User talk:Deryck Chan/Admin coaching

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The place for Deryck to do his talks and tutorials with his kind coaches, EWS23 and Kimchi.sg.

Ready whenever you are. :o) UTC+8, hmm? I'm UTC-7, so it's basically as far away as you can get, but that's not a problem. Any ideas on how you want to start? EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 07:14, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Am I supposed to have any idea? I don't think so ^^ --Deryck C. 08:27, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

lol, No problem. I'm sure Kimchi.sg will have some good ideas, but how about we start off with the standard RfA questions? It should serve as a good introduction to yourself, for example why you want to be an admin, what you do here on en-wiki, etc. EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 08:38, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfA questions

(Note: Don't worry too much about these, you can always change or tweak the answers for the real RfA; just answer them honestly. Also, all three of us should feel free to add more questions here if we feel it will be helpful.)

1. What sysop chores, if any, would you anticipate helping with? Please check out Category:Wikipedia backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.

A:

2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?

A:

3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

A:

These are the major cause of my failure in my past RfA: I don't know how to answer them well provided that I don't have good facilities.

For the sysop chores, most people ask for the answer "RC patrol"; however I'm simply unable to do that because I've slow connection that whenever, in the past, I tried to diff a page to see if it's vandalism, and finds it is, and then clicks edit and revert - the history page, afterwards, never show my name but the name of some user else saying "rv/v" or "Reverted edits by ... to last version by ...". Obviously, somebody overtook me and I couldn't revert it myself.

Therefore, last time, I answered page protection and other related stuff. I've noticed that a few articles were locked for no reason and I said I should check out those pages and unprotect them. However, the opposers then argued "does these pages exist?" I pointed to the page which I previously founded protected, but it was unprotected already. Not being an admin at that time, I didn't know there is a way to view protect logs.

For the second question, my "best" article have been defeatured already, sort of giving me no way to succeed. And about the third question... see my past RfA. I answered a previous conflict, and the voters gave me an oppose vote because of that.

The compound result is: I didn't get elected. Perhaps you coaches come because you're to guide me through the answers?

Moreover, I hope we put the RfA thing to the last step of this coaching, because I more desperately need a talk on how to be, not become an admin, for the time being, as I'm already elected admin on another Wiki. At this stage I believe another RfA here is quite out of the question. --210.0.198.76 10:12, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

• 210.0.198.76 was me, Deryck C.. This is the proxy server I use to bypass the always-enforced IP-block imposed on the shared IP range of my ISP.

Thank you for your candid answer. I certainly wasn't implying that an RfA would occur tomorrow, just simply trying to get an idea of where you're coming from, what you want to do, etc., and I think this helps us quite a bit. Here are a few comments:

• • It's understood that not everyone can RC Patrol, and obviously a slow connection is a perfectly valid excuse for not doing so. If you were to become an admin, the rollback button would certainly help, but given that you don't have the capacity to do it when you're not an admin, it probably shouldn't be one of your "what I want to do" statements. Besides, we need more admins who focus less on vandalism and more on the other tasks.
  • Speaking of the other tasks, the other major admin task you haven't mentioned is deletion. There are almost always deletion backlogs, so if you were comfortable doing those tasks, you could be a very productive administrator with that alone. Are you comfortable with the idea of deleting pages, and how familiar are you with the policies at WP:CSD, WP:PROD, and WP:AFD?
  • Are you now comfortable viewing logs, including protection logs, deletion logs, block logs, etc.? We could certainly take some time to go over that until you're comfortable with it, as it's fairly important for administrators to understand.
  • Don't worry that your best article was defeatured; just because it was defeatured doesn't mean it's a bad page. None of my pages have gotten even close to being featured, and the fact that you were able to write an article that got featured in the first place and have been through the FA process is a major plus in my book. Basically what I'm trying to say is that your answer to question #2 can actually be much better than what mine was on my RfA, so there's no need to worry too much about that.
  • Don't worry too much about your previous RfA. You didn't do that bad, and I think you're much better prepared now than you were back in October. Also, hopefully you'll be much better prepared by the end of this program. :o)
  • Finally, don't worry about having to answer the RfA questions. We will both help you make your answers the best they can be.

I hope my long answer wasn't too overwelming for you- we can take as long as you want to get all this stuff accomplished, and it can be done in many steps. If you feel like responding to some of the bullet points individually, feel free to do so directly under them so that the flow of conversation can be more clear. Thanks for taking the time to read all this, and I look forward to helping you! EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 19:01, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I've read those deletion pages in the past, but I spot that many administators aren't following the rules when the make a decision. Most frustratingly, administrators would rather like to listen to one another's advice about a proposed guideline, instead of a non-admin's argument showing that the existing guidelines doesn't demand the deletion of the article. (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ultimate Logging System Professional)

Moreover, some people would like to take an advantage of the jet-lag to put up some last-minute arguments. From that deletion I've given above, you can see that my comment wasn't replied in two days, but suddenly two rebuttos appeared right the moment before the closing of the debate. That gave me no time to respond and - of course - the article got deleted.

I sort of disagree against the current deleting procedure as the last person to talk always seemed to win. And this "last person" is chosen by time, not by event.

I think I can help with dealing deletion by giving guideline-abiding arguments and judgements - but only provided that nobody else would twist the rules when I work.

About the logs stuff, now I'm very familiar with the logs - as an admin on the other Wikipedia myself. Deletion logs, protect logs, block logs and others. I know how to read them and what to write on the edit summaries of them.

Really hope for your reply. --Deryck C. 03:23, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I think I'd force myself to translate the admin's reading list into Cantonese to make myself read it. --03:34, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I understand the frustration having an article deleted that you felt should be kept, or vice versa; every Wikipedian who has been around an extended period of time knows that feeling. Is the system perfect? No. But the best way to fix it is to abide by policy and do the best personally that you can do.

As far as the AfD discussion that you linked above, I feel I should point out the timestamps. The nominator's response to you came 2 days after your post. About 2 more days after that, another person votes to delete. Then, Essjay's closure came 22 hours after that final comment, a total of about 5 days after your comments. He sees five people plus the nominator who feel it should be deleted, and only two who feel it shouldn't. Obviously yours was the most informed and detailed of the comments, but when that many people advise to delete and the nominator can produce a low Google count, it's a relatively clear-cut delete. So, while I understand your emotions about wanting the page to be kept, and this could certainly be case of the systematic bias of en-Wikipedia, I urge you to assume good faith of all individuals involved.

As far as your desire to do deletions via strict guidelines, that is entirely up to you, and how diligent you are personally. For example, you can see my deletion log, which has a thought-out and applicable policy to all my deletions. Given your desire to abide by policy, I'm sure you would do the same should you become an administrator.

I hope you take all my comments as efforts to help you become a better Wikipedian and potential admin. Let me know if you have any further questions or comments. EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 04:58, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I came late into here, I've been deleting stuff in categories of images without source info and on Wikimedia Commons, among other places. :o) Another helpful place you can help in is tagging images - as WP:RCP mentions, Special:Newimages will list newest uploaded images, which you can examine for copyright violations. Our deletion backlogs for images easily surpass that of articles on any day, we could always do with extra help.

I have nothing else to say for now besides what EWS23 has said, except that you should not be discouraged by your previous RfA. Standards have changed much since then, and if you can meet current voters' expectations, your chances of getting the mop will be quite high. Sam Vimes also failed his 1st RfA and recently passed his second. Therefore the 1st RfA can be no hindrance. Kimchi.sg 08:47, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The oppose issues of RfA 1 - all easily fixable

I just had a quick review of your first RfA and notice that all the issues can be easily fixed:

1. Oppose votes 2 - 4, 6, 8 - 10 cited "Campaigning in signature" - just don't mention your RfA at all, to anyone, except if they have said beforehand that they would like to know when you're on RfA. Just go about editing as if the RfA isn't on. It was my rule of thumb in my own RfA.
2. Oppose vote 3 cited "I don't see much RC patrol/vandal fighting...I guess I'd like to see a broader particapation." - there are many backlogs even non-admins can tackle, such as articles for cleanup and articles for wikifying. Edit articles to eliminate them from the backlogs, and your involvement in article space will greatly increase.
3. Oppose vote 5 cited "still WAAAAAY too green in the political/user interaction aspect of the job of administrator." - if you tackle the wikification and cleanup backlogs, there will be articles to nominate for deletion, or to report as copyvios. Doing either of these will increase your visibility to the rest of the community, and they will know how well-versed you are in policy before you even mention "RfA".
4. Oppose vote 7 cited "I don't oppose campaigning, but I don't like these complicated signatures." - This has become a hot issue again recently; an editor was even blocked for having an overly long signature. While what exactly constitutes "overly long" is highly subjective, you'd benefit your chances of becoming administrator if you change your signature to something more plain. For example, another new admin Blnguyen simply bolds his name in the signature. This keeps his name highly visible while not making the signature too long (see his talk page for the effect). Experiment a little and I think you can come up with something that is not too long, yet is easily visible.

Regards, Kimchi.sg 09:19, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I've been doing a lot of cleanups. Perhaps doing more towards that direction would give me a better future. Er - for the personalized signature, maybe I should really shorten it a bit - but do you mean the code or the outlook? --Deryck C. 10:33, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Moreover the main reason that people voted my delete were due to influence by other initiall oppose-voters who changed to neutral. You should check out those comments and see what can I do better. --Deryck C. 10:34, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

The more I look at it, the more I think the code for your signature needs shortening. At 1280x800 screen resolution with browser window maximised, your signature takes up about 2 whole lines in the editing textbox. It's 222 characters in total, excluding the automated timestamp. The bulk of it is <font> tags that can be removed; just settle on one colour and it should be much shorter. Removing all the <font> tags will halve the length of your signature code to a much more palatable 111 characters.

A issue the neutral votes commented on was edit summaries. Please turn on the "prompt me when entering a blank edit summary" option (last one in the Editing tab) in Special:Preferences, as Winhunter's recent RfA showed, edit summaries still matter. Mathbot's tool will tell you your edit summary usage in article space; currently yours stands at "38% for major edits and 74% for minor edits" which is not at all desirable.

Lastly, the expectations of RfA voters change with time. You should start participating in RfAs and related discussion, to gauge the demands of the community. Kimchi.sg 11:17, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I can't use mathbot's tool =.= the fetching socket failed.

For the signature stuff, I believe the esperanza green e contributed to the most of the code on my signature, which demanded me to alter colours and links nearly every character. I've changed to this new shorter signature, see if it looks better. --Deryck C. 15:56, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

It looks not bad - 2/3 of a line. --Deryck C. 15:56, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Although there's one thing I really have to worry: RfA voters view a long long long history. As titoxd pointed out, in the past a candidate got an oppose vote for a 3RR block a year ago. I don't think my previous history will give me a great chance for another success, honestly. --Deryck C. 15:58, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Which history is that, may I ask? I don't see anything in the block log, and certainly a single failed RfA changes your chances very little, especially since it was almost a year ago now. Kimchi.sg beat me on the comment about edit summaries, which I was going to bring up. Using another tool, I see that your article-space edit summary percentage is actually quite good, but I think you should really strive for 100% edit summaries on every single edit. Even if that means simply putting the word "reply" when posting on talk pages or putting the word "typo" when fixing spelling mistakes. RfA voters are really picky about edit summary percentages, and it's something that's relatively easy to fix if you're diligent about it. EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 19:57, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Most of that history was pointed out at my first RfA as a reason for an oppose. May I ask, does that mean I have to put down an edit summary on every single edit I do, anywhere, not just articles, but even talk pages, project pages, my own user page, etc, etc. ???

As strange as it may seem at first, most people prefer this, yes. You should consider it for three reasons: 1) Low edit summary percentages will hurt your chances of an RfA, 2) It helps RC patrollers sort through your legitimate edits quicker, and 3) believe it or not, it does come in handy- you may find yourself thinking things like, "where was it that I added that userbox to my page?", et al. It doesn't have to be anything long (a simple "reply" or "reply to EWS23" will do fine on talk pages for the most part), and once you get used to it you barely notice it and it takes very little time. EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 18:44, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'm getting used to this habit now. Today I was interwiki-ing a number of articles between here and the Cantonese Wikipedia, and I used an auto-complete edit summary "+interwiki zh-yue" on them :P. So, after edit summaries, what's next? --Deryck C. 15:59, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Next steps

Let's see...the Administrator's Reading List is always a good place to start. I'm not suggesting that you should read the entire thing now (though it's a good idea in the long run), but perhaps skim it and see if there are any policies you need some clarification on, or would like some practical experience in. For example, I could put together a collection of pages you might find at CAT:CSD, and you could make the decision whether to keep or delete them based on policy. Just one idea, perhaps Kimchi.sg will have others. :o) EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 18:45, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm a little surprized by the contents of the ARL - many of them are manual-maintained logs, or discussion pages, instead of guidelines. It doesn't really look like a "reading" list, but an "event" list. Anyway, I'm gonna skim through those guideline pages in the near future, but not now. I've two articles for the school magazine to complete by 4 Jul HKT. --Deryck C. 17:26, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

So, we seem to have hit a bit of a lull here. Do either of you have any ideas what you'd like to do next? I'm willing to answer any questions Deryck may have about any of the written (or unwritten) rules that apply to administrators. Also, as I suggested above, I could create any number of scenarios for you to answer how you'd handle if you'd like to test your policy knowledge/execution. Let me know what you think. EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 01:03, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I'm quite afraid of those unwritten but widely applied rules. You can ask me about some of them and see whether I'm used to them. --Deryck C. 08:04, 12 July 2006 (UTC)