On 12/12/05, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
Tony Sidaway got RFCed for not doing a strict numerical count. I said the RFC was completely fuckheaded (which it was), and then Ed deleted VFD. So there's some historical precedent for your view ;-)
The RFC *was* fuckheaded, but there might have been a point somewhere in the nonsense. That admins can execute as much discretionary power when it comes to what "consensus" means in an AFD is worrisome; it implies that the closing admin can alter the result of the vote substantially according to whatever arbitrary view he or she might have on deletion. Tony doesn't think this is a problem, because (I get the impression-- please correct me if I'm wrong here) that he's happy that he can close AFDs with an inflated standard for consensus, because he wants more articles to be kept.
Whatever you think about the question of whether more articles need to be kept, it would be prudent to consider whether we want admins to make this kind of decision at all, in either direction. It seems contrary to the idea of what consensus means; it means that the closing administrator is really the one with the power, and the idea that the "normals" in the discussion have power is just an illusion. Now, this is why I think the RFC was fuckheaded: the RFC was really about a systematic problem with AFD, not Tony Sidaway's behavior. Tony's closing habits are, if anything, a symptom of the problem inherent in AFD, because it makes this kind of dispute even possible.
Since what I'm providing here is yet another reason to think of AFD as borked and needing replacement, I don't expect much debate on these points. But I see a lot more discussion about how bad AFD is and a lot less discussion about what we should replace it with, and why whatever system we choose to replace it will be any better. Defense of AFD seems to be getting quieter and quieter but I still don't see us making much progress toward enacting some actual improvements.
Ryan