Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Femto 2

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

[edit] Femto

Final (42/0/1) Ended Sun, 12 Nov 2006 20:03:48 (UTC)

Femto (talk • contribs) – I'm pleased to nominate Femto for adminship. Femto is a wonderful contributor to Wikipedia, particulary in the areas of science. He has been editing since August of 2004 and he applied for adminship once before in Feb of this year. The result of that RFA was no consensus with essentially the only arguments in opposition being his then lack of experience in project areas. Since then, Femto has continued his normal excellent editing in science (particularly chemistry) articles, but he has also become more involved in areas associated with the administrative aspects of Wikipedia such as WikiProject Spam, Article for Deletion, Admin intervention against vandalism, admin noticeboards, Village Pump, the science reference desk, WikiProject Chemistry and its daughter projects such as WikiProject Chemicals and particularly WikiProject Elements. He is nearing 7000 total edits with over 500 in Wikipedia/Wikipedia talk spaces. His 100 edits in Template space suggest an interest in and a familiarity with the "behind-the-scenes" aspects of Wikipedia. He reverts vandalism (and linkspam) regularly, applies appropriate warning messages, and reports to AIV when necessary. A thorough look at his interactions with other editors makes it clear that Femto is a responsible, mature, calm, intelligent editor who gets along well with other Wikipedians and has no pattern of disruptive or unconstructive behavior. Femto is a solid, productive editor and I am confident that he will be a solid, productive administrator as well. The encyclopedia will certainly benefit from giving him the proverbial mop. --Ed (Edgar181) 14:53, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept! Femto 19:03, 5 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'll continue as usual, except that I'll also look where I can make myself useful as an admin. The rollback may be useful in dealing with vandalism and linkspam I guess. Vandal blocks, page moves, speedies, ProDs, AfDs, (un)protections, maybe 3RR. In short, janitor stuff, as I go along. I have no ambition becoming a dedicated full-time admin or an authority figure. Nevertheless, Wikipedia sure would benefit from a few more trusted people with a nice wet mop in their back pockets. Er, yuck. Strike that. You know what I mean. Femto 19:03, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

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

A: Recently, not much in particular. Maybe abundances of the elements (data page), another page of citations for 'my' chemical elements data references. I seem to focus less on the creation of content, more on a diversity of incremental factual improvements and technical maintenance. Femto 19:03, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

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: People who don't like me include the usual crowd. "Neoballmon, The Superior Master of Vandalism! (Not a complete Vandal)", poor guy obviously got blocked only due to my prejudice. I'm a faggot according to Nokhc, a sock master who insisted that the aluminium article says the spelling is "a vulgar error that should not be perpetuated". A lengthy discussion with someone from the free energy crowd about the definition of perpetual motion. The usual AfD disputes. People whose links I removed. No real trouble. Conflict means effort, I'm lazy in this respect. You can assume that I'll continue to err on the side of inaction and be more than happy to let someone else step in if I'm involved personally. Femto 19:03, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

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: You can't 'apply' them. Scientifically speaking, these are axioms which don't define themselves (though good food for thought), and all falls back on applying your common sense on a case-by-case basis. Femto 18:51, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

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

A: Don't ask me, even if there was such a case, I don't want to become the kind of admin who has to decide about these things anyway. Femto 18:51, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

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

A: 'Is it a blatant advert?'. Speedy deletions should not require a thought process, otherwise they aren't. Femto 18:51, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

General comments

• See Femto's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool.

Femto's editcount summary stats as of 19:58, November 5th 2006, using Interiot's wannabe Kate's tool. (aeropagitica) 20:00, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Support

1. Support — Nice name Template:Emot. MatthewFenton (talk · contribs · count · email) 19:12, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
2. Support All contributions look appropriate for admin-material, vandalwarnings, Wikispace and XfD contributions, etc. (aeropagitica) 20:02, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
3. Support I can testify Femto has put in yeoman's work in the chem element project, and not all of it can have been much fun. But it's all of excellent quality. We need such editors and admins. SBHarris 20:22, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
4. Support per nom, answers, comments - a dedicated user with no issues to worry about. It's always good to see a candidate who was told "work hard and come back in a few months" do exactly that. Newyorkbrad 20:44, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
5. Support. Experienced, consistently hardworking long-term user who I'm confident would not abuse admin tools. Specifically, there is a great need here for consistently active admins with a high degree of science literacy. Dryman 21:06, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
6. Support per NYbrad. Rama's arrow 22:36, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
7. Support T Rex | talk 23:06, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
8. Support Even better candidate this time! --Steve 01:23, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
9. Support I supported him the last time and will support him again. It is time that this user finally became an admin. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 02:40, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
10. Support. - Mailer Diablo 04:09, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
11. Support There are many examples of vandal-warning in his contributions, so I'm pretty sure he knows what to do. And IP vandals do pay attention to notices on their talk pages from time to time – I had one pick apart my talk page a few days ago after I started warning him, poor baby. KrakatoaKatie 04:34, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
12. Support - yep. Is ready for the tools. riana_dzasta 08:02, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
13. Support. Looks like he will make a good admin. NauticaShades 11:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
14. Support --Terence Ong _{(T | C)} 13:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
15. Support looks good.-- danntm ^T _C 14:31, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
16. Support Should do better with his second chance --Ageo020 (Talk • Contribs) 16:43, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
17. Support per nom  Doctor Bruno  17:08, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
18. JoshuaZ 18:11, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
19. Support per nom. Michael 20:31, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
20. Support per nom. I appreciate his work on WikiProject Spam. --A. B. 21:22, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
21. Strong Support - excellent work at WikiProject Spam, AND he's just one of those editors I see all over, and always making positive edits. Moppify this guy! --AbsolutDan ^(talk) 05:00, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
22. Delete per nom. - crz crztalk 18:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
23. Redirect to Administrator. ~ trialsanderrors 18:56, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
24. Merovingian ※ Talk 01:02, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
25. Mike | Talk 02:34, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
26. Support Bucketsofg 19:29, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
27. Support per nom. John254 05:21, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
28. Support A solid Wikipedian. Sharkface217 05:36, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
29. Support Do Good. -- Chez ^{(Discuss / Email)} 06:57, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
30. Support For all the reasons posted by Dryman. Spinach Dip 10:09, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
31. Support per nom. Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
32. Support --Nick Y. 20:57, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
33. Support per nom.--Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
34. Support - dedicated vandal fighter, so give him the mop! Vsmith 01:41, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
35. Support per nom, good vandal fighter and an amazing Wikipedian. Start clicking here to see some of his great work. Walkerma 04:42, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
36. Yottasupport for Femto's work on WikiProject Elements, which shows his capacity (and experience) for dealing with the nitty-gritty of Wikipedia administration. Physchim62 (talk) 10:02, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
37. El_C 10:10, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
38. Support. Zaxem 11:04, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
39. Support semper fi — Moe 17:03, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
40. Support. --HappyCamper 02:39, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
41. Support No worries here. A good editor and will make good use of admin tools. --FloNight 12:32, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
42. Strong Support — a good user who knows how to do things quite well. Let this week be known as the "Great RfA candidates" week. — Deckiller 16:49, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

1. Neutral User is a great article builder and appears to be civil and a generally good Wikipedia user, but I have a few concerns. As I was reviewing over the last few edits, I saw a few reverts of a single user, 59.93.41.239. I failed to notice any warnings made to the user talk page of this user. This user now has no warnings on his/her talk page although they have made 3 vandalism edits thus far. It's not that big of a deal, but I would like to see warnings being made on user talk pages when appropriate. Second of all, the last fifty edits to the Wikipedia namespace by this user have been made in the course of two+ months. The first RfA for this user failed per concerns of lack of Wikipedia-related edits, and that was nearly 9 months ago. I would not make this a big issue if the user had only ~2,000 edits, but with approximately 7,000 edits, I would expect more frequent AfD and other Wikipedia-namespace acitivity. I would like to support this user, but there are some key things that stick out. Nishkid64 20:54, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

   Frankly I consider warning some anonymous schoolkid with 3 edits in 2 minutes, probably on a dynamic IP, for what looks like a one-time nametagging, a waste of time. I rather used the time to remove the crystal ball nonsense at roentgenium. And if you have the time to warn, you may just as well do it right. Don't just warn 59.93.41.239 but investigate further and find Bowcek don (talk • contribs). I'd say my warning threshold is a personal preference, not an adminship criterion.

   Second, with my argumentation skills I can't give much back to the community process, so what? I understand the XfD well enough I think, which is all that matters. Instead of blindly trying to satisfy the editcount, I found things I'm more efficient at. That's a plus in my eyes, not a minus. Because of this I shouldn't get the tools to delete an image now and then? Adminship is a question of trust, not about establishing a minimum productivity distributed evenly over all parts of Wikipedia.

   Femto 12:40, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

   I would have gone oppose on this RfA, but I didn't because I know you are a good editor in all respects of Wikipedia. You may be trusted in your edits to the mainspace, but I have small doubts about a user who does not have enough Wikipedia namespace experience. Trust me, you would learn a lot if you hung around AfD or CSD more often. By the way, why are you giving me the impression that you think warning is such a burdensome and long task? If you use proper tools, you can whip out a warning in the same amount of time that you made a revert. When I use Lupin's Anti-Vandal Tool, I can revert and warn a user in less than 20 seconds. Even if you just do it manually, I don't see how it can take such a long time. Nishkid64 21:05, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

   Indeed. In fact you can place the following with just 7-characters. And the results are hilarious. Both in what they provide and what they imply about the existentiality of the procedure. But like I say, have at it. You might like Gregorian chants, too. Here's your example. At the risk of violating WP:POINT. Do feel free to remove it as soon as you've seen it. SBHarris 02:52, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

   {{AOL}}. [template removed. oldid here. Femto 12:57, 9 November 2006 (UTC)]

   JavaScript is evil. Or perhaps I'm just too old-school to accept browser plugins as something useful. So yes, a warning counts as a full, additional edit to me. And it's not as if I wouldn't issue any warnings at all you know. It's just that keeping up with actually fixing the vandalism has a higher priority than keeping up with the warnings for it. Femto 22:44, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

   Understood. I guess your method conflicts with my views; that's all. Nishkid64 01:13, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

   Although it's a bit off-topic, let me point out that "59.93.41.239" is an IP address, not necessarily a single user. Very often such addresses are shared by everything from school library computers, to rotating IP addresses that come though from various ISP's like AOL. Putting vandal warnings on the pages of real users with single names is worthwhile (sometimes). Putting warnings on "user pages" of IP addresses is mostly a waste of time, because nobody who is vandalizing from those IPs ever sees those warnings (which are always warnings of long-expired or soon to be expired temporary blocks), or if they see them, cares a fig about them (since they are in NO danger of EVER suffering any lasting consequence as a result of ANY of them). The reason for this is a IMHO bad policy of Wikipedia which comes from none other than Jimbo himself, so there's not a thing anybody can do about it. Essentially, Jimbo has the same attitude toward annonymous IP addresses as the average parent has to their 3 year-old toddler. Until something is done about that, people can put all the warnings on such anonymous vandalizer address pages they like, and nothing will happen. And most of us have learned by now that when some activity produces no results, it's pointless. Why you still think it's worth bothering, I don't know, but it's certainly funny to hear you complain that Femto doesn't do it. I consider it a credit to Femto's intelligence that (given current policy) he's stopped wasting his time with it. I can't believe I myself did it for as long as I did. Stupidity, I suppose. SBHarris 23:39, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

   If you don't warn users appropriately, how on earth can you block them when they have a reached a point when they can be blocked for vandalism? I know there are lots of admins who will not break rules and will say "IP only has a t3" and they decide not to block. On the other hand, there are admins like myself who will ignore rules in special occasions just in order to stop an IP vandal. You are also strongly mistaken about IP vandals. Most of them respond violently when they return from blocks, and they start targetting individual users (I have been a victim many times, which is why I had to semi-protect my userpage). Some IP users actually do heed to warnings on their talk page, and do stop vandalizing. There are some that don't. Also, do you think IP's always are blocked for a few hours? Some persistent IP vandals have been blocked for weeks, months and some more than a year. It may not be indefinite, but what gives you the idea that they can't have an effect on the actual user(s) under that IP address. Regardless, I think warning users is an effective procedure. Nishkid64 23:56, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

   Just a sort of stating the obvious comment, but a fairly large number of IP addresses are static or semi-static through DSL/Broadband, whether the customer is assigned one specific IP address with their account or choose not to reboot their system for months at a time and have the same IP address for that whole period. Adding warnings can also be useful for noticing trends, is a particular range of IP addresses targetting one or two select articles. I can understand why some users more used to dynamic IP addys on dial-up don't bother with warnings and for me it's not a massive problem, just something to ask Femto to remember to do in future. Heligoland 01:28, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

   As I noted on my talk page, you can go to WP:ABUSE and view a range of IP vandal addresses, one of which which has been warned/blocked 141 times, for an average of 10 days, but once up to 6 months. A waste of time, IMHO. But if anybody wants to go and make a 142nd warning, you go, girl! SBHarris 01:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

   That was for a whole range of IP's, not an individual one. In similar cases, warning would be very useful because as Heligoland said, warning allows other editors to notice trends in editing styles, etc. I also think seeing a user talk page with warnings appears to be more appealing than a user talk page without warnings. I usually am drawn to check out the user contributions if I see a user talk page with warnings. I might notice something similar in this editor and another previously blocked editor and I might decide to take action. All of this is pure chance, but it has happened to me many times before. Nishkid64 02:01, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

   I'm of the opinion warnings should be added even to anon IPs. There's no reason to assume the anon doesn't see the message especially if it was very recent vandalism. I suspect a number of anons do in fact see the message since they're probably sticking around to see how long it is before their vandalism is reverted. They might notice the 'new message' and they might check it out and might see the warning. Perhaps it will discourage them, perhaps it will encourage them, perhaps it will do nothing but IMHO it's still best to warn them. Note that dynamic IPs are commonly used by broadband connections and modems. With modems and especially with broadband connections, people may stay connected for a very long time and keep their IPs. If they want to carry out more vandalism, they'll probably disconnected but if not, they might continue. Furthermore, I often find an anon IP has carried out a fair amount of vandalism but never been warned or only warned sparingly. While it's possible this is a dynamic IP, in some cases I suspect it's the same person who occasionally vandalises. By giving warnings, future people who come along are far more likely to give a final warning and admins are also more likely to block fairly fast. IMHO this is a good thing. Of course, people should check out a users contribs but sadly many don't so it's good to give warnings. Even when editors do check out contribs some such as me for example are reluctant to give a final warning straight away for minor warning if there have been few or no warnings and similarly are reluctant to push for a ban. So all in all, IMHO warnings are good even for anons. Nil Einne 11:33, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

   Should also mention that even with dynamic IPs, warnings can be good. If trends are noticed and it appears one user is using a range of IPs to do bad edits, action can sometimes be taken to stop this. I know of at least one case where a user was banned from using local libraries for editing wikipedia because of distruptive edits here in NZ. I believe the person apparently moved on to cybercafes but IMHO it was still a gain. Nil Einne 11:39, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

   Strongly oppose, because user acts arrogant and dickish to others. Bad history and reputation on this site and there are too many examples . . .--172.145.125.13 06:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC) — 172.145.125.13 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

   Note: user appears to be sockpuppet of disruptive user Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles (talk • contribs) -Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 07:21, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

   IPs can't !vote anyway. Struck. MER-C 08:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

   Struck? "Smashing Pumpkins" you mean. :) I don't think I even know this guy. Femto 12:40, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Again, you're wrong here. These false allegations are what's disruptive! --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 21:17, 6 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.