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*****Maybe. It's merely a different quirk. I suspect we will find many more. Maybe the social pressure against opposes based on "you didn't answer my question about banannas" will increase if the question period is longer. Maybe not. [[User:Protonk|Protonk]] ([[User talk:Protonk|talk]]) 23:10, 7 October 2008 (UTC) |
*****Maybe. It's merely a different quirk. I suspect we will find many more. Maybe the social pressure against opposes based on "you didn't answer my question about banannas" will increase if the question period is longer. Maybe not. [[User:Protonk|Protonk]] ([[User talk:Protonk|talk]]) 23:10, 7 October 2008 (UTC) |
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*''discussion about voting early has been moved to [[Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Ironholds_2#Voting_before_voting_is_supposed_to_begin]] '''[[User:Naerii|<span style="font-size:15px;font-family:helvetica;color:#1693A5;">naerii</span>]]''' 01:27, 8 October 2008 (UTC)'' |
*''discussion about voting early has been moved to [[Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Ironholds_2#Voting_before_voting_is_supposed_to_begin]] '''[[User:Naerii|<span style="font-size:15px;font-family:helvetica;color:#1693A5;">naerii</span>]]''' 01:27, 8 October 2008 (UTC)'' |
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=====Support===== |
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Please do not voice a "support", "oppose", or "neutral" opinion until the question/discussion period is over; see disclaimer at the top of this RFA. |
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#Just to balance the early oppose and neutral votes. What the hell, apparently anything goes. [[User:CountyLemonade|C]][[User talk:CountyLemonade|L]] — 02:46, 8 October 2008 (UTC) |
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#:I started to, but overcame my rationale exuberance for the candidate. LOL. Cheers, [[User:Dlohcierekim|<font color="#00ff00"> Dloh</font>]][[User_talk:Dlohcierekim|<font color="#bb00bb">cierekim''' </font>]] 02:48, 8 October 2008 (UTC) |
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=====Oppose===== |
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Please do not voice a "support", "oppose", or "neutral" opinion until the question/discussion period is over; see disclaimer at the top of this RFA. |
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# For now. [[User:RMHED|RMHED]] ([[User talk:RMHED|talk]]) 23:57, 7 October 2008 (UTC) |
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=====Neutral===== |
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Premature support and oppose votes were removed by a bureaucrat. Have some respect for the attempt that is being made here to investigate a potentially superior alternative to the current system that many describe as broken. Don't sabotage this unnecessarily because you personally don't believe this is the best method. It may not be, but it may turn out to work better than the method we're currently using and I think it takes courage on the part of the candidate to be the guinea pig of this experiment. [[User:Avruch|<strong style="color:#000;background:#fff;border:0px solid #000">Avruch</strong>]][[User talk:Avruch|<sup><strong style="color:#000;background:#fff;border:0px solid #000"> T </strong></sup>]] 03:40, 8 October 2008 (UTC) |
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Please do not voice a "support", "oppose", or "neutral" opinion until the question/discussion period is over; see disclaimer at the top of this RFA. |
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#Screw the idea of "vetting" a candidate. This is politics at the worst, and I do not feel this format is in the candidate's best interest. Do not remove my !vote. [[User:Keegan|<font color="maroon">Keegan</font>]]<sup><small>[[User talk:Keegan|<font color="gray">talk</font>]]</small></sup> 01:56, 8 October 2008 (UTC) |
Revision as of 03:41, 8 October 2008
Note to readers: This is an experimental RfA based on the discussion on the RfA talk page. People will be given four days starting from Tuesday 7 October to ask questions and generally review the candidate. On Saturday 11 October, the discussion and questioning section will be closed and the voting section will open up. This is, despite the experimental nature, a serious RfA; I'd appreciate if people avoided "I don't like the layout, Oppose" comments.
Ironholds
(talk page) (0/0/0); Scheduled to end 17:52, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
I have an extraordinary respect for Ironholds. He has brought a peerless degree of intelligence, sincerity and dedication to this project. As an editor, he has worked tirelessly to expand the depth and scope of Wikipedia’s contents, both through the creation of original content and in his insightful observations within the AfD process. He also does a find job identifying articles deserving of Speedy Deletion and, where applicable, reporting users who violate Wikipedia policies. In his communications with his fellow editors, Ironholds displays maturity and good spirit, which helps to solidify the positive aspects of our community. By offering his candidacy in this variation of the RfA vehicle (which most of us agree is not working), he continues to show his passion for improving Wikipedia’s operations. By nominating Ironholds for adminship, I believe Wikipedia will be well served by this wonderful individual. Ecoleetage (talk) 18:54, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
- Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:I accept. Thanks to Ecoleetage for his kind words :).Ironholds 18:57, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Questions for the candidate
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. It is recommended that you answer these optional questions to provide guidance for participants:
- 1. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?
- A: Speedy Deletion candidates are something I'd like to focus on; several times while patrolling New Pages i've had to wait around for 25-30 minutes due to the lack of an admin, hitting F5 on my watchlist every few seconds to make sure people dont remove the speedy tags on their pages. Did You Know is my second and not-so-commonly-picked area to focus on; I've written quite a few and there's been occasions where the DYK's haven't been switched over for several hours.
- 2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
- A: I tend to focus on obscure area's people haven't heard off, having encountered the common problem that area's I'm an expert on have already written about by someone far more knowledgeable than myself, so I can't claim any FA's or GA's. The 21 DYK's (and another three confirmed and awaiting posting) are something I'm quite proud of, although I know (within reason) that having a DYK on an article is not a measure of the article's quality. I did once try for a Featured List (List of Stewards of the Manor of Northstead) which didn't go through but i'm still proud of; see before and after. The before is actually a bit deceptive; Most of those bluelinks were red when I started, but I created a load of articles (I think about 100, mainly stubs, about 10 decent big'uns) to bluelink it all up.
- 3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?
- A: No major conflicts that I can really think of. There was an argument over the clash between Wikipedia:Radio Wikipedia and Wikipedia:WikiUpdate which ended with uninvolved users generally telling everyone to shut the hell up. I was partially involved in that, and since then i've tried to serve as the voice of reason rather than the voice of "quick! more pitchforks!", such as at User:SoWhy's RfA, moving the discussion from the RfA before it could become the main focus of attention and trying to calm people down.
Optional Question from Davewild
- 4. Do you think you have addressed the concerns raised in your previous RFA's? If yes, could you explain how? Thanks. Davewild (talk) 18:07, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
- A:I believe I've addressed them, yes. The issues in the first two RfA's were no-brainers; even I (as I am now) wouldn't have me; I had barely 3000 edits of recategorising and general wiki-gnoming, a wildly fluctuating edit count between months and wouldn't have even known what the abbreviations CSD, XfD or ANI even meant. The third one was more interesting; some of the opposes came from me having a cynical and slightly offensive atheism-related userbox on my page (similar to that of SoWhy's RfA) while most were to do with real editing concerns. Chief among them were a complete lack of article work, bite-y tone, lack of WP:ANI contributions and some really inappropriate MfDing of userpages that verged (barely) on policy violations. I took some time off constant CSD and Recent Changes patrol, which definitely helped the stress levels and thereby the biteyness; since then I've tried to be more polite to new users (especially considering that, after a year and a half of edits, I knew barely more than they did). I've also been doing a lot of article work and have developed a real love of filling in redlinks and expanding articles; i've had 23 DYK's so far, all but 2 for new articles. I've also worked on trying to get the List of Stewards of the Manor of Northstead (see diffs in Q.2) up to Featured status; it didn't pass due to silly grammar and style issues, but I'm going to try again once I've finished my current "things to do" (which stands at about 20 bio's, getting a legal court to GA status and 5 lists of redlinks). ANI contributions are something I've been more involved in, and that and the inappropriate MfDing and so on have been helped by me trying to abide by the spirit rather than the text; the rule should be that if you have to twist and think to work out how something should be deleted, it shouldn't. Another (rather embarassing) complaint at my RfA was that I failed to capitalise my i's; this I've corrected and now make a conscious effort to do so. Ironholds 18:21, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Optional Question from Wisdom89
- 5. What do you consider to be your biggest weakness on Wikipedia? Once identified, do you feel it will/can hamper your ability to work as an administrator?
- A: I'm not the best person with the english language, by which I mean that I'll never churn out an entire FA or perfectly-phrased soliloquy. I don't feel this should harm my work as an administrator; I can fix my phrasing by simply working through the sentence in my head a few times (although this can be a long process when dealing with 40KB of text, hence my FA example). Ironholds 18:23, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
- Optional question from AGK
- 6. You previously edited under the O keyes account, and indeed had two RfAs whilst using that persona. Why (excluding any privacy reasons, which I will understand if omitted in any response) did you change your username? Did the change have anything to do with avoiding the somewhat curious "...4" after your RfA (specifically, one user requesting an RfA four times as one account may be regarded as power-hungry)? Anthøny ✉ 18:56, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
- A.Nothing like that; after all, the previous 3 still show up in a little box on the side. As cliched and, at best symbolic, as it sounds, I fancied a change. I previously linked to my old account contributions on my userpage for the sake of honesty, but it seems to have got lost in the shuffle of redesigns. Ironholds 19:21, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
- Option question for IMatthew
- 7. In your own words, what is the role of an administrator on Wikipedia?
- A.None of the normal phrases are applicable to the role, to be honest, although I use "banhammer" sometimes because I find it amusing. Banhammer implies that their job is to hit people with the heavy end when they mess up, "mop and bucket" makes them sound like some kind of Ubermensch, superior to us mere mortals and tasked with cleaning up our foolish, ignorant mistakes, which again is heavily inaccurate. An administrator to me is a user who has shown, through the RfA process, that he is trusted by the community (or at least the microcosm that spends time around RfA). He/She (lets say "he" for the rest of this for simplicity) is granted tools additional to those that a standard user can access because he has shown that he can be trusted not to misuse them (although misuse does, on occasion, happen). Being an administrator does not make you "better" than other users, it simply makes you more communally trusted. I'm sorry if I've repeated myself at any stage, but I believe that emphasising the difference between "more trusted" and "better" is something that needs to be firmly ingrained in peoples heads.Ironholds 19:21, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
- Questions from Garden.
- 8. How seriously do you feel the role of admin is taken on Wikipedia? Do you feel that you agree with this?
- A.The role of administrator is taken too seriously and not too seriously depending on the user. Many people seem to go between "adminship is a big deal" and "to quoth Jimbo, adminship is not a big deal" without looking at the details. Becoming an admin and the title of administrator is not a big deal, but using the tools and responsibilities correctly is. This is my (personal) opinion and something I feel is oft-overlooked. So in a nutshell: People take it too seriously and not seriously enough, with very few people in the middle. But then everyone with an opinion has the (majority) of people on either side of their fine line. Ironholds 23:42, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
- 9. Will having the admin status hamper your article contributions? Will you continue to do both of the highly important roles of sysop and editor?
- A.My editing time is normally divided thus: Write a bio/list. If I finish it in one session, write another one. If i'm bored of writing, do some quick New Page Patrolling or investigate any AfD's around, including those I start as part of my new page work. Holding administrator tools would not reduce my "proper editing" output since I genuinely enjoy writing; If I get bored of writing for an hour and look through New Pages I can actually get more work done in that position as an administrator, since after tagging a group of articles I don't have to sit around for 20 minutes on my Watchlist hitting F5 to make sure there's no improper removal of tags. CSD work and so on also gets boring on its own; that combined with my love for writing on one side, and the grind of article creation on the other means that neither type of contribution is going to take over my editing time completely.
- 10. Do you feel having so many RfAs makes one seem power hungry? How can you quash these claims by way of what you would like the tools for?
- A.Three previous RfA's indicates "this person was not judged a fit person to hold the tools" not "this person wants power for powers sake". I've applied for admin each time because I feel I can do good with the tools, not because I want to be some kind of uber dictator; I think my answers to previous questions show that that's exactly the opposite of my opinion of what an Administrator is.
- Question from Caulde
- 11. In your opinion, what do you think is the most commonly applied of all Wikipedia's 'policies' and why so? Do you agree it should be the most prevalent? Caulde 20:21, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
- The most widely enforced and applied policy is Wikipedia:BLP without a doubt, and for good reason. Wikipedia is one of the most widely viewed sites in the world, with a massively high search engine rating; "jennifer aniston" in google, for example, brings Wikipedia up in second place, and many people, however unwisely given complaints about its accuracy, use Wikipedia as a primary reference tool. Celebrities are people, and information posted on Wikipedia can shape how people view them, be it standard biographical information or offensive lies. As such, Wikipedia should constantly adhere to the policy, both to prevent any offense or harm coming to the articles subject and to prevent any kind of legal repercussions on the foundation. Ironholds 23:42, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
- 12. Do you feel that upon failing three RfA's your best course of action is to return with an experimental RfA? Please answer with consideration to the regular cycle of discussions concerning "how to fix RfA", "the mop is no big deal", "power hunger", and "drama for the sake of drama". Hiberniantears (talk) 20:52, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
- I find it quite offensive that people would assume that, although I can see why they would in a way. My choice of an experimental process is nothing to do with my previous failures under the old system, it is simply that someone has to go first, and I had previously considered rerunning anyway, having received several "I'd support you looking at your contributions now" messages and also a nomination offer. RfA discussions are like economic cycles; the boom and bust always comes round again. Every so often there is a mass debate where everyone agrees the current system is broken but nobody can agree exactly how it should be fixed. I decided it would be a good idea to just go right ahead, cut through the mass-debating and just run with a new idea. If it works, we've offered a possibility of a new system; if it doesn't, we've ruled something out for future debates. Either way we've made progress, although I doubt the debate will ever be resolved (My normal phrase is "when you have two wikipedians, you have three opinions"). I don't think its for the sake of drama, as I said earlier, people agree things need changing, but not what; should the process be reformed? The general philosophy? if it is process, what should we reform it to? I feel constantly debating over what is or is not the best way to reform something is not productive in something that comes up again and againIronholds 23:42, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
- Optional questions from Jameson L. Tai
- 13. How do you feel about being the first RfA to test the new RfA process? Do you feel this new process is better than the other three processes you've experienced? How?
- A.I'm fine with the idea; I volunteered for it after all :). This process is significantly different, in some obvious ways and some less obvious ones. I feel the system is better in that it seeks to test the candidate rather than base it on their past activities. If someone joins soley to become admin then, with the appropriate caution, they can create a perfect resume. 4 days of being probed on everything from process to process reform is more difficult to fake. This isn't something that affects me, obviously (anyone looking at my first 2 RfA's can see that if my aim was to become admin I did a piss-poor job of it), but it might help weed out a couple of "bad apples" that might otherwise get in, and maybe help out a couple of potentially fantastic admins who's contributions don't fit the typical "requirements" for an administrator. Ironholds 23:42, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
- 14. How do you see Wikipedia in five years? What types of improvements or changes to do you see happening?
- A. I'm not sure if we'll go through another catalytic process like that of 2003/2004, but I do see Wikipedia growing a lot bigger. I'm also thinking we'll see a mass shift in the next few years to quality over quantity. We currently have 10 active proposals for defining the WP:N guidelines to a finer degree, including things as varied as toys and political parties. Drawing a finer line in the sand will firmly keep out articles that don't have a place and, with a reducing number of new articles in relation to the growth of the userbase, switch the focus to improving the quality of articles. At the same time the near-current introduction of things such as flagged revisions should reduce vandalism, raising Wikipedia's reputation as an encyclopedia, rather than as happened last week, when 3 of my university tutors in seperate speeches about dissertations told us not to touch wikipedia with a vandal-encrusted pole. These could together cause problems; instruction creep through things like larger and more specific notability guidelines could bog the encyclopedia down, and following the principle of Incrementalism this could prove a problem; "items which were once deemed to be insufficiently notable to have articles may eventually prove notable enough for an entry" will not have an entry created due to the increasing complexity of process making overturning outdated rules difficult at best. Overall wikipedia will become more established and/or more bogged down in paperwork, although some would say this has been happening right from the beginning. Ironholds 23:42, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
- 15. There has been a shift of how the community votes for RfA. Please list your personal guidelines of what you look for when supporting or opposing a candidate.
- A.
- I'm going to post this in list for for simplicities sake, I'm afraid
- A high, regular edit count is required, emphasis on the regular. If the candidate made 20,000 edits a month 6 months ago (a bit OTT as an example, I know) and few since I have no way of seeing if he (for simplicity) has a good grasp of Wikipedia policy as it currently stands.
- FA's and GA's coming out of their ears is not a requirement. Despite points that admin tools are for varied tasks, most are used for two things: removing vandalism, and preventing it happening again. People argue that an admin should have a firm grasp of all policy; this is not a requirement for me. If a user has 100+ AIV reports and 1000 CSD's, all good nominations, then I trust he is an experienced editor in regards to those areas. If the users other contributions show a level of maturity and civility then I also trust that the user will not head right off to an area he has no firm grasp of; an AV editor is, when given the tools, not going to jump right into mediation work.
- Lack of blocks, general incivility or immaturity in the last 3 months (or more, depending on the ol' gut). I don't need to see that a user is a squeaky clean, perfect person who is cheery and lovely to everyone regardless of their behavior; this in most cases smacks of a user either in it for the tools or starting each day with a vallium enema. If a user has shown in their recent contributions either change or the ability to change, I will support or go neutral (again, the gut).Ironholds 00:23, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
- Optional questions from Erik the Red 2
- 16. Which has priority, WP:V or WP:BLP? In other words, should a verifiable fact be added to an article if it infringes of the privacy of a living person?
- In my opinion, BLP. If a perfectly verifiable fact infringes on a persons privacy it should be removed; we're an encyclopedia, not a gossip magazine or telephone directory. We have a moral responsibility, upon finding the address and phone number of Jennifer Aniston, to make sure that she isn't phoned day and night by everyone who can use a keyboard, and a legal responsibility to make sure that the Foundation isn't sued. Here in a world of near-perfect anonymity, should a user choose it, it is easy to forget privacy concerns. Think how unnerving people like Daniel Brandt are to any Wikipedia user who raises his head above the parapet, and imagine if his site was visited by millions of people yearly. The argument that it is "verifiable, publicly findeable" information may hold sway in a law of court, but morally it is a different story; regardless of whether or not the person is a celebrity, and "should be used to it", people have a basic, undeniable right to privacy. Ironholds 00:23, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
- 17. A user makes an insertion of a potential BLP violation, which is reverted by another user. There is a revert war, and the first user reports the second to WP:AN3 after 4 reverts. Do you block the second user?
- No. It isn't a case of "oh, the second user reverted first", as I mentioned before the maintenance of high quality, accurate BLP articles is of the utmost importance, and the 3RR policy specifically mentions the reversion of libelous or possibly damaging BLP information as an exception to the rule. I would, however, advise the second user of what he should have done and should do in future situations (Get in a third party or admin before it got to the 3RR violation point). The first user would be informed of our policies on BLP's, and again asked to get a third opinion in next time. I'd then keep an eye on both of them and the article itself until things cool down. Ironholds 00:23, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
- 18. A user is reported to AIV for vandalism after making 5 vandalistic edits. However, the first edit was reverted and the user wasn't warned, meaning that the user has not committed any vandalism after the final warning. Do you block the user?
- If his only contributions, including those 4 are vandalistic, yes, indefinitely; regardless of a "final warning" if three warnings of progressive severity which specifically mention blocks are not enough to dissuade him he's unlikely to be a helpful contributor. If he has a history of decent contributions, a block of between 48 hours and a week depending on the case specifics to give him time to cool down; previous decent edits indicates this is most likely the user loosing his cool, in which case a block will give him time to calm down. Future vandalism after the block expires will result in an indefinite block, however; similar to the "vandalism-only" account, vandalism and then not taking a block as a sign you should cool it shows that, regardless of previous edits, this user is likely to be a liability to the project in the future. Ironholds 00:23, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
General comments
- See Ironholds's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool. For the edit count, see the talk page.
- Links for O keyes: O keyes (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
- Links for Ironholds: Ironholds (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review Special:Contributions/Ironholds before commenting.
Discussion
- Do Q12-15 really have anything to do with adminship, or are they just being asked for the sake of asking questions?--KojiDude (C) 22:30, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
- Most likely the latter. :) Erik the Red 2 ~~~~ 22:42, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
- This is going to be an interesting unintended consequence of this format. Editors will be "punished" more for declining to answer certain questions. Protonk (talk) 22:54, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
- Most likely the latter. :) Erik the Red 2 ~~~~ 22:42, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
- discussion about voting early has been moved to Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Ironholds_2#Voting_before_voting_is_supposed_to_begin naerii 01:27, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Support
Please do not voice a "support", "oppose", or "neutral" opinion until the question/discussion period is over; see disclaimer at the top of this RFA.
- Just to balance the early oppose and neutral votes. What the hell, apparently anything goes. CL — 02:46, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Oppose
Please do not voice a "support", "oppose", or "neutral" opinion until the question/discussion period is over; see disclaimer at the top of this RFA.
Neutral
Please do not voice a "support", "oppose", or "neutral" opinion until the question/discussion period is over; see disclaimer at the top of this RFA.