Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/CMummert

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

[edit] CMummert

Final: (48/7/1); ended 01:00, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

CMummert (talk • contribs) - has been a Wikipedian for a year, and very active in the last nine months. CMummert did a lot of good work as part of the mathematics wikiproject, and I know that he has been active outside of mathematics also. I believe that CMummert is experienced with how Wikipedia works and will use the tools wisely. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:56, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept the nomination and feel honored that Oleg has nominated me. CMummert · talk 00:59, 16 March 2007 (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 participants:

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

A: I would be glad to assist with the backlogs of old AFDs, speedy deletion candidates, and requested moves.

My first edits as an administrator would be to help with the backlog of requests for protected edits. Many of these are routine, but a few may require editing templates. I have some experience with complicated templates after significantly editing {{maths rating}} and writing and testing code that was added to {{cite book}}, so I would be glad to make noncontroversial edits to protected templates. I have already made a few edits to nonprotected templates such as {{citations missing}}.

I do not spend a large amount of time fighting general vandalism, but I I have about 1100 pages on my watchlist, including pretty much every article in mathematical logic, that I watch for vandalism. I have occasionally needed to post to WP:3RR or WP:ANI because of continued vandalism over a short period of time. I have not followed these pages closely as an ordinary editor, but would contribute my time as an administrator.

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

A: I have edited many of the pages in the general area of mathematical logic, and am proud of my contributions in that area. In particular, I have written or rewritten significant parts of Recursion theory, Peano arithmetic, Second-order arithmetic, Turing degree, Prenex normal form, Borel hierarchy, Arithmetic hierarchy, and Analytical hierarchy in addition to routine copyediting and maintenance.

In January, with an enormous amount of civil conversation, I negotiated with other users to improve Exponentiation quite a bit.

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: I am not prone to get particularly stressed. I tend to state my opinions briefly, but with civility.

In January, I spent a long time discussing the Exponentiation article, but was not overly stressed by it, and we seem to have managed to find a consensus wording despite strong opinions by several editors.

Very recently, I have been involved with the article Christopher Hitchens, a WP:BLP article. Although I have not contributed significantly to the article, I have been aiding discussion on a NPOV issue and have been successful (so far) in encouraging the editors involved to work towards a consensus wording for a contentious section.

4. Question from Johntex - If you could change one thing about Wikipedia, what would it be and why?

A: This is a difficult question for me to answer. I am constantly amazed (in a good way) at how successful Wikipedia has been so far. Although it is not perfect, I have faith that the encyclopedia, community, and policies will continue to adapt to new issues as they arise. Obviously there is no "quick fix" that will turn Wikipedia into a utopian environment. There is a lot of work to be done, and I am here to help.

Because the encyclopedia is edited by humans, interpersonal disagreements are inevitable. Being civil and assuming good faith are crucial in managing these disagreements and preventing them from disrupting the encyclopedia. If everyone followed the spirit of the fourth pillar ("Wikipedia has a code of conduct"), the working environment would be more pleasant for us all.

5. Question from Salix alba - in light of concerns raised about lack of AfD experience, would you take any action to gain more experience and how would you approach a contiversal AfD closing.

I would not rush blindly into closing AFD debates. I should have rearranged my answer to Q1 to emphasize that my initial work as an admin would be with requests for protected edits, which are backlogged, and that I would proceed cautiously to assist with other admin duties.

The best way to learn the "facts on the ground" about the AFD process is to participate in the debates and then observe how they are closed. Once my predictions about how they will be closed become accurate, I will feel that I am ready to begin closing similar AFDs. Perhaps a more experienced admin would be willing to volunteer to mentor me in this area until I am up to speed.

Controversial AFD debates are particulary important to get right. They arouse strong feelings, and if they pass to deletion review the actions of the closing admin are likely to be scutinized. I do not shy away from making tough decisions, but it would be inappropriate for me to make them in the context of AFD until I have a track record closing simpler debates. For situations where there truly is no consensus either way, the deletion guide for admins states "When in doubt, don't delete."

6. Question from Addhoc - have you reported any vandals to WP:AIV or reported simple vandalism elsewhere?

Thank you for giving me an opportunity to describe my experience in this area.

I have about 1100 pages on my watchlist, and although they are not prime targets of vandalism there is certainly a decent amount. Because of the hard work of people watching recent changes, most of it is reverted before I see it on my watchlist.

Some vandalism does slip through, however. I went through my contributions in 2007 and found many instances where I have reverted vandalism [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] and many instances where I have warned a user about their vandalism: Jan [13] [14] [15] Feb [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] Mar [21] [22]. I wish to emphasize that this is entirely from following my watchlist infrequently during the day; most of the time I find out about vandalism by seeing its reversion when I refresh my watchlist.

When my warning is the first message on the talk page, it is appropriate to assume the vandalism is a one-time thing, so I phrase my warnings as welcome messages. To expedite this process for IP editors I have my own welcome template that I use.

It is very rare for me (personally) to see repeated vandalism by the same IP in the same article in the same day, because the same article has to slip through the cracks twice. So there is not much opportunity for me to report editors to AIV. I have reported one user to AIV who had already recently been given appropriate warnings. [23] I later tried to report User:Germanium (see below) on Jan 8, 2007, but he was already reported there.

The most complex vandalism situation I have dealt with involved User:Germanium who is now indefinitely blocked. The editor added some clearly unverifiable OR to multiple articles and kept reverting its removal [24] [25]. I warned the user in a calm manner [26] , as did other editors, but Germanium did not stop. I reported the reverts to 3RR, since it was not obvious vandalism, there seemed to be a sockpuppet involved, and it was an obvious 3RR violation. [27]. This was on Jan 4.

Germanium later returned around Jan 8 as a sockpuppet (maybe two). I reported this on ANI [28]. The IP sockpuppet left some mildly harassing message on my talk page [29] that I responded to by adding a sentence to the ANI request.

General comments

• See CMummert's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool. For the edit count, see the talk page.
• I'm more than happy to mentor the candidate on AfD judgements if the need be :). - Mailer Diablo 15:29, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Please keep criticism constructive and polite.

Discussion

Support

1. Support. High quality contributor. --CSTAR 23:11, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
2. Strong Support. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 01:09, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
3. Support Looks like a great person to be an admin. Captain panda In vino veritas 01:10, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
4. Support. Appears to be a solid editor with a good distribution of edits across multiple namespaces. A high number of edits per article suggests that judicious use of the "Show preview" button may be in order, but I do not consider this a good reason to not trust CMummert with the mop. Twiddle the bit. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 01:40, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
5. Support, no reason not to.--Jersey Devil 02:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
6. Support as nominator. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:18, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
7. Support. A high class editor, with a marathon-like endurance in putting up with problematic editors. A subject matter expert with a nice array of contributions, in addition to putting in a great deal of time into Wikipedia: WikiProject Mathematics, such as the new A-class. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 03:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
8. Support knowledgeable, communicative, and has a long history of employing that rarest of qualities, common sense. Opabinia regalis 03:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
9. Support. Michael 04:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
10. Support. Community oriented, solution oriented, reality oriented. --KSmrq^T 04:29, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
11. Support - I thought I was a geek until I looked through this guy's contributions. Look at this - [30]. Good Lord. - Richard Cavell 04:43, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
12. Support. I've seen CMummert's work in mathematical articles and usually assume he will be the voice of reason in any debate. If there is need to be shown evidence of his patience or civility, skim through the long, long history of Talk:Exponentiation. EdJohnston 04:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
13. Support Mathematicians make great admins. (cough... cough...) Pascal.Tesson 05:02, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
14. Support A spread of edits in the main spaces and a sensible attitude show that this editor will not abuse the admin tools. (aeropagitica) 05:51, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
15. Support no reason not to. --Salix alba (talk) 07:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
16. Support I haven't found a reason to oppose, and I trust the nominator. Snowolf ^(talk) _CON ^COI - 07:44, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
17. Support As one of the editors involved in the Exponentiation article who did get fed up with the problem editor, I salute CMummert for his seemingly infinite patience. His initial NPOV rewrite was brilliant and still stands largely intact. VectorPosse 08:39, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
18. Support – Always constructive.  --Lambiam^Talk 08:45, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
19. Support per Oleg and Opabinia. An insightful, calm and clearly reasoning editor. Willow 08:51, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
20. Support - clearly, for all of the reasons mentioned already. Geometry guy 09:41, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
21. Support good candidate. - Anas ^Talk? 11:57, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
22. Support - Areh..Give him the mop..(we have a mathematics genius among us)..--Cometstyles 13:24, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
23. I'm Mailer Diablo and I approve this message! - 15:09, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
24. Support - math is somewhere we can really push WP - not much POV there. :) — RevRagnarok ^{Talk Contrib} 15:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
25. Support; sorta-low wikispace edits, but some people can participate in 10 XfDs and learn what others can do only in 200. Everything else looks great. –Llama man^talk_contribs 15:48, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
26. Support per nom. Guess I would even support only to convince him to stay. Wikipedia badly needs academic experts. —KNcyu38 (talk • contribs) 16:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
27. Support looks like an editor of great value to WP. I hope his admin responsibilities, which could be done by many, do not take away too much from his editing articles he is knowledgable about, which few could do. Edivorce 19:44, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
28. Support. Contribs look good; community interaction is constructive and well-balanced. Give him the mop, eh? -- MarcoTolo 21:40, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
29. Support. I've never seen him to be anything but cordial and helpful. I'm sure he'll make an excellent admin. --Sopoforic 22:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

    Support ~ trialsanderrors 23:24, 16 March 2007 (UTC) | Switched to Oppose. ~ trialsanderrors 16:38, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

30. Support This one's easy. -- Selket ^Talk 02:27, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
31. Support —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-17 07:30Z
32. Terence 15:58, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
33. Support --Agεθ020 (ΔT • ФC) 18:37, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
34. Support. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 07:53, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
35. Support —Ruud 15:38, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
36. Support looks good.-- danntm ^T _C 20:33, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
37. Support Paul August ☎ 05:02, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
38. Support, a thoughtful editor who does very good work. While he may not have had a hand in everything, I'm confident that he won't abuse the tools or rush into issues without studying them. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 22:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
39. Support – A solid contributor with the patience of Job. DavidCBryant 15:42, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
40. Support - will be a good addition to the admin community. Tompw (talk) 18:08, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
41. Why the hell not? I honestly couldn't care less what he's done with vandalism; what matters is that he's done good work, and thinks the tools would be useful. Ral315 » 00:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
42. Support I have seen this user around, extremely competent and calm contributor. Will not abuse tools. -SpuriousQ (talk) 11:20, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
43. Support Trustworthy, and I'm happy to have more admins watching math articles. Smmurphy^(Talk) 00:27, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
44. Support: good temperament, clear need for the tools in a manner that fits with his experience working with templates, cautious demeanor about undertaking bold admin actions in his first weeks after RfA. --A. B. ^(talk) 04:16, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
45. Support Vandal fighting is not rocket science. This thoughtful user will do well with the admin tools. FloNight 16:09, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
46. Support, not per CharlotteWebb. I trust this user and agree with his decisions in AfD. Apple•_•w••o•_•r••m•_• 16:14, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
47. Support per Ral315. ElinorD (talk) 00:09, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
48. Late support.--Wizardman 00:43, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

1. His editing experience is the narrowest I've seen. Minimal experience with vandalism, and he seems a bit confused when discussing it: "I have occasionally needed to post to WP:3RR or WP:ANI because of continued vandalism" does not inspire confidence at all. Says he is interested in closing AFDs, but he has participated in roughly a dozen of them, all of which I perused. I'm not going to comment on the merits of the articles being discussed, because I have no idea what they looked like at the time, and frankly I don't care, but will say I was not very impressed with his understanding of deletion policy. Specifically, he says "merge and delete" several times [31] [32] [33], but that is not permitted as the GFDL requires us to preserve edit history for all content we use. More broadly, he also has a backward view regarding policies and guidelines. I'm slightly appalled when he says "Lack of sources is not an AFD criteria" and "It is only notability that I think is the issue here." [34]. Verifiability is absolute policy. Notability is a subjective guideline, one which is vulnerable to systemic bias on all sides. I worry that he will delete valid, verifiable content because it doesn't meet the Wikipedia:Notability (whatever) guideline he feels most closely applies, as he suggests at [35]. That would be a huge disservice to the project. — CharlotteWebb 00:43, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

   I agree that notability can be subjective, and I would do my best to impartially gauge consensus when closing AFD votes as described here. This is one of many areas where admins must take care to do things right, because of the strong feelings that an AFD can arouse. I fully support WP:ATT, since there is no reason that anyone is likely to believe claims that cannot be attributed to reliable sources. The issue of edit history for deleted redirects is important, but it can be handled by the closing admin as decribed in the note here.

   Regarding a lack of sources not being a deletion criteria: I gained this opinion from observing comments of others I respect and from Wikipedia:Deletion policy, which includes "Can't verify information in article (e.g. article lacks source citations)" under the list of "Problem articles where deletion may not be needed". My viewpoint is that if consensus says the material is completely unverifiable (or, in the new parlance, unattributable) then the article may reasonably be deleted as original research. If sources could obviously be found for an unsourced article, and I believe that a good article on the topic could be written, I would not support deletion when commenting on an AfD. But in closing debates I would follow the consensus established at the debate, according to the deletion policy. CMummert · talk 02:59, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

   Charlotte, I don't see exactly what's wrong with saying that the absence of quoted sources (which, surely is what he meant in that case) is not in itself a reason for deletion, whereas notability can be under the right circumstances. It seems to me that if you disagree with the current notability guidelines, the way to go is to see whether you can gather support for changing them rather than refuse adminship to anyone that supports them. In any case, it seems clear from CMummert's response that he has an excellent understanding of the relevant policies and their finer points. Pascal.Tesson 04:30, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

2. Oppose per CharlotteWebb - narrow range of article edited - for example very little WP:BLP experience. Admin candidates should understand that vandalism is reported to WP:AIV instead of WP:3RR. Also, doesn't have much experience in XfD and concur that several "merge and delete" 'votes' are slightly unusual. Not entirely convinced that we bestow the mop to allow editors to modify protected templates either, I was under the impression that improvements can be proposed on the talk page. Addhoc 11:57, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

   Proposing improvements does not by itself effectuate improvements; someone with administrator permissions still has to do the actual work.  --Lambiam^Talk 13:16, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

   Yep, after looking at his Q1 response again, I realise that he was referring to the chore of making edits on behalf of non-admins. Addhoc 13:40, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

   OK, so CMummert has very little WP:BLP editing experience. I have none, and I've been an admin for a year and a half now (with 30,000 edits). I understand your and Charlotte's reasoning. But you have to realize that we don't elect as admins people who have done everything on Wikipedia. We elect people who are reasonably experienced, won't abuse the tools, and will help move the project forward. Picky votes like yours will scare the hell of any reasonable person who'd think of becoming an admin. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:51, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

   Don't really agree, I think it's perfectly acceptable to make a judgement based on several different factors. Also, there is no requirement for a unanimous decision, so criticising editors who you disagree with isn't necessary. In this case, lack of involvement at WP:AIV is my principal concern. Secondly, a weak answer to Q1, especially regarding WP:3RR for counter vandalism. Thirdly, lack of XfD experience overall plus "merge and delete" 'votes'. Finally, this isn't mitigated by writing featured articles or having a wide range of article writing input. Addhoc 16:19, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

   It seems to me this is not an uncommon difference in philosophy. Some people believe the natural progression is for a good editor to be come an admin. Others believe one should essentially train for the job first. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 19:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

3. Oppose per CharlotteWebb. The sheer dearth of AfD experience is troubling enough, but when you add blanket statement like "WP:ATT is not deletion criteria" makes me worried about high error rate in closing AfD's. ~ trialsanderrors 16:38, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

   The complete sentence I used at that AfD was "Lack of sources is not an AFD criteria, provided that the information is verifiable." [36]. I assure everyone that I would not act rashly in closing AfDs. My initial admin work would be on a different backlog, protected edits, that I can start with right away while gaining more experience with AfD. CMummert · talk 18:23, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

   I'm talking about this one. A contemporary topic absent any evidence that the subject even exists, and WP:ATT is not a deletion criterion? Sorry, I don't think you're anywhere near astute in WP policies to be given the mop yet. ~ trialsanderrors 18:48, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

   But in this case CMummert is entirely correct. The page Wikipedia:Deletion policy contains a list of Problem articles where deletion may not be needed, which explicitly lists Can't verify information in article (e.g. article lacks source citations). The remedy is not to delete the article, but to add citations. In this specific AfD case the problem was almost certainly a lack of notability. If it had been notable, we'd have found the references.  --Lambiam^Talk 20:27, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

   It's exactly comments like this why I oppose admin candidates who want to close AfD's but don't have AfD experience: the mistaken notion that reading policies is a substitute for the tacit process knowledge that only comes from participation. There is a gigantic gap between "deletion may not be needed" and "ATT is not a deletion criterion", and participation in twelve AfD's won't help you bridge that gap. ~ trialsanderrors 20:37, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

   I've participated in more than 400 AFD's, and have never considered violations of WP:V or now WP:ATT per se to be a valid argument for deletion. I can't find support for the idea that it is in guidelines, policies, or practice.  --Lambiam^Talk 19:59, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

   That's pretty sad, given it's an unviolable policy. But really to cut this policy discussion short, I'm not opposing because of differences in interpretation, but because of massive lack of AfD participation. ~ trialsanderrors 21:39, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

4. Oppose per CharlotteWebb. Dionyseus 05:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
5. Weak Oppose I would like to see more evidence of work with IP vandals and other relatively hostile users. Kukini ^{hablame aqui} 16:36, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

   Why? You don't have enough evidence he keeps cool or patient? As mentioned above, there was an incredibly long debate between everyone and one editor on exponentiation. Start with Talk:Exponentiation/Archive_3 (section 8) and continue on to Talk:Exponentiation/Archive_4 before proceeding to Talk:Exponentiation, which is the current discussion with the same editor. It'll be rather hard for me to believe that you aren't convinced after that. I've met plenty of admins that have much less experience of that sort even after they've been admin for a while. Perhaps I'm reading too much into your comments, but at least maybe it'll make an impression on some others, so let me say something here. It's really easy to get a huge number of supports and no oppose by doing a lot of vandalism reverting, warning, and reporting, and engaging in brief exchanges with IPs that shout ridiculous things at you. These are things that really are quite easy to do well and one can pretty much learn the formula of such interactions relatively quickly. What CMummert has done in just my one example is engage in an extremely prolonged ordeal above and beyond what I would expect of a good editor. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 18:52, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

6. Oppose per CharlotteWebb and Trialsanderrors. Too little experience of vandal fighting and XfD to show understanding of policies related to those areas and too much evidence raised to suggest the contrary. WjBscribe 16:48, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
7. Oppose per Charlotte and Trials.--cj | talk 13:15, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Neutral. Somehow something makes me feel uncomfortable, but not enough to oppose. Yuser31415 21:33, 18 March 2007 (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.