Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Deville

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

[edit] Deville

Final (72/1/0) Ended 02:33, 2006-08-24 (UTC)

Deville (talk · contribs) – Deville operates from New York City, and has contributed large amounts of work in cricket and US politics related topics, as well as participating in vandal-fighting and warning, high levels of disambiguating links, AfD discussion, volunteering as a mediation cabal member.

Seeing as Deville doesn't keep an extensive record of his activity like I do, I did a thorough dig of his contributions and found that he had spent a lot of time making sure that everybody who had represented the West Indies cricket team in international cricket had a Wikipedia article. Modelled along the lines of Sonny Ramadhin, George Challenor, I counted (possibly incorrectly) 77 such cricket bios, with appropriate use of templates and such. Deville also has an interest in writing material on the US congress, creating 13 articles along the lines of Louisiana's 1st congressional district for Louisiana and Arizona, and biographies of congressmen such as Jean N. Destréhan, Adolph Meyer (about 30 of these). Aside from this he has also spent time systematically cleaning and standardising articles by adding missing infoboxes, succession boxes, birth-death information for biographies etc.

He has a good understanding of WP:NPOV, the fundamental pillar of encyclopedic integrity, as seen by the following rewrite of a very hyperbole-laden biography of the cricketer Jermaine Lawson ([1]) and also of content accuracy WP:V, removing unsourced information from List of city nicknames in the United States and United States presidential election, 2008 and a personal opinion here ([2]). Secondly, an administrator is meant to be an ambassador for Wikipedia, and the civility, politeness, enthusiasm and encouragement that Deville brings to the project is amply evidenced ([3]]). He has not engaged in edit-warring or disruption at all.

Deville can be seen engaging in calm, skillful and rational debate, on controversial and hotly disputed articles where POV pushing and inflamed tempers, such as Talk:9/11 conspiracy theories ([4]), Talk:United States presidential election, 2008 ([5]), Talk:Fox News Channel ([6]), Talk:Fox News Channel controversies ([7] [8]) , and a high profile sports event Talk:2006 FIFA World Cup ([9]) where lengthy reasoning is often required with overenthusiastic fans who often have strong opinions on players/refereeing decisions which often find themselves making POV and OR edits. This is evidence that Deville will be able to manage any stressful or intricate article disputes that he would face as an administrator.

His AfD participation and nature of his comments show rational thinking, logic and commitment to quality debate, which would be required of an administrator in closing non clear-cut debates ( [10] [11], [12], [13]) and debates in which evidence and counter-evidence are frequently exchanged (Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Democrat_Party_(United_States), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sark at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_religions_once_classed_as_cults).

He is patient is his dealings with other users, as evidenced by his service at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Mathematics ([14]) and has taken up a MEDCAB case Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-08-02 American Hunters and Shooters Association.

He can be seen at Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics) discussing and formulating policy ([15], [16], [17]) which show policy awareness, at WT:RFA ([18]) and has a good understanding of image copyright ([19], [20]).

Wikipedians, please consider appointing Deville to administrative duties. Blnguyen | rant-line 02:33, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept! -- Deville (Talk) 08:00, 17 August 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: I'll list possible tasks in order of decreasing experience:
  • The part of "process" which I currently feel most comfortable with is article deletion/retention; if I were chosen to be an administrator, I could start working on CAT:CSD and closing AfDs pretty soon. I've added my opinion on tons of AfDs (more than 700 if the tool does not lie) and I feel I have a good notion of what the valid arguments are for deleting, keeping, etc. I've also tagged many articles as speedies (most of which are gone now, I am sure). In any case, I think I could move into this area pretty quickly.
  • Where I feel less, but moderately, comfortable is WP:AIV. I have done some vandal-fighting, RC patrol, etc. I've certainly put my fair share of warnings on talk pages and I've reported vandals to WP:AIV a couple of dozen times. It will take me a bit longer to get into this side of administration, but I'll certainly be able to lend a hand here.
  • Another place where I have some experience is dispute resolution, and in particular, getting articles into moving towards an NPOV state. Of course, this is not something one needs to be an admin to do, but I think I have experience here to know when edit warring and other bad behavior is going on, and what the correct administrative responses should be (e.g. WP:3RR violations and the like).
  • I hope to eventually contribute in other ways as well (one area which certainly needs more eyes is the image backlogs), but admittedly I'll need to get up to speed on those.
2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
A: I would say the series of articles on West Indian cricketers that Blnguyen mentions above (see List of West Indian Test cricketers for example); I feel I've been able to contribute a lot to that series. I think I created about half of them, I turned quite a few from stubs into full articles, and I got the stats for all of the historical cricketers. I think the cricket wikiproject is a great one and has done a lot to develop a very comprehensive set of articles, so I'm glad to have been able to help there.
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: I've had a very low level of stress while editing Wikipedia. Honestly, I can remember exactly one time I actually got mad at something which happened (early on in my editing), but I didn't do anything about it. In fact, what I did was cool off and come back to it the next day and I realized it wasn't a big deal at all. (The upshot of the story is that another user referred to my !vote on an AfD as "vandalism" when I was pretty new, but I had meant it in good faith.)
In fact, I can say that I have a pretty cool head when editing here. Perhaps it's because I've been on online forums for more than 15 years; after all that time, one learns some lessons on what is a big deal and what is not a big deal on message boards. (I will not deny that I sent many a Usenet flame in my youth.) But for one potential conflict where I think I handled the situation pretty well, I once received this comment on my talk page. I realized that my edits had been gravely misunderstood and I sought to rectify the situation here and here. I think it worked; that user ended up staying and working on the article, and the article has since improved dramatically.
Comments

Can Andeh please clarify whether s/he actually meant to write "weak support" or actually meant to record a vote under the Oppose heading? It needs to be fixed up one way or the other. Metamagician3000 10:16, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I also asked this on the user's talk page. Metamagician3000 10:33, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Support.--Andeh 12:02, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Last 5000 edits.Voice-of-All 01:10, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Viewing contribution data for user Deville (over the 5000 edit(s) shown on this page) (FAQ)
Time range: 148 approximate day(s) of edits on this page
Most recent edit on: 1hr (UTC) -- 18, Aug, 2006 || Oldest edit on: 3hr (UTC) -- 22, March, 2006
Overall edit summary use (last 1000 edits): Major edits: 100% Minor edits: 100%
Average edits per day: 12.04 (for last 1000 edit(s))
Article edit summary use (last 579 edits): Major article edits: 100% Minor article edits: 100%
Analysis of edits (out of all 5000 edits shown on this page and last 20 image uploads):
Notable article edits (creation/expansion/major rewrites/sourcing): 1% (50)
Significant article edits (copyedits/small rewrites/content/reference additions): 2.48% (124)
Superficial article edits (grammar/spelling/wikify/links/tagging): 58.68% (2934)
Unique image uploads (non-deleted/reverts/updates): 19 (checks last 5000)
Superficial article edits marked as minor: 84.19%
Special edit type statistics:
All edits to deletion pages: 13.6% (680 edit(s))
Marked XfD/DRV votes: 2.46% (123 edit(s))
Article deletion tagging: 0.24% (12 edit(s))
Edits to "copyright problems" pages: 0% (0 edit(s))
Page (un)protections: 0% (0 edit(s))
Edits to RfAs: 1.8% (90 edit(s))
Marked RfA votes: 1.48% (53 support vote(s)) || (21 oppose vote(s))
Page moves: 0.12% (6 edit(s)) (3 moves(s))
Page redirections: 0.02% (1 edit(s))
User talk warnings: 1.58% (79 edit(s))
Breakdown of all edits:
Unique pages edited: 3651 | Average edits per page: 1.37 | Edits on top: 6.9%
Edits marked as major (non-minor/reverts): 41.44% (2072 edit(s))
Edits marked as minor (non-reverts): 51.24% (2562 edit(s))
Marked reverts (reversions/text removal): 7.16% (358 edit(s))
Unmarked edits with no summary: 0.16% (8 edit(s))
Edits by Wikipedia namespace:
Article: 68.7% (3435) | Article talk: 5.96% (298)
User: 0.58% (29) | User talk: 5.2% (260)
Wikipedia: 18.72% (936) | Wikipedia talk: 0.58% (29)
Image: 0.18% (9)
Template: 0.06% (3)
Category: 0% (0)
Portal: 0% (0)
Help: 0% (0)
MediaWiki: 0% (0)
Other talk pages: 0.02% (1)
Username Deville
Total edits 14,482
Distinct pages edited 11,935
Average edits/page 1.213
First edit 13:33, August 29, 2005
(main) 12,452
Talk 371
User 88
User talk 356
Image 24
Template 13
Template talk 2
Category 18
Wikipedia 1,117
Wikipedia talk 39
Portal 2
Support
  1. Strong support.Blnguyen | rant-line 02:35, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  2. Support a highly qualified candidate -- Samir धर्म 08:05, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  3. Support. A very mature, nice editor. Tintin (talk) 08:05, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  4. Support a brilliant all-rounder. --james(talk) 08:07, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  5. Support. SynergeticMaggot 08:13, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  6. Support. A model candidate from all I can see. I'm impressed with the AfD track record, having checked out a dozen or so contributions there. Haukur 08:41, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  7. Support. A hard-working Wikipedian (look at all those edits in the last year). And there is a need for at least one while I'm told that there are loads of admins with a strong interest in cricket, it'll be lovely to have another. --Dweller 09:30, 17 August 2006 (UTC) (blushes) excuse my stupidity/ignorance. He'd still be a great admin.--Dweller 09:50, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  8. Support, a very strong candidate that will make a great admin. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 09:31, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  9. Weak oppose, should've had an RfA already.--Andeh 09:36, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
    An "oppose" vote in the "support" column??? Zaxem 11:05, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
    Yes, I am unhappy the user isn't doing administrative chores already.--Andeh 12:47, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  10. Support No problems here. --Siva1979Talk to me 09:43, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  11. Support obviously, over 1000 wikipedia edits --Musaabdulrashid 09:47, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  12. Support. A great contributor. Zaxem 09:59, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  13. Shoo-in support. Metamagician3000 10:13, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  14. Support: the nomination bowled me over... - CrazyRussian talk/email 10:30, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  15. Support based on personal experience - didn't even need Blnguyens wonderful nomination this time. JPD (talk) 10:58, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  16. Support - Wow, the nominator did all the work for me! Excellent candidate. InvictaHOG 11:57, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  17. Support. - Mailer Diablo 12:09, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  18. Support - good, hardworking, dedicated editor, adminship was long overdue abakharev 12:14, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  19. Support. A very dedicated editor who I have seen do a lot of good work, will not abuse the tools. Rje 12:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  20. Support I see absolutely no reason whatsoever that this excellent user should not be an admin. Perhaps as impressive as the quality of the user's work is the quality of the user's answers to the questions and the superb nomination. -- Kicking222 12:45, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  21. Support I'm going to burn his answer to the IP editor (about Placage) into my forehead. Baseball,Baby! balls•strikes 13:13, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  22. Give him the mop already! What a great candidate - he is obviously quite dedicated and hard working and his answers to the questions were very good. I've witnessed his excellent work although I've never interacted with him, and I am very confident that this user will make a great admin. :) Srose (talk) 13:25, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  23. Support--Kungfu Adam (talk) 14:25, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  24. Strong Support Answers to questions above are well thought out, comments to the upset editor are top notch. Seems like a perfect candidate. DrunkenSmurf 14:36, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  25. Yes. G.He 14:47, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  26. Not enough User: space edit support. So selfless. :-) ZsinjTalk 14:53, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  27. Support Really strong candidate for the mop!  (aeropagitica)   (talk)  14:58, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  28. Support. I've had no interactions with him, but he looks like a strong candidate. His ability to be verbose and speak his mind is wonderful. --Danaman5 16:42, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  29. Support Fantastic candidate - GIen 17:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  30. Pile on the mop. Solid. Themindset 18:11, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  31. Support More than qualified for the tools. --WillMak050389 22:09, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  32. Jaranda wat's sup 23:38, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  33. Strong support for a fantastic editor. Mature and solid contributor. One of the best. This interaction says it all. -- I@n 23:56, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  34. Support Here is someone who seems, to me, that his adminship would improve the quality of Wikipedia. --HResearcher 00:50, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  35. Support - per nom and a reminder for your West Indian cricket team bios that St Vincent needs to redirect to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines --T-rex 02:14, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  36. Support. I don't mean to sound unoriginal, but I thought he was already an admin! —Khoikhoi 03:15, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  37. The President of Tawker's Account wishes it to be known that the WikiNation of Tawker Supports -- Tawker 04:20, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
    Comment doesn't this need to be seconded by vice-president User:Tawkerbot2? -- Samir धर्म 22:52, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  38. Support Solid, hardworking editor.--MONGO 04:48, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  39. Support. Good and responsible contributor. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:03, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  40. Strong support, excellent user indeed. RandyWang (chat me up/fix me up) 08:21, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  41. Support Per all above. Passes my criteria. GizzaChat © 09:00, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  42. Support No problems here ;) Thε Halo Θ 12:36, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  43. Support per nom. --Aguerriero (talk) 14:37, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  44. Support per all of above. Highly qualified, no issues. Newyorkbrad 20:13, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  45. Support a solid user and a very certain elephant. — Deckiller 21:04, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  46. Is an extra support really needed here? DS 21:46, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  47. Support -- Agathoclea 21:58, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  48. Support: seems exactly the right sort of candidate. Johnlp 22:50, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  49. Support ViridaeTalk 23:40, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  50. Excellent editor. Sam Korn (smoddy) 23:50, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  51. Support - will make an excellent admin. --Bduke 00:36, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
  52. Support. Meets my personal standards, no issues of incivility, no big deal. Heck, after 50 opinions there aren't even any oppose or neutrals. Well, except Masssiveego of course. Ifnord 01:41, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
  53. Support per nom. Michael 03:00, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
  54. Support nearly an year on Wikipedia, with experience both broad and deep.-- danntm T C 03:05, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
  55. Support --Terence Ong (Chat | Contribs) 04:26, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
  56. Strong support Experienced and hard-working. Passes my "criteria"Aranherunar 05:42, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
    I like your criteria ;) -- I@n 11:50, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
  57. Support per the superb nom. - Aksi_great (talk - review me) 07:16, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
  58. SupportTons of edits, maybe need a few more Talk edits, but easily passed the criteria (The Bread 08:14, 19 August 2006 (UTC))
  59. Support For his contribs to cricket, I hereby support his adminship. --Ageo020 11:42, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
  60. Support. *drew 12:22, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
  61. Support --CFIF ☎ 21:02, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
  62. Support. Still confused why a person would write Weak Oppose if they are that surprised Deville's not an admin lol. --Nishkid64 00:12, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
  63. Support. An active cricket editor and admin status would assist the user further. --Roisterer 03:40, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
  64. Support without a doubt. Stubbleboy 04:32, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
  65. Support I see no reason to oppose this candidate. Dionyseus 23:34, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
  66. Support Good editor with that many edits, gotta support. JungleCat talk/contrib 15:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
  67. Merovingian - Talk 05:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
  68. Do you own a Cadillac?  :) Nobugs 11:05, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
  69. Support—Reasonable & logical positions on AfD. And doesn't meet Masssiveego's criteria. Williamborg (Bill) 02:33, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
  70. Support, good editor, passes my criteria--TBCTaLk?!? 14:59, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
  71. Support Very hard to fault.--Runcorn 22:21, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
  72. Support per nom...good contributor Anger22 00:19, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose Fails my criteria. --Masssiveego 05:17, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
    I noted that in this RfA, you have provided some evidence on the accompanying talk page. However you may want to explain the "uncertain elephant" criticism and also the criticism about his participation in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Benedict Huang. If you did a search on the guys who have represented the USA in the International Mathematics Olympiad there is no such person who was selected so of course there is a verifiability or hoax problem which merits the deletion of this article. Blnguyen | rant-line 05:23, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I do not know why this user keeps the uncertain elephant "award" on his talk page. The rest of us who received it, deleted it. It was awarded to people who supported the deletion of an article called the "certainty principle". It is worth noting that this article has stayed deleted and resulted in a massive sockpuppett war. Deville was certainly on the right side in the early stages of that war. I think he was just amused by the award. --Bduke 00:36, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Neutral
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.