Wiktionary:Votes/sy-2022-10/User:Theknightwho for admin

User:Theknightwho for admin
Nomination: I hereby nominate as a local English Wiktionary Administrator.

Schedule:
 * Vote starts: 14:48, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Vote ends: 23:59, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Vote created: TheDaveRoss  14:48, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Acceptance:
 * Languages: en, la, cmn, mn
 * Timezone: UTC+0 GMT

I accept! This would be particularly useful for me in terms of maintenance. Theknightwho (talk) 21:21, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Support

 * 1) . Works hard, plays nice; can't ask for more than that. -  TheDaveRoss  14:48, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) . Amazing editor and great person to rely on. I trust that they'd use the admin tools for good. AG202 (talk) 17:01, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 3)  —Fish bowl (talk) 22:52, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 4)  Made miracle-level improvements I had been kvetching about for years. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 23:04, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 5) Don't see any reason not to . Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes 05:52, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 6)  👍 — Gorec (talk) 07:48, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 7)  On occasion gets grumpy but really who doesn't. On the whole very level headed. Vininn126 (talk) 09:24, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 8)  Jodi1729 (talk) 02:23, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 9)  Aha, this vote happened at last. I had offered it. I like Knight because he is smart and not afraid to call out bullshit (do not be afraid to call out bullshit) but also fair-minded and maybe even kind. I met him once. Can confirm he is a human being of some sort. Equinox ◑ 02:28, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Scandalous lies! Well, the bit about being human, anyway. Theknightwho (talk) 02:31, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * , --Robbie SWE (talk) 17:12, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 1)  --Skiulinamo (talk) 10:20, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
 * , enjoy the admin bit. PseudoSkull (talk) 21:22, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
 * . Theknightwho is a very competent editor with whom I've only ever had pleasant interactions even in times of disagreement. Also, I've never been a fan of the saying and the present situation might just be a perfect demonstration as to why. &mdash; Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 16:18, 24 October 2022 (UTC) Switched to abstain. &mdash; Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 18:50, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I've interacted with Theknightwho quite a lot and I trust them not to let their grudges impact their decisions as an admin. Thadh (talk) 16:44, 28 October 2022 (UTC) Changed to abstain. Thadh (talk) 17:04, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) . — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:03, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * 2)  All the best! —Svārtava (talk) • 07:30, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * 3)  Many good contributions, sensible comments, and much good humor; not much testiness. Don't expect any abuse of powers. A welcome addition to the crew. DCDuring (talk) 18:00, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * 4)  Pious Eterino (talk) 13:01, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Oppose

 * 1)  I cannot in good consciousness support the new adminship of a editor who has an active "grudge" (as an uninvolved user put it) with another editor. Specifically, since about August 15, 2022 (link to Discord), there has been conflict between Thekightwho and Dan Polansky, as demostrated both on the Wiktionary site itself and in the un-official Discord server used for quick, more casual conversation between editors.  I want to make clear at this point that if the opposite nomination was made, that is Dan Polansky was nominated for adminship, I would oppose that one as well. My focus on Theknightwho in this vote is a result of the fact that they are the one nominated for adminship, not because I think more responsibility lies on either of the two editors. With that, Thekinghtwho has described Dan as "full of shit", "an utter thickwit", and "a complete pseud" (links are to Discord). The conflict between them is also not restricted to the past, but is ongoing with the most recent instance, as of writing, being from today. Other conflict between them have occurred in the Beer Parlour in August, Beer Parlour in September-October, Theknightwho's user talk page, and Dan's user talk page. If this conflict is resolved at some point, I think Theknightwho could make a good admin and would be willing to support adminship. For now though, I'll oppose. &mdash;The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 18:49, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Just an observation: the existence of conflict isn't inherently bad. If B is harming the project, and A tries to stop B's harm, then A is involved in conflict but is doing good work. Equinox ◑ 18:56, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to say those comments were okay, but they were said in extreme exasperation (and two of them were said one after the other). I am not the only person who has been frustrated by Dan. Theknightwho (talk) 20:31, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * To add to this, I'm going to pledge to keep my feelings about this in check, as it obviously has got out of hand at times. Theknightwho (talk) 20:47, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * That's said and done outside of Wiktionary/Wikipedia should be totally inadmissible, including the unofficial Discord server. --Skiulinamo (talk) 10:20, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Ehhh, the Discord server is essentially an extension of Wiktionary fora itself, and significant planning & discussion takes place there. It'd be weird to make policy changes & more through that means but make anything negative there inadmissible. AG202 (talk) 13:19, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 1)  per the above. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 09:18, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) . I may find ways to stop responding to the Knight in discussions, thereby avoiding all the conflict, but if the Knight behaves in this way toward me and the project, who's to say he will not behave the same toward other editors? In general, there are too many non-admin behaviors. I am not particularly disturbed by insults made off-wiki. I am disturbed by constant ad hominem pseudo-argumentation is discussions that should be about exchange of arguments, counterarguments, evidence, analysis and external sources, by dismissal of external sources, by arrogance that in my interactions with him included not conceding a single point a single time, and evading questions instead of answering them. The behaviors disrupt the discussions and reduce their value as decision making instruments. As my piece of evidence, I'll pick the discussion about German compounds, which to my mind is utter fiasco: . To claim that German schwarzes Loch is a compound is, to my mind, outrageous nonsense. I tried to present arguments and external sources to show that, which should have been obvious from the start, but to no avail. Knight does not speak any German or any Slavic or North Germanic language as per his Babel, but that does not prevent him from taking an opposing stance on something that he does not understand. In that discussion, he shows zero capacity or willingness to learn. That, to my mind, is no testimony to linguistic competence and to open mind. One can make a wrong initial estimate, but has to be willing to reconsider given the preponderance of sources. To this moment, Knight did not accept compounds to be words despite the unanimity of sources. An admin needs to do so much better on multiple counts. As to the notion that Knight's continuous abuse is necessary to protect the project from harm by me, I don't see that: even if we assume that my RFD nomination of -otomy is harmful, calm argumentation that avoids ad hominem and speculation about motives and a handful of "keeps" render all protection needed: a mere superminority can prevent deletion of -otomy. The RFD discussion on -otomy was short and fine before the Knight joined. I made the mistake of responding to his claims. The RFD discussion is another piece of evidence showing how discussion should not be conducted. I also noticed how Knight often posts a discussion response in two or three subsequent edits, showing lack of temperance: instead of calmly composing a response and posting it when it is finished, he gives the impression of haste. The Knight should have been blocked for on-wiki misconduct, not made an admin. Template editor and module editor are the rights that he needs. The acceptance of this sort of behavior by Wiktionary editors is disappointing. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:08, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Knight's style has the effect of intimidation: I do not dare to post anything more to the RFD discussions on the misspellings/miscapitalizations antijapanese, etc., despite Knight's outrageous claims that these nominations are "prescriptivist snobbery". If I will post, it will get out of hand real fast. The nominations are nothing of the sort; they are evidence-based and actual-usage-based assessment of what language users actually do and accept and reject, the opposite of prescriptivism. They implement the "statistics" criterion mentioned in WT:CFI. Knight's other claim that rarity of form has nothing to do with misspelling again contradicts WT:CFI mention of "statistics". A classical example of prescriptivism is the that vs. which story, which is a neat prescription to make language less ambiguous, but is much more restrictive than the widespread actual usage by educated language users. The very language of "prescriptivist snobbery" is again ad hominem; other discussion participants calmly discussed whether the nominated forms are misspellings. Here again I see inflammatory tone combined with linguistic incompetence. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:51, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Please do let me know what you consider to be an acceptable way for someone to inform you that they feel you’re being unreasonable in a given discussion. Realistically, I don’t want to have to stop participating in RFD, so we are going to have to come to some kind of way of getting past these communication barriers and needless conflicts. Theknightwho (talk) 15:05, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * How come the great majority of editors including non-admins understand what the Knight does not? Namely ad hominem. About "feel": RFDs are ideally about linguistic facts and arguments and disagreements about them, not about feelings. Disagreements and exchange of arguments are the blood of RFDs; ad hominem is not. Most non-admins here would make better admins than the Knight. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:42, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * So could you please let me know an acceptable way to let you know when I feel you are being unreasonable? Someone can act unreasonably irrespective of the topic, as I'm sure you know. For example, if they ignore everything else that the other person is saying in order to rephrase what they've already said. It is important that that kind of thing doesn't happen, as it effectively shuts down discussion. Theknightwho (talk) 16:57, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I could not and I explained why above, in what RFDs are about. For the reader: check in the edit history how the Knight wrote the above response in three edits. I see intemperance. About "It is important that that kind of thing doesn't happen": it isn't very important and it does not "shut down discussion" at all. And it almost never happens: to say that I ever "ignore everything else that the other person is saying" is just nonsense. In the RFD on -otomy, the Knight said -o- was not a morpheme, I pointed to sources that say otherwise. He said the definition of -o- talked about it being between morphemes from which it allegedly followed -o- was not a morpheme, but I said that it did not so follow and that to say of an interfix that it is between morphemes is only natural part of a definition of "interfix". So I kept on responding to his specific points. The above is an example of how the Knight rationalizes his poor discussion conduct, having created a complex of fallacies justifying ad hominem misconduct. The interested reader may read the RFD on -otomy: WT:RFDE. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:42, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I simply asked you for an acceptable way for me to let you know when I feel you're being unreasonable. This is perfectly normal in any discussion, as it allows the participants to ensure that they are both on the same page, and to best understand each other's point of view. It is also an inherent part of accountability, as we all need to be accountable to each other.
 * Do you believe that it is fair that I should have no way of letting you know that you're being unreasonable without you trying to dismiss it as a personal attack? That kind of behaviour is generally considered unacceptable and manipulative. Theknightwho (talk) 17:58, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The Knight keeps on repeating himself; I won't. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:23, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * (PS: I just want to say that regardless of the merits of what you Dan Polansky are saying, you ought to try to be kind and considerate to the other users as much as possible. Yeah, they are assholes, but you may one day realize that you yourself may have done things meriting such a title. Also, I would recommend setting a limit for yourself on how many words you will post in a comment, barring extraordinary circumstances. I try to max out at 500 in extraordinary circumstances, but also to try to avoid getting close to 500 and remain somewhere around 150 words. I have not really looked into the issues you discuss above, but I just thought that in everything I dealt with the Theknightwho on, valuable progress was made, so I apologize if my vote disappointing to you. I'm a simple editor: I see progress, I vote for it.) --Geographyinitiative (talk) 15:08, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Regardless of the other points, "I also noticed how Knight often posts a discussion response in two or three subsequent edits, showing lack of temperance: instead of calmly composing a response and posting it when it is finished, he gives the impression of haste." I've seen you do this as well to be quite fair, including here when you replied to yourself (and especially in the offensive terms discussions). In my opinion, it's not really that big of a deal unless it starts to flood the discussion. AG202 (talk) 17:53, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Abstain

 * 1)  Huge fan of his contributions, especially lately the immense dedications he's put into Mongolian. But generally it's maybe best to have as rulers calm sages rather than fierce warriors. Catonif (talk) 15:04, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
 * There are no rulers here. I agree though, that it is better to have a whole community of calm sages. - TheDaveRoss  12:42, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 1)  seconded. the support voters are probably hungry for more drama. well nothing's on TV, anyway.  Jberkel 22:04, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 2)  — Fenakhay ( حيطي · مساهماتي ) 10:26, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 3)  ⭐ Really not sure, I can take either view, though it be indecent to side with Dan Polansky. Like Theknightwho won’t break anything and is really capable of calling out baloney but as well argues in circles and has the will to drama. Fay Freak (talk) 13:35, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * That genuinely means a lot - thank you. I know we've clashed in the past, but generally we've been able to be productive about things. Theknightwho (talk) 16:17, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) . Although I agree that Dan Polansky is very often insufferable and I sympathise with Theknightwho for losing patience with them, I haven't been impressed with his answers in the debates that took place: he was eluding valid questions. Apart from that, I have no particular objections. PUC – 13:18, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) Changed to  considering Knight and Dan are still arguing even at this moment - when I voted, I was kinda hoping this was behind us, but apparently it wasn't. You should leave the handling of users you obviously have a - let me borrow The Editor's Apprentice's wording - "grudge" against to (other) admins, and distance yourself from that, otherwise the quarrel will probably end badly for the both of you. It doesn't seem like enough reason to oppose though, since I believe Theknightwho will make a good admin overall. Thadh (talk) 17:04, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * You're right. Bad day. I'll take some time out. Theknightwho (talk) 17:05, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) . I've been rethinking my decision lately, especially as I saw the two of them "battle it out" again on various pages. I still stand by what I said in my support vote that this adminship would be, in expectation, a net positive for the project. I do, however, have more reservations that I did before. &mdash; Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 18:50, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) . I have only encountered this user in RFD, so I can't form an overall opinion. DonnanZ (talk) 12:32, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * 3)  per all of the above. Ultimateria (talk) 23:54, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * 4)  you know I like you, Knight! But let's face it, this jihad against Polanski has gotten out of hand. Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 02:07, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't see why we take DanP's argumentativeness out on Theknightwho ("TKW"). That said, it would be wise for TKW to consider what might actually lead to extinction of unwanted behavior. DCDuring (talk) 18:04, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Decision

 * Passed 16-3-10. Congratulations, TKW!  Pinging  to take care of the technical thingies. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes 06:41, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅, please add yourself to WT:A. &mdash; S URJECTION / T / C / L / 10:28, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Done - thank you everyone! Theknightwho (talk) 15:15, 19 November 2022 (UTC)