User talk:Placeholder account/RFA review

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Comments were requested. I advise totally frankly, as I always do, and as I would advise anyone

  1. Do not ask for the change in rules, for the first 100 edits. I think that this would be seen as relaxing AfD procedure excessively. I can imagine what some eds will say, for they try very hard to concoct unlikely situations where it will be harmful, and nothing will stop them.
  2. Don't ask for the probation. Don't ask for personal special treatment, even to your own disadvantage. The very asking for it will be remembered and resented.
    2a. Just say that you will try again when you can demonstrate a longer period of good behavior. Withdraw and say it right now. Simply go up again in 4 months. There will be many new people by then. and everything will be 4 months further back. When you go up, say you will be open to recall.
  3. There is legitimate concern about the harm an admin can do by loopy behavior, as this has actually happened at least twice this year in a major way, and a few times in lesser ways. There were no warning signs for any of them.
  4. In the meantime be conservative, and follow the mood--it's the only way to be effective here. The mood at Speedy is getting to be to follow the rules literally and narrowly. some of my speedies have been declined as not meeting the category. Check the discussions on the CSD talk page to see.
  5. AfD, imho, is getting really erratic. Watch carefully what you nominate--if in doubt ask someone in the field. Always give reasons--longer than you usually give.
  6. And of course revert vandalism frequently -- I suggest NewPages, going back 2000 or 3000 counts--there's a lot that gets by the first day, and help is badly needed later, One of the experienced admins suggested it to me a few months back, & I do it when I have the time. What you do will be visible, as a bonus effect.

As for the events--I find it amazing that you weren't warned back in 05. Personally i would have blocked you for a month, for using WP to advance an off WP cause by illegitimate means to the possible discredit of the project. It does not help that the cause you were trying to do was both esoteric and of no obvious great moral value--I am aware of the conflict in values, but most people will see it as a college kid prank to annoy the president. The blanking and the insertion of nonsense--It does not help that as vandalism goes, both were on the primitive end. . It oddly does not help that they occurred at 6-month intervals--it will be taken to mean unpredictable fits of silliness -- See no.3 above. Best wishes DGG 09:25, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Relative seriousness of vandalism is not determined by warnings or lack thereof

I think the only reason you were not warned (and blocked) for some of your vandalism is the fact that a great deal of vandalism is reverted by newer users who either don't know how to warn and report vandals, or who don't understand that it is important to do so. In other cases, the person reverting the vandalism will simply not take the time to warn, because they are in a hurry or overwhelmed. The fact that you were not warned and blocked was, in my opinion, not a judgment that your page-blankings, personal attacks and insertions of nonsense were not serious, but rather a symptom of how overloaded many editors get when it comes to dealing with vandalism.

In your RfA you seemed to imply that your vandalism was not that big a deal because others cleaned it up for you: "...the relevant edits, along with other vandalism in my past, subverts Wikipedia, at least until someone corrects the error."[1] This seems contemptuous to me, and disrespectful of the work that vandal-fighters do. I am stunned that you would say this as you also do some vandal-fighting yourself. This makes me concerned that you may see vandal fighting more as combat, a game, or something you need to do to balance things out enough to succeed at an RfA, rather than protection of the project. I think changing the rules to go easier on vandals is the last thing that Wikipedia needs. Vandalism is not only harmful to the project for the misinformation it spreads, but also for the time it wastes when we could be writing articles. This latter concerns me more than the temporary misinformation because, frankly, I am more concerned with editor burnout right now than with the temporary presence of infantile screeds on pages.

I've seen you respond to concerns like these with arguments based on ratios: that only a miniscule amount of your total edits have been vandalism. I see this through an entirely different framework: The presence of any vandalism, even if only a small ratio of total edits, reflect an attitude problem, a, I'm sorry to say, character problem. That, imho, is the problem, not a matter of whether the good work outweighs the bad. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 21:21, 4 June 2007 (UTC)