Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Irongargoyle

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

[edit] Irongargoyle

Final: 48/0/1 Ended 01:17, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Irongargoyle (talk • contribs) – I have been a member of the Wikipedia community since January 18, 2006. My editing has picked up over the past number of months (I will refrain from saying "several" and let my edit history speak for itself), as I have become more active and engaged with the Wikipedia community. I really genuinely enjoy new page patrolling and XfDs (particularly AfD), and I have recently done a fair bit of vandal fighting in an effort to gain experience in this area. I try to always be civil. I am bold, but I am committed to respecting the importance of consensus at all times, particularly in my use of the mop and bucket for XfDs. Irongargoyle 00:47, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:
Self-nomination accepted. Irongargoyle 01:06, 30 September 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: If I am named an administrator I would certainly be willing to tackle any particular task I was needed for. That being said, I am most interested in clearing all the various XfD backlogs. I have found my involvement in the various deletion discussions (particularly AfD) to be really quite fascinating. Although the raw number of my contributions to AfD is not enormous, I pride myself in the well-researched votes I try to provide. Although I may have been guilty of a few, I try to avoid per nom votes when at all possible. I have, on several occasions discovered evidence that has saved an article on a noteworthy topic that might have otherwise been deleted. I spend quite a bit of time just reading AfD because I find it really quite interesting to read about the fringes of the wiki-world. I see myself as applying these qualities of care and deliberateness to my job as an administrator. When I work quickly I am apt to make mistakes (although I am always sure to repair them, as my recent exposure to vandal-fighting and recent change patrolling demonstrates). I will not be the quickest admin, but I can be trusted with a mop and bucket to get my small square of the floor pretty darn clean. I also would be more than happy to close speedy-tagged articles, as I have considerable experience in new-page patrolling (and enjoy it more than recent changes).
2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any with which you are particularly pleased, and why?
A: I have a bit of an obsession with templates and I am particularly proud of the number and quality of navigation templates that I have created for the two wikiprojects that I am a member of. I feel that tools for navigation of the encyclopedia are quite important and searches and redirects only go so far if you're not exactly sure what you are looking for. I am also strangely satisfied by my immensely daunting wikification of Nebraska Statewide Arboretum. As for articles, they have mostly been starts and stubs. I generally tend to be rather gnomish, but I plan on helping in some efforts to raise an articles in WikiProject Middle-earth (particularly The Silmarillion) to GA or featured status in the very near future. My first major article start in the near future will probably be: Reverse placebo effect.
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 was actually involved with an edit conflict very early in my editing history before I was familiar with the conventions of wiki-etiquette. In retrospect, I can certainly see why my method of following a user's edit history to what I thought to be bad edits could have been misinterpreted, but I feel as though I have always behaved in a civil and respectful manner throughout this and all interactions on wikipedia. [1], [2] [3]. I learned a lot from this experience, particularly about assuming good faith. I go to lengths to diffuse edit conflicts and find consensus before they begin (see here...I ended up discovering that nobody even cared :-)). As for more complicated matters of wiki-politics, I prefer to keep my head down and off the radar. I am gnomish after all. In cases of vandalism and speedy-deletion tagging, I have been careful to leave messages on user talk pages as much as possible.
Optional question from User:Moreschi.
4. Under what circumstances would you consider blocking an established user?
A: I think I should start out by saying that I will be generally conservative in using the block button in general.

I think there are a couple of key philosophical points to make. Firstly, I am a big believer in not feeding the trolls. Ignoring the offender (following failed civil warnings and communication) is (generally) a much more effective form of social control than punitive action (even online). In most cases I think trolls are frustrated members of the community who have a small number of particular grievances. By inciting them further, you risk them getting combative with wikipedia as a whole. This is never good because established users have the most expertise and know all the best ways to sockpuppet, evade blocks and cause general mayhem if they wanted to. I think it is much better to show said editor calm communication and quiet opposing consensus than to lash back with a block for being uncivil.

As for random vandals (and vandals in the clearest and most unambiguous sense), they are probably not paying attention to what you are saying (or if you are ignoring them), so they might as well be warned and blocked in as quick and civil a way as possible. Some pure vandals have come back to become useful editors, so we don't want to alienate even them, but ignoring it won't help either.

There are obviously some categories of behavior that simply cannot be ignored. There is clear and unambiguous policy regarding violations of WP:NPA and WP:3RR after suitable warnings, and I support the community consensus in this matter. That being said, it can never hurt to go to the dispute resolution chain. Indeed, I would prefer some sort of community consensus before blocking any well-established user. I imagine that admins with itchier trigger fingers (and I am not saying this as a pejorative in any way), would be much more likely to step in before me, and that’s fine. I would step in and use my tools though, it’s more a matter of when.


General comments

Discussion (for expressing views without numbering)

Support

  1. Support. I've never encountered him, but I see no issues. We can always use more admins on New Page Patrol. I've checked some of his contributions and they seem polite, well thought out, and intelligent. alphaChimp(talk) 01:35, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  2. Support Looks like a high-quality, established user. Participates in WikiProjects, enters XfD discussions, I like the template work I checked (at random), always uses edit summaries, could use the admin tools, and I like his answers to the big three questions... sounds good to me! -- Kicking222 01:39, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
    Also, he's a statistician, which I (sometimes) aspire to be. Bonus points! -- Kicking222 01:41, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  3. Support - Since there's already a wonderful article on the nocebo effect, I went ahead and redirected your planned duplicate reverse placebo effect, saving you some time. Looks like a wonderful editor for adminship! InvictaHOG 01:50, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  4. Support Seems good.--Húsönd 02:11, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  5. Support Looks like a very good editor. --Mr. Lefty Talk to me! 02:34, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  6. Support No issues here. A very civil user as well. --Siva1979Talk to me 02:41, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  7. Support—Meets my criteria. See my analysis of Irongargoyle on the discussion page. Overall little risk that the tools to block, unblock, delete & undelete will be abused by Irongargoyle. Let's do it. Williamborg (Bill) 02:47, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  8. Support per above. Michael 03:23, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  9. Support: Looks like an easy choice. —Wknight94 (talk) 03:30, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  10. Support per his answers to the questions. Good luck! —Khoikhoi 03:51, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  11. Edit-conflict Support: Easily passes my standards by a margin. --Slgr@ndson (page - messages - contribs) 03:55, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  12. Support - I see no reason to oppose. NCurse work 05:37, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  13. Support, always! ;) - Mailer Diablo 06:05, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  14. Support Looks like a good candidate for adminship. (aeropagitica) 08:26, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  15. Hell yeah, and perhaps we could speedy this. — Nearly Headless Nick {L} 08:38, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  16. Support per above and nom. Terrific user. Hello32020 11:19, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  17. Support seems to be a good guy abakharev 12:13, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  18. Thought he already was one... 1ne 13:00, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  19. Support well qualified candidate.-- danntm T C 13:07, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  20. Support. per 1n3. :P íslenskur fellibylur #12 (samtal) 14:00, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  21. Support per nom. Rama's arrow 15:01, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  22. Support This user's thoughful, flexible approach to Afd makes me confident that s/he will monnitor and close such discussions with care. I can only assume other tasks will be dealt with in the same fashion. Dina 17:01, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  23. Relaxed Support, scores 20.5 on my criteria. -- Lego@lost Rocks Collide! 21:05, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  24. Support a solid user with a good mix of experience. Themindset 00:11, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
  25. Support -- Tawker 05:57, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
  26. Support - IMO that was a model answer to my question. A good editor as well, one who clearly will not misuse the tools. Moreschi 11:16, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
  27. Support --Terence Ong (T | C) 11:23, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
  28. Support Impressive answers, food for thought for existing admins too. --kingboyk 13:56, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
  29. Merovingian - Talk 23:41, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
  30. Support. Good answers to questions, and impressive contributor to Wikipedia. Keep up the good work, buddy. =) --Nishkid64 00:28, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  31. Support. Good answers, demonstrated need of sysop tools. -- Merope Talk 00:32, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  32. Support Looks A-OK, I don't see any reasons to hold back "the mop". JungleCat talk/contrib 01:19, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  33. Support Checked out the contributions, and making this user an admin would only enhance the current activities. Insufficient evidence to reject. -- RM 01:51, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  34. Support - Good answers to questions. I feel I can trust the user with the mop. - Aksi_great (talk) 14:50, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  35. Support  Doctor Bruno  21:59, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  36. Support reasonable answers. --Mcginnly | Natter 23:33, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  37. Support Irongargoyle is a bit greener than I would like, but I've always found this user to be reasonable and show good judgement. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.--Isotope23 20:31, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
  38. Support -- has my support. - Longhair\talk 08:00, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
  39. Support per above Anger22 19:08, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
  40. Support —Quarl (talk) 2006-10-05 07:50Z
  41. Support - No reason so far demonstrated not to trust. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 10:32, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
  42. Support Noted a query about talk page archiving at their talk page, however, that is in no way a reason to oppose given their contribution history. Ansell 10:34, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
  43. Support, looks good to me. PJM 12:42, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
  44. Support. Jcam 17:39, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
  45. Support - Nice edit break down, edit history, and clear question answers (smile). I disagree with some of his "notability" work, but that's definitely not a reason to oppose. Happy to support. : ) - jc37 23:12, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
  46. Support Sarah Ewart (Talk) 01:42, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  47. Support seems to be an excellent candidate hoopydinkConas tá tú? 03:10, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  48. Support no evidence suggesting he would abuse the tools and seems like he needs them. Wikipediarules2221 23:16, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

  1. Neutral. I appreciate the editor's thoughtful contributions to AfD, but encyclopedia building seems a little on the weak side. I'm also worried about understanding of the image fair use policy, per concerns raised on talk page. Espresso Addict 21:00, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
    I appreciate the image issue, and following the comment by Meegs, I was surprised that it was not raised earlier in this discussion. After the comment was made, I did a considerable amount of reading of both the image fair use policy and the associated talk pages. I feel as though I have a considerably better understanding of fair use policy than when I began this RfA and have since uploaded no images in potential violation. I do not philosophically agree with the policy, but I admitted that Meegs was probably correct in the policy's interpretation and would not oppose its implementation. Best, Irongargoyle 21:48, 6 October 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.
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