Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Captain panda

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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.

Contents

[edit] Captain panda

Closed without consensus by Cecropia 16:51, 11 July 2007 (UTC) at (29/24/2); Scheduled end time 14:44, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Captain panda (talk · contribs) - It is my pleasure to nominate Captain panda as an administrator candidate. He is an active member of WikiProject Biography summer assessment drive, helping to combat the backlog of biography articles that needs assessments. He is an active community member and has participated in a wide range of articles. The thing that I admire is that he is active participating in RfA discussions. I think he will be an asset to the community when he becomes an admin. OhanaUnitedTalk page 05:56, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:

I accept the nomination and I thank OhanaUnited for nominating me. Captain panda 14:44, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. What admin work do you intend to take part in?
A: I plan to do much of my work on clearing CAT:CSD. Since I have tagged a good deal of articles for speedy deletion, I believe that I could help in deleting the correctly tagged articles myself. I also wish to be able to block users who create nonsense or vandalism articles when I see that their only contributions have been the nonsense and vandalism articles. I also may block persistent vandals or protect pages from time to time.
2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
A: I feel that my best contributions are my tagging of articles that have no place on Wikipedia to be deleted as I mentioned before. I also feel that another good contribution that I have made are my assessment of biography articles for WikiProject Biography's summer assessment drive. Also, I have spent a good deal of time in WP:RFA and WT:RFA voting on potential administrators for the English Wikipedia.
3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?
A: Early in my time of voting in RfAs I made a great error in Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Trebor Rowntree. I mistakenly thought that he was a sockpuppet and got into a dispute about this. After I was proven wrong, I apologized for my mistake. I do not think that I have since made such a great mistake in voting in RfAs and I hope that I do not make another.
Optional Question 4. from User:Pedro You mention twice in your questions about your participation in voting at RFA. Do you therefore consider RFA to be a straight forward vote?
A: I consider RfA to be voting because it is. I am not saying that this is good, but with its current format, RfA is simply a vote without a definite cutoff number. It supposedly is a discussion, but my experience has shown me otherwise.
Optional Question 5. When whould do you consider user banning is appropriate.
A: I think banning is somewhat unnecessary when a user can simply be indefinitely blocked instead of a ban. If banning is to be used, it should be used only when an indefinite block is not extreme enough.
Optional Question 6. from User:OhanaUnited What policy or rule do you think Wikipedia should modify to provide a better editing environment? (This question is not intended for a long analysis. Just say which policy and the reason why it needs to change.)
A: I think that Wikipedia:Ignore all rules needs to be changed. It is a good policy in theory, but it has quite a large potential to be abused. Some examples are an editor ignoring WP:3RR saying that his or her opinion about the disputed edit is correct or ignoring WP:NPOV saying that the article cannot be written without an opinion on the topic. There is no need for it to be thrown away, but it should be changed so that it is harder to abuse.

[edit] General comments

Please keep criticism constructive and polite. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review Special:Contributions/Captain panda before commenting.

[edit] Discussion

Support

  1. Support as nom. OhanaUnitedTalk page 05:22, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  2. Support - I have seen you around Wikipedia a few times, especially in RFA, and I am convinced you would make a good admin. You have done a good job with WikiProject Biography work and dealing with inappropriate pages. I also think your comments are always constructive and polite. Camaron1 | Chris 15:05, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  3. Support. I've seen you voting prolifically in RFA, and I like your criteria. I'm sort of concerned, however, that pretty much all your mainspace edits deal with tagging. bibliomaniac15 BUY NOW! 16:16, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  4. Support. Great editor, have had positive experiences.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by SFGiants (talk • contribs).
  5. Support He's been here long enough. Shalom Hello 16:34, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  6. Support- I agree with Bibliomaniac. Good luck! Eddie 16:54, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  7. Support - I have seen the user on RfA's and has been a wikipedian for a long time and I believe its about time he got the tools and I trust the user will use it wisely..--Cometstyles 19:09, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  8. Support Why not? The tools would make his usual tasks, tagging bad articles, easier and faster to do. ♠TomasBat 23:12, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  9. Support - Captain Panda is friendly, supportive in RFAs, shows civility, and exhibits a fair range of contributions (that, yes, might be good for some expansion into some spaces you havent really got your hands into). I support. Anonymous DissidentTalk 23:15, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
    "supportive in RFAs" - that's a strange reason to support him/her. Shouldn't CP be honest and give support and opposes when when its justified rather than just being a nice guy which is what you seem to be implying? I'm all for niceness BTW and I'm not picking on you personally AD but I just cannot understand the level of support on this page given that the nominee has made hardly any contributions to the encyclopaedia. It really bothers me that there seems to be undue weight given in many RfA's based solely on participation here. —Moondyne 01:33, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
  10. Support No reason to oppose. He's great for his time here. Ganfon 23:53, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  11. Support Per Q5 -FlubecaTalk 02:49, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  12. Support Unlikely to abuse admin tools. --Siva1979Talk to me 04:46, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  13. Support Reply to my optional question goes against the spirit of RFA, but was refreshingly honest. I still have concerns that you view your contributions at RFA as your best work, but nothing in oppose indicates a reason not to trust this user with the tools, and previous personal interaction has been civil and friendly with a commitment to helping out this work. Pedro |  Chat  07:06, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  14. Strong Support - excellent editor. As I keep saying, there's nothing wrong with promoting users who are primarily focused on maintenance work; maintenance is at least as important as writing new articles, and without it Wikipedia would fall apart. Waltontalk 09:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  15. Support All my interactions have been good, and I trust them. Jmlk17 09:20, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  16. Support I trust him too! Politics rule 17:13, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  17. Support I have no problems with this user. Acalamari 17:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  18. Support. Very good editor and looks honest. --Carioca 19:29, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  19. Support A good editor; doesn't seem to be any reason to expect that this user will abuse, misuse or lack understanding of the tools. GDonato (talk) 21:37, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  20. Support, contribs seem to express a sufficient familiarity with policy and procedure. Arkyan • (talk) 21:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  21. Support, I've seen you around and I'd be happy to Support. Cheers, Dfrg.msc 06:57, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
  22. Support, candidate is showing a healthy skepticism and lack of idealism about the project. --Agamemnon2 11:44, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
  23. Support, No reason not to support; a good editor. Bart133 (t) (c) 16:43, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
  24. Been waiting for this one. Great editor. G1ggy Talk/Contribs 05:53, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
  25. Support You are a great editor Davis160Talk 18:19, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
  26. Support Seems good; love the 'telling it like it is' response to question 4 :). ck lostsword•T•C 19:24, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
  27. Support. There is the Wikipedia we would want and the Wikipedia we have. This isn't a value judgment, though, it is a challenge to improvement. I think this one gets it. --Fire Star 火星 21:53, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
  28. Support - I've seen Captain panda around, and the answers to the questions and a generalized review of his contributions seem to confirm the idea that he would make a good admin. Here's my push for your mop. :) Nihiltres(t.l) 23:04, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
  29. Support Ben MacDui (Talk) 19:35, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Oppose — You don't seem to contribute to the encyclopaedia.[1] Matthew 16:07, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
    Matthew, all of the contributes you showed were to the mainspace. ~ Wikihermit 19:58, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
    Matthew's point was that nearly all of Captain panda's recent mainspace edits are tagging or AWB edits (although I don't personally have an opinion on this point). Ral315 » 20:05, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
    (edit conflict) That was Matthew's intention. He was trying to show that the user does stub-sorting, speedy tagging, and tag adding — all of which are AWB-style bot edits. Nishkid64 (talk) 20:07, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
    And his point is? I'm gonna act naive and pretend I don't know that some people confuse article writing with administrator capability. Wake up and smell the roses people, not one admin tool enhances your article ability. In fact, being an admin would give you less time in that area. Why do you need to work in it to show admin abilities? G1ggy Talk/Contribs 05:56, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Very nice guy, but I don't think his range of experience extends far enough outside of Wikispace (a relative rarity for me.) Hard-working wiki-gnome -- just needs to expand his work to something more content-intensive. Xoloz 16:46, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
    Also, it is a definite negative, in my view, that the user maintains something called "The Wikipedia Army". Vandal-fighting is great, but para-military lingo associated therewith often indicates a user is unfamiliar with the full goals of the project. Xoloz 22:49, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
    I received the army from its creator when he decided to leave Wikipedia. I figured that it would be rude to get rid of it. If the community would like me to have it deleted, I will gladly do so. Captain panda 22:55, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
    What's un-Wikipedian about "para-military lingo"? The Wikipedia Army is a great idea. Waltontalk 09:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
    Answered Walton's question at his talk. Xoloz 14:52, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  3. This user does not seem to fully realise our goals, which is to build an encyclopedia. When someone's proudest contributions are "voting" in RfA's and discussing RfA, there is a problem. Not that these aren't worthy ventures (this sort of request is not a vote, by the way, but a discussion), but to focus primarily on these things are not what I am looking for in a potential administrator. In addition, while this fellow appears to be a dedicated volunteer (and apologies if it seems as if I'm shortchanging his contributions, which is not my aim at all) I would like to see some actual encyclopedic contributions gaillimhConas tá tú? 18:14, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  4. Oppose sorry, lack of article writing, and per gaillimh, poor answer for question 2 Jaranda wat's sup 19:03, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  5. Oppose I haven't seen any reasons to trust this user with the admin tools. ~ Wikihermit 19:58, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  6. Oppose According to Q1, Captain panda wishes to help with CAT:CSD. Judging from this user's contributions, I see that this user tags articles for CSD A7 when assertions of notability have been made. The user also is a bit hasty on his speedy tagging. For example, here, Captain panda tags an article for CSD A7 when an assertion of notability has been made. That article can be deleted later by PROD or AfD, but not by speedy deletion since it doesn't qualify. I see the same issue here. An assertion of notability has been made in the article. Also, the two previous diffs show that user is a bit too "trigger-happy" since he tags articles within 1-2 minutes of creation (some more can be seen [2] and [3]). People frequently create a rough outline of an article, and continue to work on it while it is in the mainspace. It's good that you re-checked your tagging here, here and here, but I still think you should be more careful and not so hasty in tagging. Also, I think you shouldn't spend so much time in RfAs. That time can easily be managed into article work. By the way, keep up the good work with the assessment drive. Nishkid64 (talk) 20:29, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  7. Oppose. I don't think that Captain panda has good enough judgement to be an admin. One particular case that comes to mind comes from this very talk page: I satirized project-space edit counting by describing an obviously bad system of "points", where you get points for voting and general meta-wankery, and you get no points for contributing to the encyclopedia. [4] Captain panda then took my satire as a serious proposal: "Actually, I wouldn't mind using rspeer's point system". So either he was making a knee-jerk response without reading, or he actually thinks that Wikipedia should be easily gamed, both of which show poor judgement.
    In regards to questions: I appreciate that he answered Q4 honestly, and didn't resort to the popular doublespeak of "we're not voting, we're voting with an exclamation point in front of it"; but I find his answer to Q2 terrible. He considers his best contributions to include the votes he casts on RfA? That's... quite self-centered. The Q5 answer is naive -- banning is not just an "extreme block". rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 22:36, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  8. Oppose per gaillimh, Nishkid64 & others, sorry --Herby talk thyme 11:43, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  9. Oppose Sorry, but I don't think this user concentrates enough on content building. Socom49 14:16, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
    Oppose per Rspeer -FlubecaTalk 00:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  10. Oppose per answer to Q2 and comments by Rspeer. Addhoc 17:03, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  11. Oppose We are building an encyclopedia; while I fully accept that keeping it vandal-free is of prime importance, I also feel that admins should be able to make sensible mainpage contributions which they can be proud of. To feel, as this user does, that the edits they are most proud of are tagging and RfA voting does not inspire me. I am also concerned that the timing between article creation and {{speedy}} tagging, as highlighted above by several editors, gives an impression that you may be trigger-happy, which is not good in an admin.--Anthony.bradbury"talk" 22:37, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  12. Strongly oppose, not a content editor. I'll give you a point for the answer to question four, but you need to do article work. That's what this is all about. Everyking 05:07, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
  13. Oppose Per answers to questions. I am not convinced that Captain panda is ready to back up his use of the admin tools with written clarification in those circumstances where such clarification is needed. He is a good editor and certainly should return in three months to RfA. -- Jreferee (Talk) 06:34, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
  14. Oppose. I don't feel that the editor has enough experience in encyclopedia building and dealing with editorial conflicts to make a good admin at the present time. Espresso Addict 06:58, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
  15. Oppose I am concerned that the applicant does not have a lot of experience in editing articles. From that editing experience, one gets to a better grasp on the needs and challenges of the administrator. So I get the feeling that the applicant really wants to be a "police officer" rather than a community member. Also, the answers to the questions don't indicate a lot of interest (maybe enthusiasm?) and didn't indicate that they knew what to do with the job. I think there are enough admins who police the project. Personally, I want to see more admins who help build the project. Orangemarlin 21:16, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
  16. oppose not enough substantiev encyclopedia building, too many bot/awb edits. User:Argyriou (talk) 21:18, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
  17. I am concerned about this users' experience in relation to the encyclopedia, and also the candidates' communication skills. Daniel 08:36, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
  18. Oppose I'm not convinced by this candidacy - communication skills seem to be lacking, and the users contributions are not particularly compelling. Carom 20:05, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
  19. Oppose. Well-meaning, energetic editor, but questionable reading comprehension and communication skills. A Traintalk 05:36, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
  20. Oppose. I would like to see more edits that demonstrate a clear understanding of policy, as opposed to tagging the talk pages of biography articles (which seems to be the bulk of your recent edits). Not to say that you haven't done good work, it's just not a good indicator of how you'd be as an admin. -- MisterHand 18:04, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
  21. Oppose. 90% of CP's edits seem to be voting in RfAs (almost always supporting), or tagging talkpages/stubs using AWB, neither of which give any basis for judging CP's competence. I'm frankly dismayed by how many "support"s have been given above; it's about the strongest evidence I've seen for RfA reform. This is not a popularity contest, nor a 'reward' for simple gnome-work. --Quiddity 18:22, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
  22. Oppose. Best work is tagging biographical articles and contributions to RfA's? Sorry but it's a no for me. —Moondyne 16:40, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
  23. Sad oppose. I think many of your ideas and approaches to consensus are quite correct, but for a person who spends a lot of time tagging articles and evaluating them, I think some experience in actually writing some encyclopedic content is important for perspective. This perspective is important when it comes to evaluating whether to send something to AFD or PROD, or whether to speedy delete something. It is important when giving advice to newcomers, who ask you why you deleted something they created. There are cases of good admins who have a fairly limited amount of experience in article writing, BigDT comes to mind, but those cases are exceptional. I don't think that being a prolific contributor who makes featured articles is necessary, but some experience in learning how to source things, look for sources, evaluate the material, and write something comprehensible will be useful to you, as well as being fun and educational. With all that said, I think your heart is in the right place, you have a good attitude, and I think you have done some good stuff. Good luck for the future. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:10, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
  24. I think that in order to pass an RfA, you need to do more than comment on other people's RfAs, tag a few articles, and whack a few vandal contributions... there needs to be some indication that you've thought about what being an admin means and that you are in tune with the goals of the project. I have to agree with other opposes that it would do you some good to try your hand at some serious article writing or editing or cleanup or something. Namespace shift is inevitable, but it's a bit off to start where many people end up shifting TO. Spend some time doing the things folks are urging you to do, hang out at RfA a bit less, and try again when you've experienced more that the wiki has to offer. ++Lar: t/c 23:39, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Neutral

Neutral Pending a response to optional Q4. Moved to Support. Pedro |  Chat  19:29, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  1. Neutral I'm not much of a opposing guy, but your best edit is the Rfa...? H irohisatTalk Page 02:32, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
  2. Neutral Good user, should be able to attain a successful RfA in the near future, as the main concerns raised by opposers are crucial but easy to be overcome. Just get more involved in the encyclopedia build-up and admin-oriented tasks such as vandalfight, and you'll be ready for the mop in a couple of months.--Húsönd 02:02, 9 July 2007 (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.