Wikipedia talk:Gaming the system

"PLAYPOLICY" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect PLAYPOLICY. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 January 23#PLAYPOLICY until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 13:23, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

How many redirects should be added

This page covers behavior that is otherwise hard to describe in a concrete way for many wikipedians (I think), but adding extra redirects might help me and many other wikipedians with addressing and dealing with the behaviour described on this page.

I have thus far added these 2 redirects:

However, if I were to introduce redirects at all the pages where I think it might be handy, The new amount of redirects will quickly add up to dozens of redirects and anchors. All those pages might be excessive and maybe even redundant.

I hereby ask you, dear reader and fellow wikipedian, to reply to my honest question, not with a decisive, yet lacking answer of "yes", or "no", but with an elegant and eloquent explanation, that is refined and sophisticated, yet not too verbose, and exhaustive, not exhausting, of how many redirects should be added and where. (Hopefully, my message doesn't break Wikipedia:Civility with such a faux posh message)

P.S.: Adding or removing redirects is not something I'm in a position to stop due to my new redirects. Therefore, you shouldn't expect to see me stop you from fulfilling your duty as an editor. Be bold and please reply.

P.S.S.: You are under no obligation to reply, Dear reader.

P.S.S.S.: Still, Please reply, s'il vous plait.

Thanks for reading my question. Braggy (talk) 17:12, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Add to “see also”

I’d like to suggest adding WP:PGBOLD to the see also links. It says, “Editing a policy to support your own argument in an active discussion may be seen as gaming the system, especially if you do not disclose your involvement in the argument when making the edits.” This issue recently came up here but I couldn’t find the pertinent policy until now. Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:37, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for getting folks at the Pump to identify that shortcut, but I have a better suggestion. Let's just transclude that sentence into the "Gaming the consensus process" section. By using transclusion the text will still be maintained at the source but any future community approved changes will echo here automatically. As your own experience shows,it should be much easier to find that. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:39, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Transcluding might work, though I usually prefer the simpler lower-tech methods. Like writing footnotes by hand instead of using citation templates. But however people refer to the matter here would be a definite improvement. Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:49, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

If nothing else developes between my departure (now) and my return (today tomorrow sometime) I'll take care of it. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:55, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I could figure out how to do the transclusion, it’s just that there’s an advantage to keeping things simple, because more people will easily understand what’s happening, will understand how to improve or modify it, less can go wrong, etc. But if you prefer transclusion then that’s a whole lot better than doing nothing. Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:38, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

 Done, I took your advice and used a low tech approach [1]...NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:10, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I changed it a little bit, to this: {{See also|Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Substantive changes|label 1=Policy on changing rules to gain advantage in a content dispute}} Otherwise, it would not have helped me to find the info. Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:41, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

This should acknowledge the far more common and less serious instances of gaming

The beginning defines gaming as being only when the intentions of the person are very bad. E.G. working against the goals of wikipedia. Then the rest of the essay goes on to describe the many mechanisms used in gaming.

IMO 90% of gaming has wrong but less serious intentions. For example to tilt the POV of an article in one's preferred direction or as volleys in a dispute that two editors have gotten into. We really need to be able to point those out as wp:gaming. However since the beginning of the essay defines gaming as being only when the intentions are really really bad, that precludes using this term/ essay from being used to point out the other 90% of instances of gaming which have less severe intentions. Including via it making a reference to gaming as being a very serious accusation, thus preventing use of the term for the common milder forms of gaming. IMO the beginning should acknowledge the common forms with less severe intentions. North8000 (talk) 15:43, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable in principle, but I think this isn't likely to gain any traction without specific rewrite suggestions for people to consider.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:41, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

A ping is probably warranted, since that dates back to April.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:51, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I'll take a look. There was a similar issue at wp:wikilawyering and over time I softened it up to make it more usable. North8000 (talk) 13:18, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

I put an additional example in as as starting point and noted that some instances of it are common and mild. Maybe a starting point. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:28, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

You put in Using policies (such as wp:NPOV) to tilt an article towards a particular POV. Some instances of this are common and mild. But it's unclear what this is supposed to even mean. A "Using policies such as WP:VALUE to tilt an article towards OPPOSITE_OF_THAT_VALUE" construction just sounds contradictory. What does it mean to "use NPOV to tilt towads a POV"? How would that even be possible?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:23, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

The original formulation above was "to tilt the POV of an article in one's preferred direction or as volleys in a dispute that two editors have gotten into." How can this be distilled into an example of system-gaming? One just seems like PoV-pushing, and the other battlegrounding. This page is really about abusing aspects of the system/community/process, "gaming" them, in ways that benefit a particular party at the expense of other editors, the community, the project, or the readership.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:30, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

@North8000: Maybe the issue here is really not a missing example, but the opening line: "Gaming the system means deliberately using Wikipedia policies in bad faith to thwart the aims of Wikipedia." That does tend to imply that this term only refer to nefarious action rather than selfish behavior. (And it's too focused on the word "policies" in particular.) It might be better to recast this completely, as something like:

Gaming the system means deliberately misusing Wikipedia policy or process for personal advantage at the expense of other editors or the Wikipedia community. This may range from bad faith attemps to thwart the aims of Wikipedia, to simply engineering "victory" in a content dispute or an untoward result in an RfC or other community discussion.

I think something like that would more directly address your complaint above than just adding a new example.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:41, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Looks good to me. My goal / suggestions is to communicate "sometimes it is mild" in order to make this guideline / the term more usable for the common milder situations. North8000 (talk) 18:34, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Done. Hopefully the edit sticks. I think the new lead better summarizes the actual page content in the first place, so it should.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:01, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Looks great. North8000 (talk) 12:09, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Proposal for an additional point

Under Gaming the consensus-building process, I would like to propose a new point following what occurred at a recently closed RfA.

Transactional politics or tit for tat – Asking an editor to take an action (e.g. change their stance in a discussion) on the basis of one's prior efforts taken elsewhere on their behalf; or suggesting that one will withhold efforts on their behalf unless they take one's desired action. - Modified to SMcCandlish's suggestion below (modified at 17:02 UTC)

I feel this change is needed to make it clear that such behavior is not acceptable in discussions and should be treated as such. Noah, AA^Talk 15:24, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Some examples:

Example: An editor asks another editor to change their vote at RFA on the basis of non-substantive grounds such as their friendship or prior support given to the second editor.

Example: An editor asks an admin to warn another editor for alleged PoV-pushing, and hints that the first editor's pending GAN or FAC review of the admin's article may be in jeopardy if action isn't taken by the admin.

Examples added here. Noah, AA^Talk 17:14, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

I support the gist of this, but not that the original [2] wording (which has been replaced). It's The original version was too much specific-case rambling (when this, like everything else we're trying to address here, is a basic/general principle), and this is a guideline not a policy, so there's no such thing as it creating "prohibited behavior". Something like this would be more approrpriate (but was wordsmithed even more later):
Transactional politics or tit for tat – Asking an editor to change their stance in a discussion or take some other action on the basis of prior support or actions taken elsewhere on their behalf; or suggesting that one will withhold support or no longer take actions on behalf of the editor unless they change their stance or take the action.
And that could probably be made more concise with another editing pass. The underlying principle was certainly something that a lot of people were raising at WT:RFA recently (and here and here, and finally at ArbCom with a real bombshell dropped), so this is not "out of nowhere".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:40, 31 October 2023 (UTC); rev'd. 08:41, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: That would be fine. I implemented your suggested wording above. Yes, there were some comments at WT:RFA as you stated as well as the case I mentioned. I see your point about it being too case specific. The things I had mentioned may be better suited as examples rather than actually in the guideline itself. Noah, AA^Talk 16:51, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Another try, aiming for concision and clarity (avoid using the same word for two different referents, etc.):
Asking an editor to take an action (e.g. change their stance in a discussion) on the basis of one's prior efforts taken elsewhere on their behalf; or suggesting that one will withhold efforts on their behalf unless they take one's desired action.
Yes, some of those would probably make good examples. PS: As a side point, the various examples and stuff in the page already are veering between "you" and "one", and should pick one or the other. Update: I fixed that already.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:58, 31 October 2023 (UTC); revised 08:33, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

I really appreciate your suggestions here. I do believe that is much more concise, getting directly to the point, and have implemented it. Noah, AA^Talk 17:02, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Glad to help. I guess all these years of policy-wonking are paying off. Heh. Now I guess just construct some examples based on your first draft's wording, and maybe post the whole thing as a block so people can examine it as a complete entry.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:09, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

I posted them above where they are clearly visible. I felt it prudent to mention that the items mentioned in the example are not an exhaustive list but rather only a few of many possibilities. Noah, AA^Talk 17:16, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Those are both stance-changing examples. Might be better to use one of your other ideas (performing an actual admin action?) in one of them. And the examples need not repeat wording from the principle. Maybe something like "An editor asks another to change their support or oppose in a discussion, based on the first editor having closed an earlier RfC in favor of the second's position." And "An editor asks an admin to warn another editor for alleged PoV-pushing, and hints that the first editor's pending GAN or FAC review of an article mostly written by the admin might be in the balance." A third example wouldn't hurt, especially if it addressed the concern on everyone's lips: "An editor asks another to change their vote at RfA on the non-substantive grounds of the friendship or support the first has previously given the voting editor." If peeps only wanted two examples, I would keep the third and drop the first since they're conceptually very similar.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:43, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

I worded it similarly to how you stated, but with a few modifications. Noah, AA^Talk 17:54, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

I patched up the page to use "you/your" consistently, replacing the isolated incidents of "one/one's", so below I modified the proposed text to comply.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:33, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Revised proposed text

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

To make it clearer what the proposed addition to WP:Gaming the system#Gaming the consensus-building process is, here it is in a block, without all the above word-smithing and in situ tweaking it went through:

1. Transactional politics or tit for tat – asking an editor to take an action (e.g. change their stance in a discussion) on the basis of your efforts taken elsewhere on their behalf; or suggesting that you will withhold efforts on their behalf unless they take your desired action.

   Example: An editor asks another to change their vote at RFA on the basis of prior support given or other actions taken on their behalf by the first editor.

   Example: An editor asks an admin to warn another editor for alleged PoV-pushing, and hints that the first editor's pending GAN or FAC review of the admin's article may be in jeopardy if action isn't taken by the admin.

   Example: An editor asks another editor to support their RfC in exchange for their support in another discussion.

Except this would actually be list item 5 in that section.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:33, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

• As essentially the co-proponent at this point, I obviously support adding this to the guideline, as I think it correctly addresses best (and not-so-best) practices; is responsive to concerns raised at WT:RFA, a specific RfA's talk page, and WP:AN, then ultimately WP:RFAR (with very little in the way of counter-opinion); and after the initial good instinct to draft this by Hurricane Noah, I've massaged it into proper guideline language, so it is good to go. PS: The 2nd example isn't responsive to a specific recent incident, but is illustrative of an inverse situation (stick rather than carrot), and we try to have the examples in here provide such coverage.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:48, 1 November 2023 (UTC); rev'd. 08:44, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
• Support, as the person who started said AN thread. We can and should regulate these kinds of behaviour, and this helps to avoid a lot of emotionality and WP:INVOLVEDness that may otherwise occur, RfA or elsewhere. Fermiboson (talk) 10:28, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

  Oh, and, should this be in WP:CENT? Fermiboson (talk) 10:37, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

  I would never use CENT for something this probably-no-brainer and minor. Just for something that is apt to be highly contentious and likely to affect a large number of articles or editors. And I think going that route would draw unnecessary negative attention to a particular editor who has already conceded that they erred.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:25, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

• Support; though this should really be unnecessary what with AGF and all, i was so mouth-falling-open shocked at the RfA comments which triggered this i have to agree that perhaps we do need this addition. Happy days, ~ Lindsay^Hello 14:27, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
• Support As the initial proposer. I am absolutely fine with this rewording. After what transpired, I felt the need to put it into a guideline or policy since those actions clearly were wrong. Noah, AA^Talk 14:46, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose as phrased. Gaming the system means deliberately misusing Wikipedia policy or process for personal advantage at the expense of other editors or the Wikipedia community. Threats of future admin action to vote the way you want are obviously gaming the system under this definition, as would be explicitly changing your own vote in exchange for someone else's, but what's gaming the system about invoking your friendship with another editor to convince them to vote your way? That's a bad argument, but there's no policy or process that it's misusing. WP:GAMING doesn't just means actions that interfere with a policy or process, or any !vote not based in policy at any RfC would be WP:GAMING. Loki (talk) 01:56, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Discussion to address LokiTheLiar's concerns

@LokiTheLiar: I felt it prudent to mention that it also states in the introduction: to simply engineering "victory" in a content dispute or an untoward result in an RfC or other community discussion. Would invoking your friendship and your prior support as a means to convince someone to change their !vote not be engineering victory or attempting to get a false consensus? If someone is deliberately taking actions that prevent a process from functioning as it should, that by definition should fall under gaming since it is a misuse of the process at the expense of others. Just some food for thought. Noah, AATalk 02:00, 2 November 2023 (UTC) In context, that's a definition of "personal advantage", not gaming as a whole. Otherwise, again, every bad !vote on any process would be gaming the system. Gaming is also defined later as: An editor gaming the system is seeking to use policy in bad faith, by finding within its wording some apparent justification for disruptive actions and stances that policy is clearly not at all intended to support. In doing this, the gamester separates policies and guidelines from their rightful place to document community consensus, and attempts to use them selectively for a personal agenda. Loki (talk) 12:12, 2 November 2023 (UTC) What are your thoughts on the new wording? Noah, AATalk 12:15, 2 November 2023 (UTC) I would strike "prior" and would still change the examples. Loki (talk) 12:21, 2 November 2023 (UTC) Example: An editor asks another editor to change their vote at RFA on the basis of either prior support given to the second editor or actions taken on behalf of the second editor. Would this be an acceptable wording? Noah, AATalk 02:16, 2 November 2023 (UTC) Such a re-wording is okay by me, as long as it's still getting the same general point across. I think "prior support given to the second editor or actions taken on behalf of the second editor" is kind of repetitive, though, and it's not entirely clear where the "action" or "support" is from, and we're already substituting "they/their" for "second editor" so should continue. It could be compressed to something like: An editor asks another to change their vote at RFA on the basis of prior support given or other actions taken on their behalf by the first editor." (and even the last word could be dropped).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:04, 2 November 2023 (UTC) Changed it to that. I believe the argument here made by Loki is that the old one could have introduced any non-substantive grounds as gaming rather than just what we intended. Noah, AATalk 11:24, 2 November 2023 (UTC) Works for me. @Fermiboson, LindsayH, LokiTheLiar, and Sunrise: Pinging previous !voters in case they would care about this wording clarification.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:03, 2 November 2023 (UTC) Fine by me. Fermiboson (talk) 12:05, 2 November 2023 (UTC) Please note that prior was removed from the proposed guideline and a third example was added dealing with an actual present transaction. Noah, AATalk 12:29, 2 November 2023 (UTC) Fine by me, too; seems clear and straight-forward. Happy days, ~ LindsayHello 18:17, 2 November 2023 (UTC) "what's gaming the system about invoking your friendship with another editor to convince them to vote your way?": Our system is based on editorial consensus forming on the merits of a question. "Horse-trading" tit-for-tat politics just games and potentially corrupts it by encouraging long-term and/or advanced-permissions editors to wield influence to get decisions made to suit their preferences instead of on the merits, and encourages other editors to start engineering and collecting influence that they can leverage later – instead of collaborating to work on an encyclopedia.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:55, 2 November 2023 (UTC) My issue with this wording is, why is that horse-trading? Horse trading is in fact bad. However, some actual horses have to be traded for horse trading to have occurred. It's not just saying "I want you to vote my way" without a concrete offer to do something for the other person. Loki (talk) 12:07, 2 November 2023 (UTC) It's not an offer to do something but rather they already did something and expect payment in return. It's the attempt at getting the other editor to comply that's the wrong conduct here. If said editor does comply, then a trade would indeed have occurred. Relationships are often give and take by nature and that's what was being captured. Nonetheless, we changed the wording to be more clear on this matter. Noah, AATalk 12:10, 2 November 2023 (UTC) Why? What is actually being traded? Horse trading is not giving someone a horse for free a long time ago, and then right now saying "I want this horse you have because of the horse I gave you months ago". The fundamental issue I object to here is that the proposed guideline doesn't have any notion of imminence. Hard cases make bad law, and I feel in this case you're trying to fit the provoking case so closely that you're missing large and obvious parts of what an anti-tit-for-tat guideline actually ought to look like. Like, the core example of offering an action for an action right now isn't covered! Loki (talk) 12:18, 2 November 2023 (UTC) It's more the concept that the editor feels they have a token to cash in at some future point. Sometimes a person doesn't state what they want at the time they decide to make a "trade" but gets an IOU to cash in when they do know what they want. I see your point regarding that... I struck prior and added a third example. Noah, AATalk 12:30, 2 November 2023 (UTC) Well, a present-trade example is now included. Are we good to go? This back-and-forth is kind of drowning the poll, and should maybe be refactored into a "Discussion" subsection or at least {{collapse}}d.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:54, 2 November 2023 (UTC) I put a collapsebox around it, to stop this from overwhelming the rest of the discussion any further.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:59, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

• Support. No comment on the situation that created this, but it's a fundamental principle that every situation should be evaluated based on the merits rather than being subject to unrelated influences (of any kind). It may be relevant to note that this is a separate concept from compromise, that being a normal part of building consensus. If this isn't the best place for the statement to be included, then an alternative location can be proposed, either now or in the future. Sunrise (talk) 04:26, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
• Support in light of recent events and so as to ensure they do not reoccur. Patient Zero^talk 01:26, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
• Support Oppose A good rule (if it even needs saying) , but IMO this is not the place for it....it's not really about gaming. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:33, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

  So, where would you put it?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:39, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

  It's so fundamental and so applicable to everything that I'm not sure. All decisionmaking is supposed to be based on the merits/particulars of what is being decided. Maybe wp:consensus? Or maybe this is as good of a place as any to start even though it is a completely different type of gaming. I've reversed my "oppose" North8000 (talk) 12:40, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

  I definitely could see it also being mentioned at WP:CONSENSUS in some different form (in that the text above is sculpted to fix into this page's format in particular), especially since the main incident that inspired this would have almost certainly resulted in a de-sysop if not for the "I've been socking all along" disclosure bomb that made that moot. Lots of our P&G pages make essentially the same point in different wording multliple places, and this tends to be helpful, since different phrasing sinks into different heads, it has a reinforcement effect, and the same idea being laced through multiple internal rule pages makes it difficult to suppress by a later "civil PoV" pusher.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:24, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

• Reluctant support, as it seems enumerating this will benefit the community. I'm worried certain this will sometimes be linked in cases where someone chooses to "stake" reputation (E.g. "Remember these other articles you've seen me improve, I am sure I can improve this one if I get the chance"). But I also trust the community to see past such accusations. —siroχo 04:45, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

  Might even be able to add a footnote or something about that to forestall such an argument, though your lone example is a bit opaque to me.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:26, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

  I think my concern is slightly related to @Firefangledfeathers concern below, but maybe a bit more informal. Mostly, it's about longer-term "informal" collaboration being raised in discussions like those at AfD. I do think it can be clarified in a footnote. —siroχo 23:05, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

• Support. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 15:06, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
• Comment: I support this idea in principle, but I'm aware of a kind of tit-for-tat that is common practice and I wonder if we all agree that it's a bad thing. I'm referring to review swaps at places like DYK and GA. I've seen a few review swap cases in the wild and don't see evidence of the potential danger: that people won't be thorough in their reviews and just wave things through. I bet there's a way to reword the proposal to avoid implicating this type of tit-for-tat, unless it's intentionally covered. If that's the case, it might be nice to drop a note at the DYK and GA pages to solicit some input. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:05, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

  This wouldn't cover well-established and voluntary "work-trading" stuff like that, where you legitimately do something and someone legitimately does something for you in return. Even aside from processes like DYK and GA, this stuff goes on all the time at an individual level, as a form of collaboration. That's not system-gaming of any kind. We can just cover that in a footnote. This is about misusing past, or threatening future, action to thwart normal process (consensus formation, use of admin tools, proper closure of discussions, etc.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:21, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

  It's not meant to, but it could be construed that way. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:41, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose because firstly the behaviors described aren't "gaming the system" (←please go read the Wikipedia article, and think about whether "Hey, I really didn't expect you to vote against me at RFA. What could I do to change your mind?" is a plausible example of using the rules and procedures meant to protect a system to, instead, manipulate the system for a desired outcome). The intention behind this seems to be more like "being a manipulative jerk". Secondly, it's unnecessary. We don't need to write down (here, or really anywhere) that we object to manipulation and retaliation and anti-social behaviors generally. Also, the "hint" in the second item could be unintended perception ("Ugh, can you deal with this guy? I know I promised to review your article, but this is soaking up all my time"), and the last item is just a boring old case of WP:CANVASSING, which need not be repeated here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:41, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

  Hmm, but there isn't an example in there that corresponds to "Hey, I really didn't expect you to vote against me at RFA. What could I do to change your mind?". On your "why" point: there seems to be a concern shared here by a lot of people that we do need to have a written rule about jerky manipulation, retaliation, and other anti-social behaviors; much of WP:NPA, WP:AGF, WP:CONSENSUS, etc. address them in much more general terms; we're here just addressing it in an influence-peddling-or-threatening way to game the system. The 2nd example: So, how would you rewrite it? The 3rd isn't "just" canvassing, but tit-for-tat to engineer a consensus-thwarting outcome. But perhaps you can think of a different example that would work better.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:17, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

• Support Especially in places like RfA, this kind of behavior can be problematic and contributes to the idea of "it's more important who you know" than actual ability or conduct. When someone's appealing to people to change their votes based exclusively on their relationship with the voter and NOT any valid point about the candidate, that's a problem. Intothatdarkness 16:00, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
•  Added in Special:diff/1185279209 Sincerely, Novo Tape (She/Her)^{My Talk Page} 18:51, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.