This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1.
The arithmetic in post #88 is right; the assumption feeding it is the part to check.
Reviewing your own nomination is fine and is not sufficient. Somebody else has to read it for the process to mean anything.
One more caveat and then I will stop qualifying: the sample selected itself.
A promotion that is declined should leave the topic linked from wherever the question recurs, so the work is not lost.
I would want the raw data before agreeing with my own summary of it.
Two sentences on promotion criteria and then I will stop, because the rest is speculation and the thread is better without mine.
What is documented is narrow. What is inferred from it is broad. The gap between them is where every argument here lives.
Practical experience of promotion criteria, offered as one case with the conditions stated, not as a general finding. Conditions first, because they are what make it interpretable.
Narrowing post #92, because the general version has more than one answer.
Where the review finds the content is right but the framing overstates it, that is the most valuable catch available at this stage.
This is the answer, and the reason it is the answer is the more useful part.
Check the links. Promotion frequently breaks a cross-reference because the source topic now points at the document rather than the reverse.
Someone should write this up properly, and it should probably not be me.
Whatever the answer on promotion criteria turns out to be, the method for getting there is the same: state the assumption, do the arithmetic in public, invite the correction.
Right — I had this wrong and I am glad to have read it before it mattered.
Post #100 describes the usual case. This is about the unusual one.
Two claims get bundled together under promotion criteria and they need separating. The descriptive one — this is what was observed — is usually well supported. The causal one — this is why — usually is not.
Almost every disagreement in threads like this one dissolves once you say which of the two you are making.
I would rather this thread reach "we do not know" about promotion criteria than reach a confident answer that nobody can support when asked.
Promotion criteria has been discussed here with more heat than it deserves, mostly because two definitions have been in play the whole time.
Post #106 is the version of this I will quote in future. One addition.
Where the promotion criteria reasoning breaks down for me is the step from the group result to the individual case. That step is almost never argued for.
On promotion criteria, the part that usually goes wrong is that the question is asked as though it has one answer. It has a range, and the width of the range is the interesting bit.
If you can post the two or three numbers you are working from, several people here will check the arithmetic rather than argue about the conclusion.
Narrowing post #106, because the general version has more than one answer.
The most useful review comment names a sentence and says what is wrong with it. General approval and general concern are both hard to act on.
That reframing is the whole thing. The facts I already had.
I read the earlier replies on promotion criteria twice before writing this, because I had assumed the opposite and wanted to be sure I was disagreeing with what was said rather than what I expected.
My position on promotion criteria is current rather than settled. I have revised it once already and I expect to again, so treat it accordingly.
I had written a reply contradicting post #115 and deleted it. Here is what survived.
Where the promotion criteria discussion usually stalls is that nobody wants to say "I do not know" and everyone is willing to say "it varies". Those are the same sentence with different clothes on.
Confirming post #115 from a second method, which matters more than confirming it from a second person.
Offering a way to settle promotion criteria rather than another opinion about it. Two measurements, taken the same way, a fortnight apart. If the difference is within the noise, the question was not answerable at this precision.
Post #115 describes the usual case. This is about the unusual one.
Second maintainers matter. A single maintainer is a single point of failure and every document here that went stale had one.
I have three months of notes on promotion criteria and the honest summary is that the trend is real and the week-to-week numbers are noise. I nearly drew the opposite conclusion from the first fortnight.