Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-03-20/Interview

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• Honestly, I don't think blanket opposes based purely on the process are helpful at all. To me, if you go to an RFA just to oppose on the lines of "the process is broken", then you should be discussing that on the general talk page for RFA and not an actual RFA. Opposing on an RfA because you think there needs to be changes to the process belongs on a talk page and not an actual RfA because that's what talk pages are for. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 13:08, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  I do think that's a conversation worth having, especially what to do when such an oppose occurs, but ideally not in an ongoing RfA itself. - Aoidh (talk) 16:58, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  I find it hard to read such opposes as anything other than a protest vote. Such votes are supposed to be disruptive, by design, but maybe that's why they are disfavored. On the other hand, the fact that RfA is attracting enough protest votes for it to become a noticeable problem is illustrative of how seriously broken the process has become. People are not taking it to the RfA talk page, because they have become convinced that that will accomplish exactly nothing. --NYKevin 18:18, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

• Congratulations for your overwhelming positive result in your RfA recently. Even if 218 persons are not really a lot of people compared to all active Wp-en editors but it's the normally expected number of participants in those elections and okay. Indeed the very low number of negative votes is striking! - - Now the above interview text has some quality of its own. Good questions and very good answers. In any detail realistic? Maybe. I'm sort of inclined to ask if you ever trained to deliver public speeches? I reckon that it is the case. No, I'm not kidding, you've done it well! And the answers even comprise the impression of competence and point to some possible better solutions in RfA proceedings. Well, I'm aware of the fact that a good analysis not automatically will produce a good implementation. All changes depend on good networking and team work. -- Just N. (talk) 17:06, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you, but no I'm not brave enough for public speaking. - Aoidh (talk) 16:58, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

• In the previous version of this story, the HTML lists were formatted such that each question waws read out as a separate list item, in contravention of the guideline on such matters (I've tested this with both JAWS and NVDA. The Signpost is not an article but should be accessible where possible. I'll bring this up at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Accessibility. Graham87 06:37, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
  • Is it better now? I have removed the newlines between the list items, per the instructions at MOS:DEFLIST, and moved the answers to new lines for easier (sighted) parsing of the wikitext. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:51, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
    • @Jonesey95: Yes, thanks, it's fine now. I've changed your colon to an asterisk in your reply though, because mixing lists in this case doesn't work so well. Graham87 06:55, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
• Um, FormalDude, noooooooo! I have no position with the Signpost so I have no real authority to undo that, but I'll bring this up elsewhere ... Graham87 06:58, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
  • Done at the main Signpost talk page. Graham87 07:04, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
    • Isn't the problem in question one I accidentally produced while copyediting? [1]. It's odd FormalDude is panicking over my error. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 20:54, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
      • Adam Cuerden, a version of the problem was already there. As should be obvious from my comment needing to be reformatted above, indent/list/term list markup is fussy, and I, at least, don't always remember how it works. I don't know why there needed to be such drama about someone fixing up wikitext to make it accessible per a long-standing guideline, but sometimes change is difficult for people, or they feel a bit of ownership, or they are just having a bad day. We are all human; I know that my blood pressure rises when I see changes to one of "my" favorite pages if I do not agree with or understand the changes. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:24, 22 March 2023 (UTC)