Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Kevin Baas

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


[edit] Kevin Baas

Final (8/26/5) ended 00:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Closed early as unlikely to achieve consensus. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 00:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Kevin Baas (talk • contribs) – I am a longstanding contributor with a good knowledge of policy. I believe, in principle, that policy should be followed and applied rigorously, and I think I can put more of my spare time to good use as a janitor. Kevin Baastalk 18:04, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I edit a lot of contentious articles. Someone's got to do it. I am not alone in this, there are a number of editors that I run into a lot, and who contribute to many of the same articles i do. I'm interested in politics, like they are, so that's how things turn out. But I do my research and work towards making these articles factual and complete, and i adhere strictly to policy, esp. NPOV, and expect others to do the same. if you want to hear what i have to say about NPOV, take a look at my user page. Kevin Baastalk 23:47, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

New: For the sake of disclosure, I and almost all of the editors of a contentious article were named by Phil Sandifer (formerly Snowspinner) in an arbitration request. You can examine it he6re: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#Election. Kevin Baastalk 22:55, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:

I accept this nomination. Kevin Baastalk 18:39, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Support

  1. Looks like a win-win situation to me. Sarge Baldy 19:00, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  2. Support. A quick perusal of this user's edits suggests a strong knowledge of policy, particularly WP:DR, WP:NOT and WP:RS. RadioKirk talk to me 19:11, 21 May 2006 (UTC) Changed to Neutral RadioKirk talk to me 19:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC) Changed back to support, I'm satisfied with the answers. RadioKirk talk to me 21:05, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  3. Support An experienced user. --Siva1979Talk to me 19:24, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  4. Support Looks experienced, sincere and highly motivated. Happy with answers to questions below. Will look further if vote seems close. Stephen B Streater 21:39, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  5. Support. Very experienced user. DarthVader 22:23, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  6. Support. I was impressed by the answers to the questions. -→Buchanan-Hermit™/!? 07:49, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  7. Support (moral), we need admins that edit contentious articles too.--Kungfu Adam (talk) 13:06, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
    Support (moral). Hopefully the candidate gets better.--Jusjih 13:34, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
    left vague like this, it's a personal attack. one should write, rather, "i believe that the candidate can improve in x. examples of where is failing and why... how person could have done better. Kevin Baastalk 15:15, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
    I do not understand why you call it a personal attack while I have never meant any attack. I just wished you better. I have checked Wikipedia:No personal attacks but could find nothing apparently supporting your claim. Please explain why exactly you called it an attack.--Jusjih 16:48, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
    Changed to oppose for now, see below.--Jusjih 17:27, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
    I didnt mean to impy that it qualified as a "no personal attacks" violation. perhaps i should be more precise: it is destrucitve criticism. theres nothing you can do with it but be condenscended. I understand that you were not trying tobe offensive. i want you to understand that without you being more specific, what you wrote is worthless to me. what do you perceive my shortcomings to be? what are some examples? How would you have acted? why do you think that's "better"? that kind of information is useful. Kevin Baastalk 21:48, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  8. Support, good nom. Royboycrashfan 21:41, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. I very strongly object to this user being made an administrator. Raul654 19:11, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
    May we be enlightened? RadioKirk talk to me
    Kevin Baas is a POV-pushing problem user and giving him adminship will only increase the problems he has a history of causing. Consider: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gzornenplatz, Kevin Baas, Shorne, VeryVerily (where the arbcom found he participated in revert wars on numerous occasions), 9/11 conspiracy theories (see the talk page history; or the 950 redirect pages, leftovers from his page-moving warring to new titles including: 9-11 domestic conspiracy 9-11 domestic conspiracy theory 9/11 U.S. complicity theories 9/11 Bush Administration complicity theory 9/11 domestic complicity conspiracy theories); his actions on the 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities (which led Snowspinner to file a request for arbitration ([1]) echo the same POV he was warring over in the 9/11 article. This user should not be an admin. Raul654 19:23, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
    Ya, see my answers to the questions below, where i have a history of solving problems, not causing them. I was not originally in that arbcom case but i asked to join in to put a few words in and because in retrospect, i realized i had violated 3rr on occasion on the article in question. I believe i explained the history of that below. those page moves were me trying to come up with an agreeable name. then someone kept blanking the page and redirected it to a page that links to it, even though the article had not been through an AfD. I informed him that this was a violation of policy, and eventually snowspinner, now phil sandifer, after becoming involved in the conflict himself, protected the page (a violation of policy). snowspinner aka phil filed actions not because of me but because of his frustration in general. he should have tried mediation, first, though. Kevin Baastalk 19:51, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
    Added questions below. RadioKirk talk to me 20:19, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
    Raul, you've made some serious accusations, namely that 1) i am a POV-pusher, 2) that i am a problem user., and 3) that i have a history of causing problems. can you provide any evidence to support these claims? (and btw, i like your laws, and am especially flattered by the first.) Kevin Baastalk 00:44, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  2. Oppose involved in current RFAr Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Election and the answer for number one is just plain bad, I see few vandalism reverts in his edits, lack of wikipedia namespace, maybe later Jaranda wat's sup 19:22, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
    Ya, Phil is having trouble on a page and he should have tried mediation. His choice does not reflect on me. if there was a ruling againgst me (which would also be a ruling against pretty much every contributor to that article except Phil), that would be different. I really don't expect that to happen. regarding vandalism: People usually beat me too it. But w/anti-vandal tools I would imagine it'd be different. Anycase, look back in my history further if you want to find vandalism reversions. I don't expect you to believe that I don't revert vandalism. Kevin Baastalk 19:51, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
    Ok I saw a few reverts but not much, but that RFAr worries me and the answer for number one is just bad. Jaranda wat's sup 19:55, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
    What are you refering to by "the answer for number one" and why do you think it's bad? Kevin Baastalk 20:00, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
    And in all fairness, if you're interested in the solving/causing problems question you might want to look at Snowspinner's (now Phil Sandifer) past RFCs. That might also give you some insight into the nature of the RFAr. Kevin Baastalk 20:19, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
    The answer for number one doesn't really tell how you want to use the tools, anybody could revert vandalism, it's also way too small. Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 20:25, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
    Thanks for the clarification. I'll write a more thorough answer there. Kevin Baastalk 21:20, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  3. Oppose Agreeing with Jaranada. If you want to be an admin, you need to be reverting vandalism. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ForestH2 (talk • contribs) 19:28, 21 May 2006 (UTC).
  4. Strong Oppose based on this statement "Beyond the non-justicableness of this case, from my prior experience with them, I have no confidence in the neutrality of the arbitrators who have accepted this case." in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Election#Statement by Kevin Baas. FloNight talk 19:30, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
    I said it was non-justiciable because 1.) it is not a user dispute, it is a content dispute, and 2.) Phil Sandifer did not try mediation, so it's out of process. My confidence w/those particular arbitrators on the case is diminshed by 1.) that the accepted what on the surface is a non-justiciable case, and 2.) my experience with them in editing controversial articles. Kevin Baastalk 19:51, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  5. Oppose, per Raul. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:44, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  6. Oppose - I also strongly worry about this users POV habits, he has voted on an issue in [Talk:Iraq_War#Casus_belli] and said simply "popular opinion does not support this association.", however when asked for a survey or even a source of where his information on what popular opinion is he never replied. I worry about this for 2 reasons, its possible he voted in favor of where the majority was voting hence his statement, or he was voting strictly by his opinion and stating it "popular opinion." While voting ones opinion is fine, he lacks any sort of support for it with evidence. This is what makes me worry about his admin abilities as he doesnt support things with evidence, and does not follow up for requests of information regarding his findings. An admin needs to be concise and willing to follow up and resolve issues, not simply throw information around or be unwilling to state why they made such a choice, at least in my opinion. --Zer0faults 20:33, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
    I forget about that question, Zer0faults, thanks for reminding me. You can go ahead and ignore/disregard my vote until I do. Sorry about that. Regarding POV - these are contentious pages and everyone sees things differently, it's important to realize that and it's not constructive to call eachother POV-pushers because we have different opinions on some things. So long as we're all working towards consensus I don't think anyone of us can be righly called a "POV-pusher". Kevin Baastalk 20:52, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  7. oppose - spending too much time trying to minimise the various problems... particularly dislike the response to the copyvio block... and starting replies with "Ya" is irritating William M. Connolley 20:51, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  8. Weak Oppose seems to be experienced, but admins and point of view shouldn't be together, at least not on Wikipedia. Master of Puppets That's hot. 22:38, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  9. Oppose per Raul. --Nick Boalch\talk 23:38, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  10. Oppose per Raul. Naconkantari 00:06, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  11. Oppose, -- With a pending RfAr, user all ready seems pretty busy. Seems to feel conflict is a natural part of Wikipedia, rather than not. Lacks anti vandal edits and claims lack of tools. I had made a couple thousand or so before I got VandalProof. BTW, you can get anti-vandal tools without adminship. (I haven’t tried “pop-ups,” but VandalProof is wonderful.) As a suggestion, some time away from contentious articles may give user a needed respite from a stressful situation. Perhaps after the dust settles and after he has more experience RCPatrolling. Thanks :) Dlohcierekim 01:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  12. Oppose, I'm only concerned that he doesn't seem to know why he really wants admin tools. The answer to question #1 is most telling in this respect. Spend some more time on that, then come back. Ted 03:09, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  13. Oppose per Raul654 and Jaranda above. (And don't come to my user talk page saying you want me to reconsider -- I've had too many people asking for that lately.) Elkman (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log) 03:40, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  14. Does not appear to meet 1FA. - Mailer Diablo 04:09, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  15. Oppose per Raul and Jaranda. --Terence Ong 10:29, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  16. Oppose per above. Flcelloguy (A note?) 14:36, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  17. Oppose due to seeing 2004 election articles as an accomplishment. Phil Sandifer 15:13, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  18. Oppose because of his involvement in the conspiracy theory nonsense. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:11, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  19. Oppose. I intended to give a moral support, but I cannot agree what he just called me as personal "attack" while I would like to nake a positive wish in response to disputes above. Wiktionary defines hopefully as "it is hoped that; I hope; we hope; in a hopeful manner". What exactly is wrong to wish someone getting better? Sorry, but I have to change my vote now.--Jusjih 17:27, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  20. Oppose Per Raul. Arkon 18:04, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  21. Oppose Kevin's got a lot to contribute, but the history I've read seems to suggest he is most committed to ensuring that his POV is fairly represented in a variety of US politics pages. That itself a decent contribution to Wikipedia, but not really related to admin duties. Maybe Kevin could spend a few months cleaning vandalism and/or mediating and re-apply. TheronJ 18:19, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  22. Somewhat unstable in conflict, see the results of this: [2]. Also, not much reversion of vandalism as mentioned already. --Knucmo2 21:07, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
    That's an interesting interpretation of that event. I'm actually quite proud of that RFAr. As I mentioned in the questions below, me and a number of others were putting up with a serious problem user (VeryVerily), and after much effort, we solved it. (also thanks to the judicious minds of the arbitrators). I was not indicted in that arbitration. I voluntarily joined so that I could have a say. and if you look at the conclusion to that RfAr, you'll see the arbitrators didn't see it fit to take any action against me. at first, they didn't even think i should be in the case. but woa and behold, as a newbie facing an extremely disruptive user who violated the 20RR every day for over a month when the 3RR was not being enforced, i slipped a few times, a loooong time ago. I cited that as an example below of the most stressful situation i've been in on here. the arbitrators would have overlooked had i not insisted that they enforce policy rigorously, even when i'm the violator. i thought that was also a good example of self-discipline and equinamity, mantained will other users (such as Gz) cracked. but you have an interesting interpretation. my name is only mentioned once in the results, in the findings of fact, because I brought that to their attention for the sake of fairness. If they didn't put that there, I would have asked them to. Kevin Baastalk 22:13, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  23. Oppose. Per Raul. Jayjg (talk) 22:20, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  24. Oppose. I believe Kevin is here mainly to promote a specific POV. Rhobite 23:42, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  25. Oppose Per above. DGX 00:22, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
  26. Oppose per Raul. Mackensen (talk) 00:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Neutral

Neutral per Raul654 and Jaranda. I can't oppose, but the possibility that the knowledge of policy could be used to push an individual POV with admin tools has me far too nervous to continue with any support. RadioKirk talk to me 19:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC) Changed back to support. RadioKirk talk to me 21:05, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I would think that knowledge of the non-negotiable WP:NPOV policy in particular would preclude that possibility. Kevin Baastalk 19:56, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
So would I. New questions below. RadioKirk talk to me 20:19, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  1. Neutral Experienced, put too POV. Raichu 23:23, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  2. Neutral Neither would I be wholly comfortable giving this user admin tools (principally because I retain concerns apropos of his temperament) nor would I be fully able to justify an oppose (I'm not wholly in accord with the justifications offered by Raul, et al., and I think it eminently likely that Kevin would use the mop constructively (although ostensibly infrequently), but I can't be sure that he wouldn't use it disruptively (even if avolitionally) on occasion. That is, I guess, the definition of neutral. Joe 05:22, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  3. Neutral There are enough checks and balances in Wikipedia policies to "deal" with any admin that abuses admin tools. With that said, I do not think that Kevin would abuse admin tools. My concern is that Kevin has been with us for a long time (over 3 years) and there are only 750ish edits to the wiki project pages. I would like to see him be more active on RC patrol and Afd discussions outside of his major scope of interest. The is no doubt about Kevin's IQ, as I believe he is exceptionally intelligent and would generally make wise decisions administratively.--MONGO 07:23, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  4. Neutral (but could be swayed) We have agreed to disagree on a couple of occasions (the Bush Impeach articles, most notably), and though Kevin has certainly been cordial enough in that regard, I don't feel comfortable enough to turn the keys over unless I can see some better "even-handedness" in relation to POV. Perhaps some better examples of NPOV? --Mhking 13:32, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
    could you provide some counterexamples? Kevin Baastalk 14:19, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
    if you want some examples of NPOV, take a look through my contributions. they should be pretty easy to find. Kevin Baastalk 22:23, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  5. I'm very torn. As may be obvious to some, Kevin and I rarely agree on issues. We have (sometimes very heatedly) debated various topics. In the past I've thought, "Man, I would never support him if he tried for adminship." However, I am starting to change my mind. KB does have a strong POV. He sometimes does let it slip some. But as admin tools do not include an "Insert POV" button, that is a slightly irrelevent point. We all have a POV, and coming from someone else who edits some contentious articles, it can be hard to maintain perfect neutrality when you see something that is glaring against your POV. We all struggle with it. But does this make Kevin a bad editor? Does it automatically mean he is not ready for sysop tools? Of course not. Kevin is knowledgable of policy and he is a trusted user. Would giving him the power to rollback hurt WP that much? Just about every admin action is reversible. So if he slipped up, we could all be there to help right the ship. I may not like his views (or even find them logical ;-)), but I respect him for standing up for what he believes. So after all of this, I am neutral leaning support, actually. And who knows, if he messes up, we could always impeac, er, desysop him later. ;-) But seriously, he is unlikely to abuse the admin tools. Not a fan of the arguing with the opposers and the advertising of the RfA, though. --You Know Who (Dark Mark) 15:48, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Comments

Username        Kevin Baas
Total edits     7041
Distinct pages edited   761
Average edits/page      9.252
First edit      14:09, March 12, 2003
        
(main)  2423
Talk    2649
User    379
User talk       718
Image   72
Image talk      4
Template        28
Template talk   4
Category        10
Wikipedia       502
Wikipedia talk  252

—G.He 03:14, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

    • On talk pages, I don't have a habit of using edit summaries - it seems kind of superfluous to me to explain an explanation. This probably brings down my average a bit. Kevin Baastalk 19:08, 21 May 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, if any, would you anticipate helping with? Please check out Category:Wikipedia backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.
A: Vandalism, and I'll certainly have enough time in addition to that to get into the others as I start to feel comfortable w/the process.
B: Basically responding to requests - such as on the Administration Noticeboard and requests for protection/unprotection. As well as mantenience tasks like deletes/undeletes from VfDs on so forth. You know, the stuff that this role is there for.
2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
A: 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities and related subarticles, because I played a substantial role in writting them, because the main article has over 130 references, and it has seen many improvements from other contributors.
B: Metric tensor - because of this: [[3]]. When this comment was posted, most of the content on the page was my writting, from boldy revamping a much earlier version. The page looked pretty much like this: [4]. (Since then, the intro's been esoteric-ated.)
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: Oh, ofcourse. If you haven't dealt with edit conflicts, you haven't been "initiated". Others have caused me stress, but now my wiki-tolerance is much higher, and my wikistress stays at green. There was a particularly stressfull incident a long time ago with a user "User:VeryVerily", who has since been banned for that incident, among others. I discussed with him a lot, but he had a view that his version was the consensus, even though everyone else on the page agreed that a different version was the consensus, and tried to enforce his "consensus" through brute force, reverting the page so many times that it went through 7 consecutive page protections on that basis alone - i imagine there's a couple hundred of his edits in a row that were all reverts to his preferred version. so as a newbie, i went to arbitration first, thinking that this was a serious enough violation to bypass mediation. it was thrown out on the basis of not having gone through mediation. so i went through mediation, while 3 different arbitration cases from other users against VV built up in the RFAr. eventually the mediation case was forwarded to an open RFAr, and remedies were enforced. (see: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gzornenplatz, Kevin Baas, Shorne, VeryVerily) That was probably the most stressful conflict i've ever had on wikipedia.
Since then, I believe I've improved in handling conflicts. I've interacted with people with a lot of different views, some more receptive than others, and have found people to be more reasonable than I would first expect. I've become more specific when discussing something that is disputed, and i've become familiar enough with policy that I cite it directly when I feel it neccessary. I feel that in my time on wikipdeia, I've learned how to resolve conflicts more quickly and peacefully, even on very controversial matters.
4. User_talk:Kevin_Baas/Archive6#Copyright_violations seems to be a block. Do you have any comments on this? Also, I'm not involved with US politics, but you seems to edit a lot of potentially contentious articles. How would your admin status affect your approach to these? Stephen B Streater 19:43, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
A: Ya, someone found a text copyvio that had unique and interesting info and just deleted it, and i was trying to get him to move it to the talk page or at least a link to it so editors would still have access to that info. i thought he would see the reasonableness of that, but i was wrong. live and learn.
B: Re: admin and potentially contentious articles: Per policy I could not use any admin tools on disputes that I'm involved in, so I would have to say not at all. I would not use my admin tools on these pages at all.
5 by RadioKirk: after having run through your edits in August and September during the issue presented here by Raul654, I'm concerned that mediation might have been the right route for all involved, yourself included, and that you might have attempted to enforce not so much a solution as your solution. I also wondered if this edit didn't come awfully close to violating WP:POINT. Are my concerns correct or incorrect, and why?
A: Last question first: the other side of the dispute had not been discussing for a couple of days, as i was waiting for a response. One could take this as tacit consent, and go ahead and follow the wikipedia policy Wikipedia:Be bold, or one could take this as no consent sit and wait (possibly indefinitely). I didn't think that we had actually reached agreement, so i did both in a way: what i meant to say was : "hey, there's still an issue here, what do you guys think of this version? let's discuss it..." I guess that would have been a much better way to say it, and looking back at that situation i see that as a big mistake there, in addition to the fact that we probably should have been trying mediation at that point, but I really wasn't trying to disrupt wikipedia to make a point - as i said, i should have stated myself differently, and your concerns are correct in those respects.
6 by RadioKirk: how would you handle the same situation today?
A: Stated myself differently, left a message on the user's talk pages saying that the issue needs to be discussed and resolved before anyone makes any controversial edits. If that step didn't work, seek mediation.
The above 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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