User talk:Tony Sidaway/RFA

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

user

talk

watchlist

watched

sandbox

user links

deletion

more links

Template:User Tony Sidaway/User

Archive: Interim • 10/25 • 10/14 • 09/24 • 09/21 • 09/18 • 09/16 • 09/05 • 08/23 • 08/15 • 08/01 • 07/27 • 07/22 • 07/19 • 07/15 • 07/06 • 07/01 • 06/25 • 06/18 • 06/15 • 06/14 • 06/07 • 06/03 • 05/30 • 05/25 • 05/20 • 05/10 • 04/08 • 03/15 • 02/13 • 02/02 • 01/27 • 01/19 • 01/06 • 2006 • 2005 • 2004  edit

Contents 1 RFA nomination 2 Replies to comments on my RFA 2.1 To EveryKing 2.2 To jag123 2.3 To TacoDeposit 2.4 To Cool Hand Luke 3 Adminship vote 4 Everyking 5 Reply 6 Congratulations, Tony!

[edit] RFA nomination

As discussed, I've just nominated you on WP:RFA. Let's see if you're mopworthy - David Gerard 00:57, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Replies to comments on my RFA

I moved these here from the RFA page.

[edit] To EveryKing

Some of Everyking's objections on account of my views are fairly well expressed. I did support inlining the autofellatio picture although I also think linking is okay. I do currently believe, on the basis of what I have seen of Wikipedia in the past few months, that it does not yet have a model that adequately identifies, rewards and harnesses experts--and I'm not sure it ever will, and I don't think this is necessarily something we should worry about. Other editing models work better at this, obviously, but they also have their failings.

I do not shy from disputes but I have tried to be courteous.

I would ask Everyking to set his personal views on these subjects aside and judge my behavior, not my views.

On deletionism, I don't agree that I can be fairly characterized as "an extreme deletionist." Even if I were, I'm not sure that it's relevant to adminship.

It is true that you normally try to be courteous (although there have been a few exceptions). However, I could not possibly endorse someone who feels that Wikipedia is too large and detailed at present (which contrasts with the general view that Wikipedia is still very small compared to what it needs to become). I also want to point out that your comments above about experts are vastly more moderate than what you said in IRC: there you said that User:172 should never have been here in the first place, because Wikipedia is not a proper place for experts, which sharply contrasts with my own view that embracing and encouraging the contributions of experts is and will be fundamental to our success, within the context of principled anti-elitism. Everyking 08:40, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

James, I have to say that while Tony is courteous generally, this often covers an anticonciliatory, inflexible attitude. It has become common here on Wikipedia for people to persecute those who use bad language or a bit of "tone" but to reward those who are equally hostile or rude, but do it passively.

I don't suppose you'd misuse your admin powers, Tony, but I have to say I just don't think we need more people who are just clever about being hostile or edit warriors to be empowered.Dr Zen 04:30, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The tenor of my remarks on IRC was that I do not believe that Wikipedia in its present form can be anything but a disappointment for experts. In particular, experts tend to expect (and often rightly so) to have their contributions acknowledged, and they also expect their contributions to be given more weight than the contributions of others. It is my opinion that Wikipedia's current model is not flexible enough for this. I agree with you that an encyclopedia that found a way to embrace experts would be better for it; I disagree with your opinion that we can do so under the present editing model. An eight-year-old anon can come in and edit the work of a professor, and if the work of the eight-year-old gains consensus this will trump the professor. Thus Wikipedia is not at present an expert-friendly environment.

Finally I think you may have taken some of my comments as slights on 172 and his work. They were never intended to do so but if I gave that impression I apologise both to you and to 172. I have no personal knowledge of his edits but people whose opinions I respect say he produced a huge amount of good work including several featured articles. I do not keep IRC logs so I cannot absolutely refute your claim that I said 172 should never have been on Wikipedia in the first place; however this is not my view. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:30, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] To jag123

I accept that it is possible that I may have had a blindspot with respect to User:Ashley Y, but I still do not understand the objections to his edits on Meissner's corpuscle, which seemed to me to be reasonable. User:Robert the Bruce's principal objection seemed to be that this was all part of some cunning plan to distort the significance of the Meissner's corpuscle in sexual response, but the actual edit itself seemed to be accurate and consistent with standard medical texts. User:Ashley Y also pronounced himself happy with User:Jakew's subsequent edit. In short, I don't know what the fuss was about and regarded User:Robert the Bruce's involvement in that page with extreme suspicion. I could be wrong on this. I would not have had cause to use administrator powers in this dispute, and as a party to the dispute I would not have exercised them if it had escalated to that point.

My objections to the edits were why it was so important to add that information, which others objected to, especially when it was superfluous. Sure, it may be part of standard medical literature, but it's not so important or descriptive that it should be placed in the article at the expense of upsetting some people. You regarded Robert's involvement as suspicious, and I regarded Ashley's as suspicious, yet when he refused to explain himself, you said it wasn't necessary, because it's true. I also addressed adding factually correct information to other articles and the consequences on your talk page. See the 2nd post, 2nd paragraph. Removing the edit in question doesn't make the article factually incorrect but it's suspicious for Robert to do that. Yet Ashley Y adding the same information that started the whole debacle, and not explaining why is perfectly okay "admirable", because it looks fine to *you*. When I asked Ashley Y why he added the info, I was reminded that everyone had equal editing rights, that I shouldn't remove info from the article and somewhere in there, a spelling correction in the article with an edit summary of 'revert', but not one single reason. The edit was completely unnecessary, inflammatory and yet you praise this user and accuse me of being unreasonable. If this is your idea of how to solve NPOV issues, I'm surprised your edit count isn't in the 20,000 range.

I take User:jag123's other objection more seriously. It is true that a large part of my actual editing comprises organizational edits--tinkering with categories, moving pages around, and so on. I have spent considerable amount of time hitting Special:Randompage and adding cats and whatnot. I also spend a large amount of time (possibly too much) discussing edits on pages that tend to be controversial. This is the kind of editor I am. It is not likely to change soon. If it is a fault that means I should not be trusted to perform day-to-day janitorial work, then my nomination should not be supported.

No, what I said was that most of your edits were in the talk pages, and of the 2000 or so that werent, you had many that were disambig (orange (fruit) and head was popular), some recategorisation, and what looks like reverts/edits to highly controversial articles. Not that there is anything wrong with that, and if you don't plan to change soon, then why are you interested in adminship? If you're so interested in janitorial tasks, then why haven't you done more? Although you don't plan to change the kind of editor you are (which, again, is perfectly fine), then when will you be using those nifty admin tools? It's frustrating to see the VfD, TfD, etc (not so bad now) backlogged while a bunch of admins are out arguing over a bunch of things...of lesser importance, to put it nicely. There are tons of people on Wikipedia who spend most, if not all, of their time actually doing housekeeping work, but they aren't popular because they don't use talk pages. You see this here once in a while, something like: "Nominate User:X. 50,000 edits. Here since 2003. I thought he was a maintenance bot". For some reason, we're nominating people to do these tasks based on how many times they've expressed their opinions on talk pages, and we hope they will actually use the tools when they become admins. Yes, you do great work here, and everyone is grateful, but there are barnstars for that. Like it or not, users look up to administrators. They are the face of Wikipedia (or whatever the quote is; I can't find). IIRC, Jimbo himself commented on your negative attitude in the mailing list, and soon afterwards, someone suggested you go take a walk to relax. You're entitled to your opinion, but if you're attitude was so bad that several people commented on it, then perhaps you should stay a user, and not be what people will look up to. Here, we have a user who's practically bursting at the seams to share his opinion at the earliest opportunity, hasn't done much in terms of housekeeping or contributions to articles (except those that are controversial, where, no doubt, he's schooling everyone from a soapbox), doesn't plan to change, doesn't seem to play fair, has a questionable attitude, and we're giving him admin status? Why? --jag123 17:52, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It's an interesting question: if I'm interested in janitorial work why don't I do more? Well the answer is that what I already do in article space is mostly janitorial work. I do RC (though not nearly enough) VfD, RM and Copyvios. Although it's labor-intensive work I have rescued copyright violations, for instance. I have also fixed many redirects. The tinkering with [head] and the like, you may not recognise, involves scores (sometimes hundreds) of disambiguations. I have helped people with inquiries in Village pump and the like. I'm actually rather surprised that you describe me as "hasn't done much in the way of housekeeping." If anything, I've done rather too much of that and not enough copy editing. It isn't glamorous but it needs to be done.

In my edits, I don't really recognise this soap-box person that you describe. I do have strong opinions and try to express them as courteously as possible. But I don't think it's a bad thing to have an opinion. I have found that using talk pages tends to make people far more likely to accept my edits.

I'm afraid we'll have to agree to differ on the relative merits of User:Ashley Y and User:Robert the Bruce. In Robert's recent arbitration case I documented many cases of him removing perfectly good references from articles, apparently because he didn't agree with them. I have seldom seen any of Ashley Y's edits, our paths had not passed before as far as I am aware, and while I'm prepared to take Robert's word for it that Ashley Y is an anti-circumcision activist, I didn't see any reason for the abusive treatment he received from Robert during his editing of Meissner's corpuscle. He merely inserted the standard textbook phrase. You yourself said of his edit "I don't question the validity of it at all." You seemed to be criticising him, it seems to me, for being bold--not waiting around while others engaged in pointless arguing. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:19, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

After this, jag123 and I discussed the issues amicably and in more detail on IRC, evening of Friday, 4 March. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:54, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] To TacoDeposit

Yes, I think that's a pretty good reason to oppose. I do have extremely strongly held opinions, and that carries with it an obligation to take care in how I express them, and to ensure that they do not influence my actions.

It is for this reason that I first told David Gerard last month that I thought I would probably not be able to use block powers for WP:3RR. This is what I told him:

I have very strong, fairly widely known, views on edit warring. I know those views are quite different from the consensus. I would have to be cautious about blocking users for 3RR breaches. Fortunately I think the procedures for that are maturing and I am much happier about the admin noticeboard discussions.

My view on page protection is that it should be a last resort taken only after weighing the actual damage done by blocking all edits against the potential damage that may be done by permitting a minor edit war to resolve itself. Two recent protects on Clitoris were probably of the kind I would have tended to query. I also queried a protect on George W. Bush which didn't appear justified. The page was unprotected and fairly amicable editing proceeded (amid the vandalism reverts that are customary for that article). I do occasional Recent Changes work and sysop powers would also be useful for this

I should clarify that, by "I am much happier about the admin noticeboard discussions", I meant the discussions on WP:AN/3RR, in which a 3RR can be reported and dealt with on a more consensual basis than applied previously.

It may surprise you to hear that I do not in general favor blocking for 3RR. Although I believe that more than one revert in a blue moon is a sign that there is a problem, and I strongly agree with David Gerard that the 3RR should be regarded as an electric fence and not an entitlement, in general I regard the 3RR as a matter of individual discipline. Just because I scold people for editing poorly does not mean that I would use blocking in an attempt to make them improve their habits. Successfully editing without going near three reverts, as I do, is a good way to set an example, and that should be enough. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:38, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] To Cool Hand Luke

Posting a gawd-awful picture of autofellatio to see how long it would last seems awfully close to disrupting wikipedia to prove a point. Moreover, user nonchallantly speaks of forking the project and writing articles for "stability" rather than consensus. I find consensus to be a non-negotiable value for the project and am hesitant to support a user that feels differently.

My edit on Autofellatio is mischaracterized above. The picture is not, as far as I'm aware, in any way "godawful", but a very good illustration of the act. I did not post the picture. Someone claimed that the picture had been linked rather than inlined because there was a consensus to do so and, believing this to be a false statement, I tested it by converting to inline. The picture remained stable in that form without my intervention for four weeks, until early February, suggesting that no consensus existed to inline it. A subsequent poll, which is ongoing, has as yet failed to find consensus for inlining. However the current form, with a drawing inline and the picture linked, is stable. As is my custom when performing a potentially controversial edit, I have only performed the edit once, never intervening and reverting.

On forking, my views are well known. I do not believe that forking is necessarily bad for an open project. I do not believe that a wiki should fear forking, but rather that it should prepare for forking and endeavor to enable communication between compatible forks. I'm aware that this opinion does not enjoy consensus; nevertheless it is my opinion.

I have never suggested relaxing the standard of consensus. In using the term "stability" in referring to articles I refer to a state which it is reached where no significant permanent changes are made to the article when observed over a period of time. Thus the George W. Bush article can be regarded as moderately stable even though there are occasional squabbles over a paragraph here and there and the article is vandalised several times a day. This is usually a sign that there is no consensus that the article needs to be changed. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:52, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Adminship vote

Hi Tony,

Thank you for clarifying your position on my talk page. As I said, there's nothing personal about the way I've voted; I'm just concerned to uphold certain standards. I'm glad to see you appear to understand this viewpoint. I think I'll revise my vote now. David Cannon 23:43, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Everyking

Beyond the talk, there's the reality that you were participating in the effort to remove information from the article without discussion and consensus, and that you were willing to revert repeatedly to accomplish that: you even once offered to revert continually to keep the article on the minimized version, don't you remember that? Everyking 18:10, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Firstly you falsely claim I was trying to remove information from the article without consensus. Secondly you falsely claim that I was "willing to revert repeatedly to accomplish that." You know full well that I only ever reverted once on Autobiography. Thirdly you falsely claim that I "even once offered to revert continually to keep the article on the minimized version." If the best you can do is utter repeated falsehoods, I don't see much point. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:48, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I can dig up your offer to revert to the minimized version, Tony. That's the logic of revert warring: ignore discussion in favor of excluding one editor through persistent reverts. I bring this up not because I think it's some awful crime, but because you make a point of presenting yourself as uncommonly dedicated to compromise and consensus, when I know from personal experience that that has not always been true. Everyking 21:14, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Please do dig up this "offer to revert to the minimized version." --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:19, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reply

Tony, thank you for your reasonable and thoughtful comments on my talk page. I hope you will understand if my vote remains neutral for now. I have to think about your comments more carefully, and to look at your track record here more closely. I have no desire to punish you for any misconceptions I may have about you (hence I didn't vote "Oppose") but I have some uncertain feelings still that would make it a false action for me to switch my vote to support. As you can see from the votes in your case, you have many friends in this community, a number of whom have my respect. Conversely, however, you have a group of opposition also, and I do respect a number of those contributors as well. This is obviously a complicated matter, and I promise I will do all I can to be fair -- if my only opposition to you turns out to be a difference of opinion on content matters, that will not be sufficient to keep me from supporting you. I also want to reiterate that, even if I remain neutral on (or even oppose) your RFA, I still value your contributions here -- my concerns are about how you would handle the pressures of being an administrator, not whether or not you are an asset to the community contributing as you have been. I'm sorry to leave a note that I'm sure is still unsettling, and all I can say is that I am a very openminded person (or try my hardest to be), and that you can trust me that I will be considering your suitability as admin very carefully -- if you are as wellsuited as so many editors think you to be, I'll have no problem admitting my suspicions were groundless, and supporting you with enthusiasm. Jwrosenzweig 16:37, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Congratulations, Tony!

Congratulations! It's my pleasure to let you know that, consensus being reached, you are now an administrator. You should read the relevant policies and other pages linked to from the administrators' reading list before carrying out tasks like deletion, protection, banning users, and editing protected pages such as the Main Page. Most of what you do is easily reversible by other sysops, apart from page history merges and image deletion, so please be especially careful with those. You might find the new administrators' how-to guide helpful. Cheers! -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 01:53, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations from me as well.-gadfium 02:07, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations! -- Chris 73 Talk 02:10, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations Tony! --jag123 02:42, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Good luck! Neutrality^talk 05:52, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

Bravo et bon courage ! Rama 06:39, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations! Jayjg ^(talk) 15:32, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Congrats dude! TIMBO (T A L K) 00:56, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. That was a bit more eventful and, dare I say, fun than most RFAs. I enjoyed it, at least. Only about 20% of editors think I suck. Hmmm, needs more work. :) --Tony Sidaway|Talk 07:10, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Um, I don't think you suck, and several in the RfA minority don't either I think. Congratulations. Cool Hand Luke 02:35, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Huh? You mean he wasn't one already?

 :-P Kim Bruning 08:21, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)