Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Heligoland

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

[edit] Heligoland

Final (32/18/5) Withdrawn by candidate 21:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Heligoland (talk • contribs) – Hi, I've been around Wikipedia for around 18 months or so and humbly offer myself as a prospective candidate from adminship. I was shocked to notice the huge backlog at WP:AIV today and believe we need a few more admins from Britain and Australia to help look after Wikipedia when much of America is sleeping or working. I live in Scotland and honestly believe I can help Wikipedia in the role of an administrator. I try to split my time here between various tasks, I do build articles, and I'm proud of Alliance Boots, Professional Diving, Alan Titchmarsh and the British Rail Portal, all of which I've either created or done serious work on. I also add sound files and try to find and add Creative Commons or GFDL licenced photographs from Flickr for my various projects. I'm most active looking for and repairing vandalism, and whilst I do realize many editors will likely be put off by this, I find articles needing a little attention or tagged for deletion that can be saved this way, and I've done so, also adding infoboxes to articles, correcting Wikilinks, making sure photographs display correctly, that sort of thing. I run an IRC Bot for User:Eagle 101 - I'm normally the backup and I believe there is talk of porting the bot over to Commons too, checking for vandalism and spam being added to the Commons site. The bot looks for links added to articles and is useful in spotting spam or unnecessary links, something I also link tidying up or removing. I've not yet written a Featured Article and I perhaps lack the confidence to nominate a couple of my articles for review as I'm not entirely sure my writing is good enough for FA status. I would like to think I am civil, certainly I've never been warned or had WP:CIVIL posted in response to anything I do, I do make the occasional mistake, but I like to think that when people tell me I've made a mistake, I'm responsible enough to accept what I've done, apologize, take on-board what has been said and move on. I would also like to think I'm fair and flexible when dealing with suspected vandals and suspected link spammers, directing them to the relevant policies if necessary and trying to explain to them calmly and politely why I've performed an action, and like being accountable for my actions. Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 15:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I withdraw, many thanks to those who supported my RfA at this time. Your trust is much appreciated but I doubt this RfA is likely to reach a consensus especially as the usual Oppose pile on is now in full flow. Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 21:27, 4 December 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 anticipate dealing with the following :-

1. Image backlogs : There are a lot of images that need deletion and have been waiting for a considerable period, many have totally incorrect tags and there are so many images that have never been used.
2. I also envisage spending a great deal of time at WP:AIV - It's on my watchlist at present and it does fill up, it is often quite full with backlogs before all of America and Canada comes online, so I would like to help deal with the backlogs there. I'm not a frequent visitor to WP:AIV, I usually call on an admin through IRC as it's often a lot quicker and prevents edit conflicts, as anyone who frequently visits AIV will know, the more vandals there are, the less you can report.
3. And of course, dealing with those who ruin all of our hard work, sadly, it's quite difficult to find an admin on IRC or at WP:AIV during the daytime here and this does allow a lot of vandalism to go much further than it really should.

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

A: I'm particularly proud of Professional Diving - it was an article I spent a great deal of time on around Christmas and with Uni work (I've now left, hence all the extra time I know have) it took me quite a while to finish it, during which I uploaded several good quality photographs from the US Navy site. I'm also happy with Alliance Boots, indeed, I tracked down a couple of suitable Creative Commons licensed photographs for that article too from Flickr which saved me a trip to my local Boots with digital camera in tow. I started Signal Tower Museum and took a couple of photographs for that too, and I've rewritten the biogs of a couple of famous British TV hosts, Alan Titchmarsh and Tony Robinson. I try to find either a stub that I can expand or a untidy article needing a few hours of work sort of once a week to once a fortnight, just to keep my writing skills rust free, so to speak.

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: I'm not prone to getting stressed, thankfully, I've never lost my temper with another Wikipedian and I don't feel I've ever been uncivil towards another editor. There have been the occasional conflict over something I've deleted or added and another editor thinks it does or doesn't belong on the page, and rather than get into a conflict, I prefer to explain in as detailed a way as possible my reasoning behind my decision. I really don't like pushing my point across regardless and I tend to stay away from editing contentious issues, preferring to edit out of the way articles that could do with a little work rather than big, important articles really likely to upset someone no matter what you do. Throughout vandal patrolling and removing spam, I've frequently come across users who are unhappy about what I've done, but again, accounting for my actions, apologising if wrong and helping with articles is my way of countering any mounting conflict.

Completely optional question by Addhoc

4. Have you been involved any form of dispute resolution?

A: Yes, nothing major that involved RfC or ArbCom, just trying to find ways to keep editors I've reverted happy, usually over external links or vandalism, suggesting compromises such as the use of the Open Directory Project rather than a large number of external links. Disputes are something I do try to avoid as they are a distraction from writing Wikipedia, and I much prefer sitting down and being able to write/rewrite an article over a day not having to worry about Edit Conflicts and potential disputes. I've tried to help with dispute resolution on a couple of articles, nothing huge and probably of no importance, but I did try to offer a suggestion for the Gay Nigger Association of America AfD, a compromise for Singapore Changi Airport and tried to offer some thoughts in the recent Esperanza MfD debate. Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 22:36, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

General comments

• See Heligoland's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool. For the edit count, see the talk page.
• Edit Count : ~5,200 | Edit Count
• Edit Summaries : 100% | Edit Summary Usage
• E-Mail Address : Yes - Checked frequently
• User Page : Yes.
• Signature : Meets WP:SIG guidelines in that it's suitable for those with visual impairments
• Blocked : Nope | Arbitration : Nope

Discussion

• I think You should have mentioned, that You have been active for 2 months (since October 2006). feydey 18:20, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Also a bit in July and December 2005, and January 2006. --Majorly 18:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I thought I had mentioned that, my apologies for not. I intended to mention that I have been studying for a degree in Chemistry and as such my contributions over the past 18 months have been a little sparse and why it has taken me almost a year to complete the major re-write of Professional Diving. Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 18:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• You say you run an IRC Bot for User:Eagle 101. Can I ask what bot this is? --SonicChao ^talk 19:59, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

  It's the SpamBot that runs in irc://irc.freenode.net/wikipedia-spam - It makes no edits to Wikipedia, it's very similar to pgkbot, except it locates links being added in realtime, allowing the users in the channel the ability to click on both the link and the diff. It's especially useful in spotting people adding lots of links to the site, example.com being added to articles, or editors trying to use an image hosted off Wikipedia. It's also fairly useful in spotting vandalism where people add links to websites, change existing links, and people creating attack / vanity pages where they link to images on Photobucket, that type of thing. I had nothing to do with the programming of it, I just run the bot. It's a very useful resource and I'm happy to help host it. Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 21:18, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

• It seems there is some confusion about the length of time I've been here on Wikipedia and how active I've been, so I'd just like to clarify for all those who seem to think I've only been about for a couple of months. That's simply not correct, I've been a registered user of Wikipedia since July 2005, and have edited on and off since then, using Wikipedia as a reference tool, making a number of edits along the way, both logged in, and a fair amount of anonymous edits before I started regularly editing at the beginning of October under my account.

If anybody is concerned about any perceived lack of experience, why not ask additional questions before commenting here Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 21:18, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Support

1. Support. Yey I'm first! Excellent vandal fighter, been here long enough, and answers tell me he knows what he wants to do, and what adminship is all about. Good luck! --Majorly 17:17, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
2. Support - Been here a while and a great vandal fighter. Good answers to the questions. Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 17:25, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
3. Support - Favorable impression from AfD discussions, thought he was one. --Groggy Dice T|C 17:31, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
4. Support excellent vandal fighter, courteous and patient. I'll miss the dry wit of your edit summaries after you recieve the rollback button. Accurizer 17:36, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
5. Support Looks good. Grab a spare mop and start swabbing the decks! (aeropagitica) 18:05, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
6. Support Time making major contributions (2 months) has been fairly short, but considering the account has been open almost 2 years, I think makes this an exception. User's contributions are good and has always stood out as being level-headed when I've seen him/her around. -- Renesis (talk) 18:34, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
7. Support - I won't claim I "thought he already was an admin," but I have thought for awhile he would and should be one soon, and now here we are. Strong record, no concerns. Newyorkbrad 18:40, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
8. Support Per Renesis13. Rettetast 18:47, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
9. Support for the outstanding overall impression left by his contributions. Sandstein 18:58, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
10. Support. Experienced; good attitude. Mopworthy. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:16, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

    Support, lots of experience, high edit count, AFD, and pretty much everything else! —The Great Llama^moo? 21:16, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

    Hi llama. Am I missing something? ~2700 is really not a high edit count. Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 13:36, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

    Sorry, I thought this was someone else's RfA. The names sound similar to me. For this, I've !voted neutral. —The Great Llama^moo? 21:33, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

11. Good user. We definitely need more people clearing out backlogs. --Slowking Man 22:40, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
12. Support. Excellent, well articulated nomination, instills confidence as to qualifications. Agent 86 23:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
13. Support Great work, will make a fine admin.--Húsönd 00:24, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
14. Support Definitely a great Wikipedian, and courteous vandal fighter. In fact, I though he was an admin already. –- kungming·2 ^(Talk) 01:09, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
15. Support Good work, I have faith candidate will make a good admin.-- danntm ^T _C 01:45, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
16. Support A very capable editor. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 04:26, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
17. Support. A spotless record of doing great work for our encyclopedia. Will do the tools proud. —Lantoka ^{( talk | contrib)} 04:31, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
18. Support Although you're relatively green, Wikipedia needs Admins and more meet for the grinder! You are qualified to be an admin in every way except your time on here. But I can overlook that due to the quality of your work. Sharkface217 04:32, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
19. Support - relatively new, but has gained much experience during that time and can be trusted with the tools. Warofdreams talk 11:02, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
20. --dario vet ^_^ (talk) 13:17, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
21. Support Terence Ong 18:56, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
22. Strong support. Great user. --SonicChao ^talk 19:59, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
23. Support. This user shows dedication to Wikipedia, and therefore won't abuse the tools. That's my only criterion, mainly because - and I don't mean to bruise people's egos here - It's not exactly difficult to be an admin. All that's really needed are basic personal skills, and the ability to read. If you don't understand or know how to do some admin action, there's WP:AHTG. We're not certifying someone to fly an airplane or perform heart surgery on our encyclopedia - we're giving them a few extra buttons. RyanGerbil10(Упражнение В!) 20:49, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
24. Support per RyanGerbil and Sharkface. User is awfully new, but qualified. Becoming an administrator is no big deal, while not a blanket to let anyone become an admin, applies very well here. -Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 22:31, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
25. Support - looks fine to me. Deb 14:50, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
26. Support User seems dedicated, and is qualified to become an adminstrator. Hello32020 21:52, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
27. Strong Support Heligo has been a very effective spam and vandalism fighter, as kind of evidenced by the volume of oppose votes by users with few contribs. He is more than just a spam or vandalism fighter though - he has proven to be a thoughtful and intelligent user who has always dealt questions posed to him well, and aided in resolving several disputes and problems on the Wikipedia. I can think of few others that I would support as an admin more than he. ✎ Wizardry Dragon ^{(Talk to Me) (My Contributions) (Support Neutrality on Wikipedia)} 22:32, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
28. Full support -- This guy is as trustworthy as they come. He is currently hosting the anti-spam monitoring bot in #wikipedia-spam on the irc network. He has done so faithfully for quite some time now. The ability to rollback and block will be of great use to Heligoland for fighting spam. I have never had one problem with him. 0% of admin tool abuse. —— Eagle (ask me for help) 22:40, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
29. 100% Support It irritates me to see all these oppose votes. People should be granted adminship based on their trustworthiness. This guy has TONS of edits in the short time he's been here, which shows a dedication to Wikipedia that's rarely matched. We need sysops like Heligoland. -- P.B. Pilhet / Talk 04:51, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
30. Weak Support Two active months is enough with a long hisory of passive reading to back it up. I would like to see more Wikipedia and Talk edits though. There's more to adminship than fighting vandals. Eluchil404 07:39, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
31. Weak Support Good edits but not too many of them and needing more talk page edits. —¡Randfan! 16:22, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
32. Strong support. Great vandal fighter. ~ crazytales_{-Stalk My Contribs!!!-} 21:26, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Note: The following supports were inserted after closure of this RfA.

1. Support. Great at fighting vandals. Bart133 21:40, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose Despite all that's been said, two months experience on Wikipedia doesn't cut it for me. Also, I need to see more activity in AfD's and Wikipedia policy discussions (4 Wikipedia talk edits). Nishkid64 02:18, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
2. Oppose. User has only been active since October 1st. Give it a few more months. --Wafulz 03:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
3. Two months activity is not a long enough period of time and not enough involvement with Wikipedia-space. Otherwise, productive, reasonable contributor. —Centrx→talk • 09:20, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
4. DEFINITELY NOT - per above and ridiculous allegation here: Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Hello32020_2 - not something I want from an admin, making baseless claims. – Chacor 13:07, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

   Chacor, I'm sorry you felt those comments were an attack against you, that was never my intention. I was simply trying to convey my thoughts, namely that I think questioning or criticising another editors reading or writing skills can be insulting and that was why I was supporting the candidate. Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 13:39, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

5. Oppose - lack of experience, also per Chacor. And the amount of code in that sig is just ridiculous. Please read WP:SIG and then cut it down to size. Moreschi 14:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
6. Oppose. Needs more experience (particularly in the Wikipedia space) and more time as an active, regular contributor before becoming an admin. A promising candidate for the future. Zaxem 17:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
7. Oppose: Not enough time, too little projectspace paricipation. Will be prepared to support in three months. - crz crztalk 00:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
8. oppose. I'm most active looking for and repairing vandalism. I find it disturbing that somebody who admits to going out looking for a fight wants to increase their firepower. ... aa:talk 00:55, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

   Forgive me if I'm reading too much into your comment, but does this mean you oppose everybody who does RC patrol, because they're "actively looking for vandalism"? —Lantoka ^{( talk | contrib)} 03:40, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

   aa - If you would please re-read my comments, I look for and repair vandalism, I DO NOT go looking for a fight. I could of course stop finding and repairing vandalism if you so desire, but that would leave Wikipedia open to inaccuracy and ridicule and that is not something I want. Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 05:57, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

   If it makes either of you feel any better to believe I just hate anyone who reverts vandalism, so be it. I read the questions answered (in some case asking my own), and the reader's history. From that assessment of the users attitude, I decide whether to vote. If I don't feel I can make that assessment I don't vote. I don't see you interrogating any of the support-voters, asking why they dared support you. ... aa:talk 08:06, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

9. Unconditional Oppose: Too little page discussion, too little maintenance, too much time lost for this opportunity. Another go-around would be appreciated by next summer. --Slgr@ndson (page - messages - contribs) 00:58, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

   I've edited over 6000 pages at this point, doing everything from repairing the work of vandals, removing spam, a bit of WikiGnoming, fixing image copyrights and of course, creating and uploading new content. I'm rather unsure what more I could have done. Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 05:57, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

   There are many areas that demonstrate understanding of Wikipedia and administrative tasks (no admin bit necessary), which some users will naturally get into with more time and experience. There is a vast world inside Wikipedia. Even on the pure article side, you appear to have almost no experience dealing or collaborating with other article editors or any sort of content dispute, which naturally comes from longer involvement. Beyond that, vandalism reverting over 6000 pages is not in itself evidence of administrative experience. —Centrx→talk • 20:54, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

   I don't know if you've looked through all of my edits, but they're not all vandal fighting, I've corrected copyright tags on images, migrated userboxes, uploaded media files, uploaded free use images (including my own work), and most importatnly, actually created articles. If you look at WP:IAR you'll see evidence of a very real content dispute bordering on vandalism. With regards to your content dispute comments as I said in my reply to the standard questions above, I have focused on neglected articles and less contentious topics because that's where my interest has taken me, berating me for not getting involved in content disputes seems a little unfair, I edit what I want to edit, not what I think will earn brownie points when it comes to an RfA. Just because I've never actually been involved with a content dispute doesn't read that I don't know what they are or how to deal with them, I'm well aware of the rules when it comes to POV pushing, 3RR and moving up to RfC and RfArb. I find it ever so slightly disturbing that there is a sort of feeling that potential admins must have been involved in something first hand, especially content disputes and concensus building before they can be admins, it's a bit like saying a Police officer needs to have been involved in a fight before they get their badge. Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 21:18, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

   It would be like requiring that a police officer has experience in dispute resolution or fending off an assault (which can be as an innocent defender, and is not in this case analogous to simple 'vandal-fighting'). These skills are taught and tested over the course of months in the police academy; on Wikipedia you can learn them and others can evaluate them by merely participating in different areas. There are also several other aspects to administrator, in which you do not happen to have any experience. Again, there is a huge number of administrative tasks you can do without being an administrator. Why skip all of them when you need to have experience with them anyway in order to administrate them? —Centrx→talk • 00:40, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

10. Weak Oppose due to the amount of time actually contributing, 2 months like that are great but I think more time (of contributions) is neccessary. The signature is fixed now (to a good length) so that's not a problem. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 03:50, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
11. Oppose - not nearly enough time contributing to the project --T-rex 06:31, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
12. Oppose Sorry, but I think you need a bit more time of continous activity. (My standards are higher for self-nominations) CharonX/talk 12:34, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
13. Weak oppose less than 100 talk page edits shows insufficient experience of consensus building and mediation. Otherwise a very good editor and vandal fighter. Addhoc 15:53, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
14. Oppose for now, due to only 2 months on the project. If it had been 6, I would have supported, as he's clearly both sensible and knows what he's doing. Random point - I've been to Heligoland. Proto::type 10:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
15. Oppose Insufficent amount of time on the project. Try again in 90 days.--MONGO 18:59, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
16. Oppose 2 months is not sufficient time. Also needs more experience with WP and mainspace talk. Sarah Ewart 19:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
17. Too new; you haven't really yet had the opportunity to really mess something up, and if that was going to happen, I'd rather see it happen before you get the buttons. --Cyde Weys 19:41, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

    Would you like to tell people you were promoted after a similar edit history to mine with only 3 months solid experience, or shall I Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 20:44, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

    Sorry to nitpick, but Cyde had 4 months of solid experience before his RfA (plus some edits going back to 2002). You have exactly 2 months of solid editing, half of what Cyde had. Just pointing that out. SuperMachine 21:02, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

    I make that 3 months, I do of course have edits going back to July of 2005 (more 'older' edits than Cyde too not to mention more edits now than Cyde had when he was promoted). Tawker was also promoted after two months with a similar (if slightly heftier) edit profile. I know I'm taking this far too personally, but I'm not going to sit back and watch editors force down this RfA without trying to force some degree of accountability (Cyde is an admin, afterall) and trying to defend my position. Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 21:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

18. Oppose. Virtually zero edits before October. The sample size is just too small (I'm not referring to the number of edits). I highly doubt that he'd abuse the tools, but I do believe there is real potential for misuse due to inexperience. SuperMachine 20:38, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Neutral per the 4-5 line signature, admin candidates should know WP:SIG by now. Please read WP:SIG and reduce it. feydey 16:09, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

   I had planned quite a while ago to make it all different colours, but decided against it, and left a large amount of redundant code lurking about. It's all fixed now anyway. Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 16:17, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

2. I think it is to your benefit to spend a month or two more as an editor for further experience, before retrieving the mop and bucket. - Mailer Diablo 20:55, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
3. Neutral. Two months activity isn't quite enough for me, and not enough edits in talk, Wikipedia talk, and Wikipedia namespaces yet. Other than that, though, an excellent contributor. —The Great Llama^moo? 01:38, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

   Llama Man see support #11. Please choose either support or neutral.--Húsönd 02:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

   Oh, my a double vote. Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 13:39, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

   Sorry, accident, see the struck-out sopport after 10. —The Great Llama^moo? 21:34, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

4. Neutral good vandal-fighter, but insufficient participation on project space, and 2 months of such concentrated contributions leads me to worry about the possibility of burnout as an admin. I might try again in a few months time, Nick. riana_dzasta 03:03, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
5. Neutral. per above. So, so close to meeting my standards. Some free advice-- You may be a little quick on the draw based on some comments on your talk page. Slow down just a little and communicate a little more before boldly doing what you know is right-- a gentle reminder or explanation can save some aggravation later. I will look forward to your next try. Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 13:33, 4 December 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.