't want to respond to my criticism and questions any further also the other ElectCom members involved in this closure could answer this, by the way. I don't think it's fair to act in contradiction to a policy and to refrain from explaining why that was done afterwards. Vogone talk 17:55, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Not all ElectCom members have been involved in the final IRC discussion and the outcome wasn't clear either. Afaics, matanya just implemented the internal decision of the ElectCom which has been published here. But it is true that a majority of the ElectCom voted remove due to a lack of community support. Me not so I cannot defend this reasoning. Cheers, —DerHexer (Talk) 20:37, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As said in private space, not only this was a "close call" needing some deepening, especially since in this case the community did not find any fault other than "performance" driven ones. I am deeply unsatisfied with this trend, and I am really upset that nobody is going to understand that some commitments are far more important than numerical performance. It's also sad that few people noted this, and the peculiar link to another Steward sudden quit: putting pressure will never mean a better environment for people. IMHO damage has been done, but please do reflect for the future. As a side note, it is pointless to ask for other fellow stewards opinion expecting to take action only if more than half in total disagrees! --M/ (talk) 22:21, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, I would submit that we either have to change the definitions of how stewards are actually confirmed to have practice (Lar, Jusjih) match what is written, or we need to change how the election committee makes their decisions. -- Avi (talk) 01:17, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]