Cross-posted from #announcements on Discord.
It has come to the attention of the administration that the role of neutral votes in RFUs is unclear. Neutral votes, like any votes, are counted in the total, effectively making them oppose votes for purposes of the 2/3rds supermajority clause. Because non-administrator users' votes are tallied separately from administrators' votes, per Forum:CT:Administrator_Voting, neutral votes in this RfA could impact the outcome.
As such, the administration recommends those who have voted neutral to assess whether their votes are in line with the administrative interpretation. A future CT will be drafted to allow the community the option to eliminate the neutral vote option altogether.
1358 (Talk) 22:13, 5 October 2022 (UTC) on behalf of the administration
Aside from this notice, it would be great to hear from the community the opinion on neutral votes on RFUs in general. In my opinion, I think we should get rid of them altogether and use the Comments section for neutral stances. Either you're for someone or you're not, to paraphrase Anakin.
Discussion
- Fully agree that they should just be removed for clarity. Ayrehead02 (talk) 22:20, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
- Aye, 'tis odd to allow votes for...not voting. If someone feels they want to stay neutral and make a statement there do be comments allowed. I don't think we need to continue with having a neutral votes section. Seems time to get rid of it. Fan26 (Talk) 22:24, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
- Makes sense to me. Wok142 (talk) 22:26, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
- "If you're not for me, you must be against me!" But yeah, the method of counting votes means these are default oppose, so must be removed.—Unsigned comment by Manoof (talk • contribs)
- Having a neutral option muddies the waters. Yes and No is sometimes best for gauging opinion on an issue. People not wanting to take part in a vote can always give comments and feedback. Andykatib 01:44, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
- I'd rather keep the neutral option and exclude it from measuring the support. And to be honest, while I understand that this interpretation certainly aligns with the written rules, I consider it to be against common sense and doubt that it was actually intended when the rules were created. 01miki10 Open comlink 08:54, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
- Common sense is not universal and I can see why including neutral votes in the tally would make perfect sense (this essay on Meta-Wiki, for example, raises some good points IMO), which is why the procedure certainly needs clarification. 1358 (Talk) 09:01, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
- I can certainly see it being used but not counted, but then that begs the question, what is the comments section for? These seem like the perfect kinds of feedback better relegated to comments than to a neutral vote. For the sake of absolute clarity, I say it's time we update this outdated format to something more concise. MasterFred
(talk) (he/him) 09:49, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
- I agree; in the past, I've changed a vote to neutral thinking it was indicating not supporting but not opposed/abstaining, and didn't realize that would be counted in the total votes as if it was an oppose. If I'd known that, I would've made it a comment. Support/Oppose as the options would be more clear. Immi Thrax
(she/her) (talk) 21:01, 6 October 2022 (UTC) - Agreed. I don't see what the point of having a neutral vote section is that the comment section couldn't cover. If you want to make it clear that you're abstaining from a vote, you could write that in a comment. Since voting isn't compulsory, I don't think it's worth including in vote totals, especially since it becomes an oppose by default. Dropbearemma (she/her) 04:22, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
- Agreed, let's remove the neutral vote option. Imperators II(Talk) 07:52, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
There is now a Consensus Track vote for this issue: Forum:CT:Neutral votes on RFUR and RFRUR. 1358 (Talk) 18:02, 21 October 2022 (UTC)