Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Mike Selinker

The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a successful request for adminship. Please do not modify it.

[edit] Mike Selinker

Final (58/0/2) Ended Sat, 18 Nov 2006 17:28:35 UTC

Mike Selinker (talk • contribs) – Mike Selinker has been with us since August 2005. Nowadays he's one of the most active editors in one of Wikipedia's most important but least loved areas: categorisation and WP:CFD, work for which he has received several barnstars. Mike is a mature and focussed user; he has no interest in vandal fighting and the like and no burning desire to be an admin. However, I feel that Mike should be promoted for the good of the enyclopedia. He's already closing CFD debates, now we need to give him the tools to do the job more effectively. kingboyk 16:21, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

(Co-nomination) – I have to tell you that I'm truly honoured to be able to (co-)nominate Mike Selinker for adminship. Thing is, he's already one of the hardest-working "admins" around, he just doesn't have the "tools" yet. He works closely with User:Kbdank71 [1] (and others) closing CfDs, and is probably the most prolific nominator of Categories for discussion (typically rename) this side of User:ProveIt. I've found him to be helpful, fair-minded, even-tempered, always open to discussion, and not opposed to changing his mind. So as I said from the start, I'm pleased and honoured to nominate him for adminship. - jc37 23:22, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

(Co-nomination) – I have worked on numerous projects with Mike over the past year. Through it all, I've been extremely impressed with his technical and personal skills, and I share jc37's observation that he has acted like an administrator from the beginning. Mike is courteous, communicative, flexible, and diplomatic. He's very good with inexperienced and upset users, helping them with technical issues and bringing them to the table. He's shown tremendous dedication to the project, most visible in the countless hours he's spent on the complex and unrewarding job of cleaning-up our messy categorization schemes. I wanted to nominate him all the way back in March, but was convinced that he would not be interested. I'm happy Kingboyk has convinced him to accept the burden. I anticipate that Mike will be a low-key administrator, but his judgement, experience, diplomacy, and tireless work ethic make him well suited for whatever admin tasks he chooses to take on. ×Meegs 01:59, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: Count me in.

• You guys are adorable. I'd be happy to accept, if people think it's a good idea. I want to be an admin if it makes other people's lives easier, which these three guys think it will. Feel free to ask more questions. (One thing, though, I'll be at a convention from Wednesday to Monday, so I may lag between answers. If people feel that my nomination should be extended or delayed to account for that, that's cool with me.)--Mike Selinker 09:36, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia in this capacity. Please take the time to answer a few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:

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

A: I'm fairly obsessive about parallelism and cleanup, so I'm likely to continue helping out with category management and minor article improvement. I like clearing out backlogs, so where I see them, I'm likely to try to make them go away. I don't have any strong desire to help with the authoritarian functions like slapping vandals on the nose, but I will if it's needed. I might be interested in arbitration and mediation once I learn more about them.

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

A: I can hardly remember what the athlete categories looked like before I got there, but at some point I said, "All these football players need a team category, a college category, and a position category." Now with the help of Meegs and lots of others, those players all have those categories, and basketball players have a similar array, and so on. Sure, I like all the articles I've contributed to, but my favorite thing was to identify a project that needed thousands of edits to complete--and then complete it. I might soon feel the same way about the subcategories of category:Wikipedians I've been helping in cleaning up. I'm a believer that Wikipedia will eventually, if we work at it, encompass all manner of imformation about all manner of subjects. I find it delightful that every minor Simpsons character and every band on Guitar Hero has a page here. But that's why I'm so obsessive about categories, because you have to not overwhelm someone who opens a category like category:Fictional characters with a million options. Getting that right now will pay dividends down the road, and that's why I care about such minutiae. I hope that helps folks understand where I come from.

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: A few, I guess. When people are curt or insulting, I usually step back and attempt to react calmly and with soothing words. Provoking me isn't easy, but of course that means that when I am provoked, I can be fairly savage. But it doesn't happen often, and I would prefer that it happened not at all.

Optional questions from Malber (talk • contribs)

4. What do the policy of WP:IAR and the essay WP:SNOW mean to you and how would you apply them?

A: Seems like they both boil down to "Try to be nice." That is, don't throw rules up in your fellow editor's face when you know that rules are only temporary constructs anyway. And don't make work for other people when you know it's going to be a waste of time. Those guidelines are highly intuitive in a project this large.

5. Is there ever a case where a punitive block should be applied?

A: Sorry to go all John Roberts on you, but I have no idea, as I've never blocked anyone, nor participated in getting anyone blocked, nor tried to stop it from happening. I'm not inclined to give an answer on something I know nothing about. I feel confident that I would never block anyone until I felt I knew more about the subject, or sought advice from people who did. (Although blocking does seem a fairly obvious step in terms of stopping vandalism.)

6. What would your thought process be to determine that a business article should be deleted using CSD:G11?

A: I don't delete articles much, and I admit I'd never heard of G11. My gut reaction is that it does make sense to avoid a company promoting itself. But you can't stop users from writing about what they like, or the encyclopedia ceases to be. So you just apply the Notability and NPOV tests as best as you can. Notability will allow you to delete articles that only the self-promoting company would want to exist, and NPOV will allow you to delete articles that contain statements that are unverifiable or biased. Once you've done that, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

7. I notice that most of your work in Wikispace is focused on user categories. Since our main goal is creating an encyclopedia, would you consider diversifying a bit more? (Radiant) 14:01, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

A: No disrespect intended, Radiant, but your question has a false premise. I only started on the user categories recently, after the CfD folks decided all user categories should have Wikipedian in their names. But I've certainly done a lot more work in the mainspace, especially in the sports categories and music categories. I tackle one giant category project at a time. One month it was folding [[:category:Singles by artist]] into category:Songs by artist, another month it was helping to fill category:College football teams, and so on. By my estimation, the user category project is close to done, and I'll soon find something else big to tackle in the mainspace.

General comments

• See Mike Selinker's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool. For the edit count, see the talk page.

Mike Selinker's editcount summary stats as of 10:58, 12th November 2006, using Interiot's wannabe Kate's tool]. (aeropagitica) 11:00, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Support

1. Support kingboyk 16:21, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
2. Strong Support as (co-)nominator. - jc37 10:57, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
3. Support Meegs 01:59, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
4. Technically premature support, despite the pile-on co-noms. (Please can we knock that sort of thing on the head? It's just getting to be silly at times.) Mike does sterling work on categorisation, and in my book, "low-key" is generally speaking a good thing. I might normally find it necessary to disclaim favouritism for a board-games editor (and indeed, worker in the field), but with Cheap Ass I don't think that's really an issue. :) Alai 02:26, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
5. Technically overdue support. —freak(talk) 09:37, Nov. 12, 2006 (UTC)
6. Technical support the extra buttons will help him in CFD/CFDU work where he has been hanging out at; I'm surprised he hasn't mentioned category stuff in his answer to question 1. Kavadi carrier 09:48, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
7. Provoking me isn't easy, but of course that means that when I am provoked, I can be fairly savage. Approved!. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{L} 10:32, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
8. Support Looks like a very good candidate for adminship. 30k+ edits and you didn't stick you head above the RfA radar horizon earlier? (aeropagitica) 11:02, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
9. Support - and why aren't you an admin? ST47Talk 12:22, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
10. Support per noms --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:29, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
11. Strong Support How are you not an admin? 30k+ edits, wow! Hello32020 12:52, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
12. Strong Support as the user is (censored)'n good an editor. Rama's arrow 15:29, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

    Erm, Wikipedia ain't censored for kids. ^_^ — Nearly Headless Nick ^{L} 10:53, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

13. Support. Honestly the first time I can say I thought someone was already an admin. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 15:52, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
14. Support semper fi — Moe 15:53, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
15. Support Looks good here. Nishkid64 16:04, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
16. Support --Terence Ong _{(C | R)} 16:24, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
17. Mike | Talk 16:35, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
18. Of course. — Deckiller 16:42, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
19. Support Levelheaded, hardworking, civil, and not overeager for the tools - but definitely with use for them. I look forward to seeing you plow through the backlogs at WP:UCFD. And in addition to all that, we get another sysop with an article. Picaroon9288 17:39, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
20. Support A mistake not to! ↔ ANAS - Talk 17:51, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
21. Support. Michael 18:35, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
22. Support Looks good to me.-- danntm ^T _C 18:57, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
23. Support per nom. John254 19:59, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
24. Support per nom, and for happily taking on (and even completing) a long list of thankless tasks. -- ProveIt ^(talk) 22:28, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
25. Support a good candidate --Steve _(Slf67) ^talk 23:39, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
26. Support per noms --Ageo020 (T • C) 01:42, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
27. Support It is time to give this user the tools. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 03:11, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
28. Support. Huge experience and no cause for concern that I can see. Rockpocket 04:17, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
29. Support. Wow, definitely should be an admin. Iridescence talk • contrib 05:08, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
30. Support Very experienced, with many fine edits! Jam01 06:05, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
31. Support absolutely. -- JamesTeterenko 06:28, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
32. I'm Mailer Diablo and I approve this message! - 07:52, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
33. Support. Maintenance work is always welcome. utcursch | talk 11:45, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
34. Support. Kudos for the will to dig through underground jobs. Duja► 13:34, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
35. I'm not Mailer Diablo but I approve this message anyway! - 14:01, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
36. Support. CFD master. Guy who likes this dirty job. :) - Darwinek 15:59, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
37. Support seems ok. Tim! 17:51, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
38. Support: his work at WP:CFDU has been good. TimBentley (talk) 00:52, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
39. Support, very positive interactions on CfD. --tjstrf talk 01:38, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
40. Support - does excellent work, can be expected to continue to do so. Badbilltucker 01:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
41. Merovingian ※ Talk 04:24, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
42. Support his good work with the tools. -- DS1953 ^talk 05:17, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
43. Strong Support because of his magnificent work and because of his nominator who is User:Kingboyk who I have a deep respect for. - Patman2648 08:43, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
44. Support. jni 14:45, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
45. Need more people like this in the trenches. riana_dzasta 04:55, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
46. Support. Looks like he will make a good admin. NauticaShades 10:28, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
47. Strong Support. Mike and I don't always see eye to eye (see jc37's co-nomination for an example), but he does a lot at UCFD, and does a damn good job of it. He can definitely make good use of the tools. --Kbdank71 20:09, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
48. Support Good balance and consistent Doc ♬ talk 22:11, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
49. Support. Zaxem 00:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
50. Support Ding Dong Special Delivery from FedEx: a New Mop! Wikipediarules2221 06:25, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
51. Support: Even though he voted twice to delete my wicked cool dead celebrities categories. Shame shame shame!!!  ;-) —Wknight94 (talk) 14:12, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
52. Support - all said somewhere above. Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 18:20, 16 November 2006 (UTC)`
53. Support sounds good to me. James086 ^{Talk | Contribs} 02:25, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
54. Support - will use tools constructively. -Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 03:42, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
55. Support, glad I caught this, Mike's a good editor, unlikely to abuse the tools. Steve block Talk 14:51, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
56. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 21:23, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
57. Support Sarah Ewart (Talk) 23:14, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
58. Support, Why wasn't he and administrator sooner? God, he has nearly 20,000 edits in just over a year! Alex43223 05:28, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
59. Support not an editor I'm extremely familiar with, but going through contribs and noting quality edits and good cummunication I can very confidently support. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 17:57, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

1. Neutral Seems like a nice guy and the co-noms indicate a lot of support. But his answers don't seem to demonstrate a need for the tools: he said that he won't be blocking people or deleting material, two primary functions of an admin. Also, would like to see a better understanding of relevant policy, or an indication that the policies have actually been read. —Malber (talk · contribs) 19:02, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

   I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to answer comments, but I didn't say I wouldn't be deleting material. I've at least prompted the deletion of many hundreds of badly named or poorly considered categories, and I'd prefer to be able to do that myself rather than bother admins with requests. I am an inclusionist, which means that an article has to be pretty blatant for me to want to delete it. (Also, I've read the policies. Please tell me what you want to know more about, and I'll do my best to answer it.)--Mike Selinker 20:28, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

   Mike already does an awful lot of work at WP:CFD. There are primary admin duties beyond blocking people or deleting material. Steve block Talk 14:51, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

2. Neutral - Don't know this user. --evrik ^(talk) 22:32, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

The above adminship discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.