Ryan Delaney wrote:
It bothers me that you and David are ignoring my main point, so I'll try repeating it: I'm not using this email to make a judgment about what percentage you arbitrarily picked as a standard for what "consensus" means. The mere fact that administrators can decide for themselves is what bothers me, and if I am criticizing you, I am criticizing everyone (including myself, since I've closed a lot of AFDs). What troubles me is that the result of AFD votes -- the controversial ones that actually matter, anyway -- can be substantially influenced by the administrator who closes them.
Mmmm. Administrators are expected to be able to exercise the judgement that has presumably been a factor in their selection as an admin. Trust me when I say there's a lot of feedback (loud screeching noise) when someone thinks they're wrong ...
Say some contentious issue comes up on an AFD, say a series of "roadcruft" nominations. Now, the votes will be very close, but say we have 64% of people voting to delete. Some administrators, without doing the math, would close this as a delete. You certainly wouldn't. What does that say about the discussion process? Doesn't that mean the opinion of the closing admin on deletion standards weighs in more than anyone elses? This is what I'm getting at-- I think your case isn't an example of an admin abusing his power, but it is an example of what can go wrong with AFD *as a system*, and it actually goes wrong every day without anyone noticing.
It's explicitly Not A Vote, so it's hard to see how to get around this one.
I am tempted to summarily remove all tally boxes as blatant invitations to abuse of AFD as a straight vote.
- d.