Wiktionary:Votes/2019-03/Disallowing conditional voting

Voting on:

Rationale: Generally, conditional voting only causes trouble when counting votes, regarding how it should be interpreted. If a user wished the vote was different, then he should have edited the vote before it began. You can only express support or oppose to the vote as it is stated. Personal conditions will not be granted.

Schedule:

• Vote starts: 00:00, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
• Vote ends: 23:59, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
• Vote created: Tom 144 (𒄩𒇻𒅗𒀸) 14:56, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Discussion:

• Wiktionary:Votes/sy-2018-11/User:Donnanz for admin
• Wiktionary talk:Votes/2019-03/Defining a supermajority for passing votes#Also...
• Wiktionary:Votes/sy-2015-07/User:Benwing for admin
• Wiktionary:Votes/sy-2015-06/User:JohnC5 for admin

1. Support — Tom 144 (𒄩𒇻𒅗𒀸) 03:06, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
2. Support. I'm not completely on board with this vote, because I don't think that conditional votes are a bad thing. In many ways, they can help build consensus, which is really what votes are for. Despite that, some kind of action has become necessary in response to a certain editor employing conditional votes in a manner that abuses the parliamentary process. If we have to choose between voters attempting to insert their own conditions that lack overall community support so they can force the community to uphold them, and a blanket ban on conditions, I will have to opt for the ban. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:52, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

   The above reference to "abuses the parliamentary process" is obviously talking about me and my conditional votes in admin votes. Let me point out that no one can "insert their own conditions that lack overall community support so they can force the community to uphold them"; that is something that a lone conditional vote such as mine is not able to do. And the "If we have to choose" part above is the fallacy of false dichotomy: there are other options than the proposal voted on, including banning conditional votes in admin votes only. The reasoning above is actually an example showing that nuance, differentiation and seeking alternatives is required and should be encouraged. --Dan Polansky (talk) 05:59, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

3. Support in principle. DonnanZ (talk) 12:36, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

   Strangely enough, "in principle" is a weakening qualifier while the proposal voted on suggests that no such thing (a weakening qualifier, a reservation) should play any role. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:47, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

   Fixed. DonnanZ (talk) 13:13, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

4. Support — Zack. — 00:50, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
5. Fully support. If we want to later introduce specific types of conditional votes, like conditional adminships, we can vote on those then, but as is, we need to clamp down on the rampant misuse due to the lack of clear guidelines. --{{victar|talk}} 21:41, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

   "Fully support" seems peculiar in a vote that proposes that no distinction between various supports should be made. Are the supports indicated as "support" rather than "fully support" to be read as implied partial supports? I don't think so. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:33, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

6. Support Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 16:56, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

1. Oppose As for downsides of conditional voting, there really is no unsurmountable trouble closing votes. A conditional support vote is an oppose on the unmodified proposal, and it is a support on a modified proposal. That much should be clear. Admittedly, some people are not clear about this; I don't know why. The phrase "parliamentary procedure" makes me wonder as well; a Wiktionary vote is an attempt to measure consensus, and it should not be applied as a wholly cold mechanism, in my view.

   As for the upside, conditional votes bring votes closer to the spirit of a request for comment known from Wikipedia, and to a discussion about alternative proposals.

   If the proposal voted on is intended to prevent me in particular from making conditional votes in admin votes to indicate a lack of proper controls on power, a better proposal would be to disallow conditional voting in admin votes only. Better yet, let us implement proper controls on power by making it much easier to desysop power holders.

   Conditional voting has some tradition in the English Wiktionary. Some votes that have it:

   • Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2015-07/Normalization_of_entries_2: "Support, with the understanding that this restriction on bots' edits applies only to the part of a page that a bot edits and not to the entire page."
   • Wiktionary:Votes/2015-03/Templatizing topical categories in the mainspace: "Support if and only if the template be called {{C}} instead of {{catlangcode}}."
   • Wiktionary:Votes/2013-10/Reconstructions need references: "Support, with the condition that pages must be nominated for verification or deletion before they are deleted, rather than being deleted outright."
   • Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2011-02/Romanian orthographic norms: "Caveat: I do not support overriding any consensus of the Romanian editors."
   • Wiktionary:Votes/sy-2008-12/User:Equinox for admin: "Unless CU brings up evidence."
   • Wiktionary:Votes/2007-07/Layout_of_example_sentences: "Support, with the caveat that with sample sentences in non-Latin scripts, the sentence should not be italicized but the transcription should be, ..."

   --Dan Polansky (talk) 05:51, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

   It's also a great example of practicing the principle of always trying to seek consensus where possible, which is an important principle of Wikimedia projects in general. פֿינצטערניש (Fintsternish), she/her (talk) 12:48, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

   Confusing Equinox with WF was an obvious mistake. DonnanZ (talk) 12:30, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

2. Oppose Ƿidsiþ 06:29, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
3. Oppose ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 10:32, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
4. Oppose While I believe that some limits on conditional voting would be nice, especially regarding conditions which operate in perpetuity to restrict user behaviour, I think that banning conditional voting is too extreme and wouldn't change much, given that, in the event that they're blocked from supporting a proposition conditionally, many voters may choose to simply oppose a decision rather than be forced into supporting it without their desired conditions; the same applies vice versa. Another consideration is that conditional votes really aren't hugely frequent; on occasion they may tip the scale; but given the point I made in the preceding sentence, the tipping is often illusory. In short, conditional votes are like a bad hairstyle or a PT Cruiser with flames on its side; I don't like them, but I don't want to ban them. --Hazarasp (talk · contributions) 10:56, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

   They wouldn't be blocked, conditions would just be ignored. It's important to know that when voting, we're all voting for the same thing, and that we are not all voting for our own individual versions of a vote. That's the aim of this, to avoid those misunderstandings. –Tom 144 (𒄩𒇻𒅗𒀸) 01:54, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

   @Hazarasp, if you agree that there should be limits, I think you should vote yes on this. Drafting a comprehensive system would be virtually impossible to pass, so I think the best way to set limitations would be to start with a clean slate, do away with all conditional votes, and then vote in each exception rule. --{{victar|talk}} 02:28, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

5. Oppose As I said on the talk page though, I would be OK with requiring other support voters to approve a condition. פֿינצטערניש (Fintsternish), she/her (talk) 12:46, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

   @פֿינצטערניש I added that in the vote. That way one makes sure conditions aren't granted in expense of voters that do not agree with it, but if consensus is shown, it can be passed into the vote. –Tom 144 (𒄩𒇻𒅗𒀸) 01:59, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

6. Oppose --Daniel Carrero (talk) 12:17, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

   If someone writes "Support as long as X" and X isn't met, then the voter is not actually supporting the proposal.

   We can't consider it a full "Support". We are actually changing the person's vote. Shouldn't this be considered unethical?

   I disagree with the idea that voting templates are so important. These templates look nice and all, but if someone says " Support: As long condition X is met. Oppose: if condition X isn't met." that clearly can't be considered a full support.

   I wouldn't like to see future votes passing just because they technically achieved 2/3 majority via someone forgetting a template or by outright ignoring voter's wishes said via conditional votes.

   Here's an example of conditional voting from 2017 that I consider interesting: in Wiktionary:Votes/2017-06/borrowing, borrowed, two separate and contradictory proposals were voted. A few people apparently preferred proposal 1 and considered proposal 2 second best, so they basically voted "support 1; support 2 only if 1 fails, otherwise oppose 2".

   Maybe we should just close this vote right now, without needing to wait for the scheduled end date. I think the idea of changing other people's votes crosses some line. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 12:17, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

   A very interesting deliberation; thank you. The vote proposal is really bad "as is". At best, conditional votes would have to be considered invalid and thus removed from counting; a vote that clearly contains a condition to the voted proposal and even express opposition should the condition not be met can under no circumstances be counted as unconditional support. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:32, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

7. Oppose conditions are just part of the whole debate and vote. It may make it more difficult for closers to assess the result, but it allows more nuance in opinions. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:14, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

1. Abstain A vote on this topic is sorely needed, but I fear this is not the way to go about it. While conditional voting is sometimes useful, it should be specifically banned in election votes (yes Dan, I'm talking about you). We cannot add policy in the same vote as electing someone to a position. I am fine with using policy voted to amending the powers of a particular position, but to place individual constraints on one user being elected to a predefined position whose powers are already determined is not acceptable. This is not how election works in any system of governance and should not be altered here. —*i̯óh₁n̥C 21:40, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

   Your camp would be more convincing if you avoided making problematic statements in your argumentation; to wit, "We cannot add policy in the same vote as electing someone to a position": sure, and my conditional votes do not add any policy, that is, any rule applied to all admins or a broad set of situations. The statement above about "is not acceptable" is not supported by any proof or argumentation. I don't see why it would be bad to place easy desysopping on particular person's adminship; after all, it is not bad to prevent that particular person from being an admin altogether. Furthermore, people are discussing various roles, e.g. a deleter, that would apportion part of adminship without anyone claiming that this is fundamentally unacceptable; and yet, a deleter is much less of an admin than an easy-to-desysop admin. The difficulty of desysopping is a loophole in the way the consensus principle is applied; instead of requiring consensus for continuous holding of power, some people want to require consensus for a change of state, that is, losing power. That, in my view, is not in the spirit of wiki governance by consensus, and I, unlike most, am doing something about that issue. The response that I get is indignation; I remember only one editor saying, yes, I see what you mean, we should do something. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:07, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

2. Abstain I agree with John, this is a needed clarification to the voting policy, but I prefer a simpler rule to the one proposed. The rule I would prefer is that conditional voting is not allowed; if a voter puts a support mark in the support section, they are supporting the vote regardless of any other conditions they may indicate, same with oppose or abstain. Allowing conditional voting in some votes doesn't appeal to me. If a voter does not agree to the premise of the vote unconditionally they should oppose or abstain. If conditional voting is needed there should have been further discussion or a better constructed proposition for voting on. - TheDaveRoss 14:12, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

   @TheDaveRoss: It sure sounds like you support this proposal, so I'm a bit confused by your vote. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:19, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

   @Metaknowledge: I support the idea, just not the policy as written. If the policy was simply "conditional votes are not allowed" I would support. Adding in a bunch of stuff about template usage, and allowing for conditional votes sometimes makes me less inclined to support. - TheDaveRoss 02:18, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

3. Abstain Leasnam (talk) 22:13, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

6-7-3, fails. — surjection ⟨?⟩ 10:32, 22 April 2019 (UTC)