Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Chaser

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

[edit] Chaser

Final: (52/3/1); ended 07:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Chaser (talk · contribs) – Self-nom. I've been editing in earnest since May of this year. I've started and heavily contributed to about a dozen articles each, most of which are listed on my userpage. I'm fairly involved in WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases, including a bit of maintenance there. I've participated in hundreds of Articles for deletion discussions and a few other deletion discussion processes. The vast majority of AfD pages I edit only once, but I also routinely discuss instead of simply voting (example). I've done a lot of newpage patrol, some of the evidence of which has been deleted (naturally enough). I do loads of counter-vandalism, including appropriate warnings, frequent reversions to today's FA, over sixty edits to Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism, and the occasional more complex case. I set up Werdnabot archiving of the six Village Pump subpages after the previous archival bot bit the dust. I do the occasional page split or merge where consensus exists (or the proposal hasn't received comment and seems non-controversial). I routinely answer questions at WP:VPA and the help desk, sometimes providing additional assistance at the user's talk page. Just recently, I split off and heavily edited Wikipedia:New pages patrol.

I try to be as civil as possible with users, especially newbies who make silly mistakes. When I screw up, I apologize. When I'm treated incivilly, I don't respond in kind. When I'm asked about an action, I explain it. I'm usually pretty careful about not using rollback for non-vandalism edits. I have a sense of humor. really.

I think I'm rambling, so I'm going to quit.

The common rundown from RfA/Crzrussian/Gwernol/Yanksox

Edit Count? 5422
Time around? First edit in summer, 2005, but eighth edit wasn't until April March, 2006
Edit Summaries? 100%
E-mail enabled? Yes
Mistakes? I'm only human. See Q4.
Userpage? typical list of the things I do here, to-do's, contributions, and a userbox joke at the bottom
Any edit warring/blocks? No. I got autoblocked when my doppelganger was blocked at my request.
FA participation? No.

I welcome your feedback. Chaser T 07:03, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: self-nom. I accept.--Chaser T 07:18, 7 December 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: I thought about self-noming as far back as July, but I finally did it this week because I was handling a lot of blanked pages at Special:Shortpages. I thought it was ridiculous for me to go through the history of a page with two edits, the second of which was blanking by the author, and tag it with {{db-g7}}, only to have an admin do essentially the same work over again. So I'll probably start there. I also do a fair bit of new page patrolling and expect to delete speedy candidates as I see them and will almost certainly attend to CAT:CSD, as well. (I won't be deleting everything. I hope to occasionally do things like this as well.) I've also participated a ton at Articles for Deletion, including some non-admin closures, and expect to extend that to clearing out the backlog of clear deletes. I will leave the more difficult closures to Mailer Diablo, crz, CSCWEM, et al. until I get my sea legs. Finally, I've done a bunch of RC Patrol and will start blocking appropiately warned vandals myself instead of going through WP:AIV. I'll also watchlist AIV and attend to that when I see it.
2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any with which you are particularly pleased, and why?
A: Baton Bob and Marla Olmstead, two that I started from scratch, and an expansion of Physics and Star Wars. Scientific jury selection has been about five months in the making, but my current progress is here. I'm proud of work I've done on U.S. Supreme Court case articles and happy to have nudged the WP:SCOTUS wikiproject out of hibernation (though to be honest, I think Tim4christ17's project template attracted enough users to truly get it going again). I'm proud of helping this newbie learn the ropes. And everything I mentioned in the answer to Q1. Occasionally, I see two editors getting into it or one editor getting stressed, and try to defuse the situation.
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: AfD is one of the things that initially fascinated me about wikipedia, and I started out as a rampant deletionist. I brought some stress upon myself with this stupid nomination, but I think I handled it well, withdrawing the silly mass-nom and discussing the issue of notability with reference to guidelines. I've thankfully become more of an inclusionist since and better with mass-noms. I can get argumentative in AfD's sometimes, but not incivil. I got into it with The Crow when I was convinced he was a company's PR stooge (relevant dialogue). When I realized I was wrong, I left him an apologetic message. Now we get along fine (he even borrowed my talk page header). Probably the most stressed I've been was after my addition to the Physics and Star Wars article (referenced in Answer #2). After I spent several hours working on the expansion, another editor took fault with my sources and claimed they were just original research. I actually walked away from the computer for a bit and wrote this response a day later.
Getting crap like this from vandals has never bothered me. My userpage has been vandalized numerous times, as well. A sampling of some slightly stressful interactions with others: a clueless newbie with limited English, a rude section header on my talk page, Mistaken vandalism warning, and someone challenging me for my interpretation of a notability guideline. My interactions with other users have steadily improved as I learn the ropes and become more self-assured.

Optional Question from Chaser I expect this to come up, so I'm going to take the unorthodox step of asking myself an optional question.

4. Chaser, what the heck were you thinking at this AfD?
A: Ouch. That AfD (from June) is probably the biggest mistake I've made on WP. I did three things wrong, here. First, I moved comments from the enormous AfD to the talk page. Second, I sorted the !votes into keep and delete groups. Third, I improperly closed the AfD. In sorting !votes and comments, I was trying to make the page more easily readable, what with the huge number of IPs flooding in. Part of the reason I thought this was acceptable was that !votes are sorted into sections in the same way here at RfA. The closure, perhaps the most ridiculous part of the whole affair, is more understandable in light of my early AfD experience. I'd been involved in some other AfD noms that ended in "keep, withdrawal by nominator" (1, 2, and 3) and even closed one that way myself. For that reason, I thought it was an acceptable closure reason. I wasn't sure, and found out I'd been dead wrong when I bugged Essjay about it. I still appreciate his response. In any case, I screwed up and it may cost me a few supports. All I can do is be honest about my mistake and assure you that it's the dumbest thing I've done here and that it won't happen again.

Optional questions from Malber (talk · contribs)

5. What do the policy of WP:IAR and the essay WP:SNOW mean to you and how would you apply them?
A: IAR is one of Wikipedia's earliest policies (actually, for a time, it was not labelled as policy). In a sense, it is a policy that was more appropriate for an earlier time, when there were fewer editors and everyone knew each other. That said, policy can't imagine every situation, and IAR still exists for those situations where policy lags behind the good of the encyclopedia. I've only used it once as an editor, to skirt process and rapidly make a case article WP:SCOTUS's focus when it was linked from the main page [1]. I envision similar practice as an admin: invoking IAR rarely, if at all.
WP:SNOW, an essay (though similarly in flux, as it was labelled a guideline for a time), is used to shut a process when the result is a foregone conclusion. I see it often invoked with newbie RfAs that get a mountain of opposes. Where an editor has under 250 or so edits, I wouldn't hesitate to pull an RfA myself once it has gotten six or eight opposes, leaving a message on the candidate's talk page that they could re-open it if they so desire. That said, I've already accomplished the same end by talking to the candidate first, thereby avoiding invocation of SNOW. Of course, I would leave more serious candidacies to bureaucrats, as I'm aware of the controversy surrounding early closures. In a normal AfD, I see little use for SNOW. If an article is being repeatedly renominated, it may be appropriate to invoke SNOW to close a clear keep. Otherwise, I think process generally ought to run its course. Process is important not for its own sake, but because going through the entire process makes someone on the "losing end" of a decision feel better about the end result, and that their thoughts got a fair hearing.
6. Is there ever a case where a punitive block should be applied?
A: This question has been asked enough times that everyone ought to know WP:BLOCK is quite clear about it in the second line. The short answer is no, never. Blocks are to prevent harm to the encyclopedia and to allow productive editors to work in peace. One of the goals of a non-indefinite block is to prevent the problem behavior after the block expires by forcing the editor into changing their tact or risk getting blocked again. To the blockee, this may feel punitive, but it is not intended that way.
7. What would your thought process be to determine that a business article should be deleted using CSD:G11?
A: G11 is a fairly new CSD that was decided from above instead of gathering consensus here (which is not to say it wouldn't have). Despite my new page patrolling, I don't think I've ever used it (in part because I learned most of the criteria before it was created), so this answer is somewhat hypothetical. I would probably do a quick google search and go to the company's website to try to find any news stories about them. Independent non-trivial coverage is often the quickest way to establish notability of anything. If such sources exist, they also provide the quickest route to rewrite apparent spam to make it NPOV. If there's no sources and no assertion to notability, I usually tag it as A7.
Regardless of sources, if it's not A7, I would look at the creator's username. Using the company's name for a single-purpose account is often a dead giveaway, but is not solely enough. The real consideration is whether an article is flagrantly POV by using an excessively promotional tone and devoting too much attention to the company's product, successes, etc. Much of this is a judgment call. If I don't intend to fix the POV problems and think the article would be easier to write from scratch than fix, I would tag it G11.
General comments
  • See Chaser's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool. For the edit count, see the talk page.
  • For full disclosure, I have three alternate accounts. User:Kchase is a doppelganger. User:Kchase02v and User:Kchase02vold were used for MediaWiki software testing. (I created one of the accounts for countervandalism, but have never really used it).
  • Post RfA, I will not spam your talk pages. RfA thanks will be via the Crzrussian method.--Chaser T 19:53, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Support

  1. Support. Good editor. Contributions and participation are solid, but especially good is the honesty -- it shows the user is and knows they are accountable for actions, an excellent trait to have in an admin. -- Renesis (talk) 08:03, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  2. Support I think he's learnt from his mistakes and he could use the tools with clearing out CSD/skipping the tagging process. James086Talk | Contribs 09:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  3. Support. You've made mistakes, which is why you'll understand those who do better. You've been civil and honest with others, and you've helped out pretty much everywhere. My commendations. yandman 10:57, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  4. Support - He's done many admin related tasks already, participated in hundreds of AfD discussions so knows many of the Wikipedia policy and in general an excellent candidate. Has my full support. Jayden54 11:04, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  5. Support a good, honest candidate --Steve (Slf67) talk 12:11, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  6. Support. I seldom participate in RfAs for people I had no experience with, but I'm inclined to make an exception this time. Seems well-rounded, honest and humble enough. Duja► 12:36, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  7. Strong Support looks really good. Terrific ebayer, A++++, will buy from again. - crz crztalk 13:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
    BTW, to anyone who cares, my vote above is quid pro quo for the namedrop in Q1. - crz crztalk 19:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
    First you support Husond for owning cockroaches, and now Chaser for selling you something? What next? Picaroon9288 00:09, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  8. Support. Seen this editor around. Noreservations. Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 14:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
    PS, if you have not done anything dumb since June, You are way ahead of me. Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 14:35, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  9. Support I do not see any problems here. A good editor. --Siva1979Talk to me 14:59, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  10. Support. I like the honesty of his AfD mistakes, not that it matters so much doesn't it? :) Michaelas10 (Talk) 15:09, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  11. Support. Willing to admit and learn from mistakes. Nishkid64 15:20, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  12. Support. Rettetast 16:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  13. Support Good, I am glad that you admitted to a massive cock-up earlier in your editing career. Have you now read the policies and guidelines for editors and admins with a close attention to detail as a result of this? (aeropagitica) 16:19, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  14. Support Tons of edits, good time experience, and seems completely honest (admits mistakes). Would make a great sysop. -- P.B. Pilhet / Talk 18:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  15. Support Looks good to me, and I appreciate his honesty.-- danntm T C
  16. Support. Michael 18:35, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  17. Strong Support You stole my nomination for you! Yanksox 19:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
    Yeah, sorry about that. For anyone who is wondering, Yanksox was going to nom me, but due to our schedules conflicting and a personal situation of mine, I decided to just throw my hat into the ring myself.--Chaser T 19:43, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
    Heh, don't be sorry. I'm glad you're running! :D Yanksox 23:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  18. Strong Support You are willing to learn from your past mistakes and you don't hide them either, you shall be a fine admin. — Seadog 19:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  19. Strong Support TSO1D 20:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  20. Support - I'm glad that you admitted your Afd mistake. Good luck - 0L1 Talk Contribs 21:39 7/12/2006 (UTC)
  21. I'm sick of giving reasons support - you go make my reasons for me :) -- Tawker 22:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  22. Support I'm glad the user admitted his mistake, will make a good administrator. Hello32020 22:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  23. Support good user. Rama's arrow 22:50, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  24. Support Many, many, edits and lots of experience, would make an excellent admin. –The Great Llamamoo? 01:55, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  25. Support - Excellent editor, can use the tools, fully qualified, no issues. The fact that we edit in at least one common area of interest (although I don't think I've crossed the candidate's path yet) is of course a little extra plus for me. Newyorkbrad 02:02, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  26. Support Ick, I've made my own AfD boo-boos. If everyone who made mistakes admitted them so readily, it'd be easier to work around here :) riana_dzasta 04:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  27. Support, per all of the above Alex43223 Talk | Contribs | E-mail 05:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  28. I'm Mailer Diablo and I approve this candidate! - 07:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  29. Support I've seen Chaser around and see no reason why this user wouldn't make a good admin. --Aude (talk) 15:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  30. Support. Seems very willing to own up to mistakes, and that's a good quality in an admin. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  31. Support —Quarl (talk) 2006-12-09 00:48Z
  32. Support per all above. The Mirror of the Sea 01:28, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  33. Kusma (討論) 13:59, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  34. Support Per above-no problems here!--teh tennisman 14:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  35. Support. Has done a lot of great work as an user, and will continue to do so as an admin.--TBCΦtalk? 14:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  36. Support We can all learn from our, and from other's mistakes, and when an editor has done so we should honour that.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Anthony.bradbury (talk • contribs) [2]
  37. Support Although I tend to not think very highly of self noms, you're more than qualified to be an admin. Sharkface217 22:21, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  38. Support John254 03:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  39. Jaranda wat's sup 03:45, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  40. Support very good candidate. I like that you admit your mistakes and learn from them. All the best. ← ANAS Talk? 12:45, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  41. Support I can see good stuff here, and am pleased by the fact that you're willing to admit, and learn from mistakes Martinp23 14:54, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  42. Support --Majorly 20:11, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  43. Support All my experiences with this editor have been positive, and performs enough custodial work already that adminship makes sense. --Dgies 23:06, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  44. Support good candidate, reasonable answer to q1. And recently, I saw a comment of yours that seemed quite helpful and well thought out, which is the reason that your user name jumped out at me on the rfa list. Unfortunately, I can't remember what it was. Oh well. Picaroon9288 00:09, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
    What, no diffs?! You can't support at RfA without diffs! Seriously, I skimmed your last 250 contribs and couldn't find a page I recognized editing, so I've got no idea, either. Thanks for your support, though.--Chaser T 03:20, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
    No, it wasn't a page I've edited recently. I just got back from a three-week wikibreak and have been doing a lot of skimming over a lot of pages. If you've edited wp:an, wp:an/i, wt:rfa, wp:vp, or any of the talk pages related to the arbcom elections, there is a reasonable chance it was at one of those. Don't think about it too hard, however, as it really isn't very important. Picaroon9288 03:29, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  45. Support Very good editor, have seen fighting vandalism --Natl1 00:48, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  46. Support. Bumped into this user some time ago. Had a look at contributions. Impressed. utcursch | talk 07:49, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
  47. Support, seems a good bet on risk/benefit grounds, and don't see any significant issues. Though I do hope the "sense of humor" self-nom-link doesn't represent your finest ever comedy stylings. Alai 01:18, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
    User:Chaser/userbox nonsense is slightly better, but it's all dry humor. Sorry. I think this is hilarious.--Chaser T 01:23, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
    Much better, to be fair. (Doubtless Flintstones Rockscape v1.0 was the one without the rocks to bang together.) I'm tempted to ask whether you find CAT:ROUGE hilarious, but then we might drift into 'litmus test' territory. Alai 01:52, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  48. Support. bibliomaniac15 02:53, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  49. Support Terence Ong 08:52, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  50. Support: I was impressed by the answers, particular to Q#1 - let's give this guy the tools to eliminate some work for other admins. John Broughton | Talk 15:23, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  51. Support. --Slgr@ndson (page - messages - contribs) 23:51, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  52. Support I trust the candidate will not abuse the tools. Dionyseus 00:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. A lot of people I respect are supporting, but I'm afraid I cannot support a candidate who considers his/her own RfA a foregone conclusion more than two days before the scheduled closure time.[3]. All you need for an RfA to go pear-shaped is a well-argued last minute oppose and a 'crat who feels there's justification to extend the closure for further community consideration. Yet with more than two days before closure, this candidate didn't appear to consider that even a remote possibility. I'm concerned what a candidate who shows such arrogance during the course of his/her own RfA may do as an admin. The presumptuous arrogance is frightening and there's just no way I can support this RfA. Frankly, I think we've already had more than enough problems with arrogant admins. Sarah Ewart 16:24, 13 December 2006 (UTC) Addit: On further review of edits, I also share the same concerns as User:WJBscribe. Sarah Ewart 16:52, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
    I saw this comment on the noticeboard and teased the candidate about it at the time, but the !voting on this RfA as of then was 45/0/1, so I took the statement that the candidate would have the bit in a couple of days as matter-of-fact rather than anything else. Future candidates will take note, however, that any such optimistic predictions will, at a minimum, cost you unanimity. :( Newyorkbrad 20:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  2. Neutral Oppose. Overall looks like some v good work but I'm a little concerned by the AfD point, especially in light of contribution at this current AfD. ChaserT seems to have acted rather heavy handedly in crossing out the original nomination as bad faith without contacting the nominator on his talk page for an explanation and further comment. Though I agree that the page was not an attack article, I think WP:AGF was not heeded. The AfD gives the impression that ChaserT is acting as if he was already an admin and I am worried about potentially overzealous use of sysop powers. - WJBscribe (WJB talk) 15:26, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
    In light of the further concerns of a similar nature raised by Sarah Ewart I feel I must now oppose. Such presumption is unattractive to say the least. - WJBscribe (WJB talk) 18:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
    When I came across that AfD nomination, I decided I had three choices. One was to speedy close it entirely and invite T.Anthony to immediately open a new, clean nom. This struck me as too IAR, perhaps too confrontational and, indeed, too much use of sysop powers I didn't yet have. Two was to leave it be and let people continue to respond to the disruptive nom (though I concede the point that striking it might not have been necessary, as any "keepers" would have simply responded to T.Anthony's point instead). The third option was to strike the nom. I did this following the third criterion for speedy keeps, which permits closures of nominations that are unquestionable vandalism or disruption. So I effectively closed the AfD and restarted it on T.Anthony's point. Since I saw the nom as unquestionable disruption and the nominator as a single purpose account, I didn't leave a message on his/her talk page, either. I know that it's recommended only admins invoke WP:SK. Whether "jumping the gun", as referenced here and above, represents "arrogance" and portends badly for the future I disagree with, but I leave that discussion to others.--Chaser T 18:18, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
    It may be worth noting that users had been flitting through the AfD pages all day adding that nonsense comment to a lot of postings. I probably would have done something similar in the same position.--Dmz5 19:01, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
    I hadn't noticed that last night, so it didn't factor into my decision.--Chaser T 19:31, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  3. Oppose Due to fears of overzealous use of sysop powers. --Strothra 22:56, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Neutral

  1. I don't generally hold self-noms to higher standards, but I do when they've committed prior errors (and aren't former admins). I'm glad you recognise your mistake, but am not willing to support at this time. – Chacor 07:30, 7 December 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.