I am alleged to have driven away Speednat. For the reader, this I would have done via the following communications:
From the above, it follows:
I have learned that multiple editors dislike notes like my "Unattested Acanthasitta" referenced above and consider them impolite. I do not know why that is, but have learned that reducing the volume of these kinds of notes is probably good for me, although not so much for Wiktionary, IMHO.
--Dan Polansky (talk) 06:26, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
I don't believe the Kephir claim can be substantiated or that it is probable. I was a target of a long-term stream of attacks by Kephir, including that I somehow veto things and that I oppose things with no reasoning; yet I did not let myself be "driven away" by Kephir. In fact Kephir indef blocked me which I to this day consider to be gross harassment. Kephir was still a Wiktionary admin when he left.
We do not know why Kephir quit but my guess is that he wanted to for some personal reasons; this would fit the fact that he managed to get himself indeffed on Commons after being accused of repeated non-consensual deletion nominations. I feel the Commons indef was a bit harsh but the tendency toward non-consensual behavior was there on Commons. And I criticized Kephir for non-consensual behavior on Wiktionary. If Kephir felt prevented by me from productively contributing to Wiktionary (I do not know how, but anyway), and if he wanted to participate on expanding MediaWiki wikis, he could have done so on any wiki where I am not very active; instead, he appears to have ceased editing on all wikis. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:08, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
In 2014, I made the following statement:
After that, I was accused of being racist. The statement was unfortunate but not for being racist (it would rather be "culturist") but rather by emphasizing a cultural group to which a particular editor belongs rather than considering the editor as an individual to be judged by their actions alone. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:06, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
From the vote page: "... and subject changes which may have majority support to higher thresholds and procedural hurdles in an effort not dissimilar to the way a filibuster vs cloture works."
If we are to decide by consensus, "majority support" mentioned above is not enough. Creating a vote that needs 2/3 to pass indeed does lead to a higher threshold: 2/3 > 1/2. That said, I think that, for many purposes, 2/3 is too high a threshold for a change. To address that, I came up with the idea of amplification vote. It works like this: someone creates a vote on an issue that is more of a matter of taste than anything else, and the vote ends up in, say, 55% for one option, with ample participation. Then, another vote is created for the same proposal, in which the previously opposing editors are asked to consider abstaining, thereby recognizing that for matters of taste, the 55% should be enough for the proposal to pass. The subsequent vote is the amplification vote. The mechanism succeeds if the amplification vote passes, that is, achieves 2/3. For the record, at least one editor considers 2/3 to be too low threshold for votes to pass.
It is to be noted that before a vote is created and run, we do not really know what the consensus is, and even where the plain majority is. I am often surprised by vote results. I do not have a crystal ball, and I submit that neither do other Wiktionarians.
--Dan Polansky (talk) 08:10, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
This is a continuation of a talk from the main vote page.
If I know that my interactions with a particular user are all too likely to lead to his rude behavior toward me, which in its turn is going to tempt me to rude behavior, then I think it sound for me to limit, not block but limit, interaction with that user.
That idea seems to be embedded in interaction ban. When Kephir was an admin, editors decided to make an interaction ban between Kephir and Purplebackpack, without Kephir losing admin right.
What I did is impose a weak form of interaction ban from myself to Romanophile. Given that Romanophile wished me death, I do not see how that could be seen as improper. I do not see this weak form of interaction ban as a weakness but rather as a strength on my part.
--Dan Polansky (talk) 21:50, 2 September 2016 (UTC)