Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Haukurth(2)

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

[edit] Haukurth

Final (57/3/3) ending 19:57 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Haukurth (talk · contribs) – -

Haukur has been an editor since 22.July.2003. During the two and 1/2 years since that time, he has become one of the best Wikipedia editors in the subjects of northern European mythology, history, and languages.

Haukur's tasks have both breadth and depth- anything from comprehensive copyedits to minor spelling corrections, image contributions and considered opinions on Wikipedia guidelines- you can be sure he has done it. One of his notable achievements was in leading the work with Hrafnkels saga, which was a Featured Article here at Wikipedia.

His interactions with other editors have almost always been startling in being carefully phrased and written with the restraint that is appropriate for an Admin. His rare conflicts with other editors inevitably result in Haukur admitting his mistakes or eventually winning arguments with polite words and a gracious manner. In fact, he makes *me* appear positively cranky by comparison.

I invite you to examine his work for yourself using these links. It speaks for itself:

Nimm meine aufrichtigen Wünsche entgegen, Haukur. ;) Though your wife may not thank me for enmeshing you even more in your work with the Wikipedia. P.MacUidhir 18:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I gratefully accept, though you're right about my wife :) - Haukur 19:52, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Support

  1. As nominator. → Pádraic MacUidhir (t) (c) 19:55, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  2. Support.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 20:01, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  3. Support Shame that the other RFA failed, very good user --Jaranda wat's sup 20:14, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  4. Support looks great! Best of luck! --Dustimagic *\o/* (talk/contribs) *\o/* 20:33, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  5. Support, experienced and awesome contributor. - Phædriel ♥ tell me 20:34, 15 January 2006 (UTC
  6. Support as per first RfA --rogerd 20:46, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  7. Thought he was one! --King of All the Franks 20:52, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  8. Support. Jonathunder 20:55, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  9. Support. Both from personal experience and from looking through his impressive work here I know that he will be a great admin. Stefán Ingi 21:29, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  10. Support 101%. And just for the record, ß and þ are Latin characters. ;) —Nightstallion (?) 23:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  11. Support. Longtime editor. Someone who edits Wikipedia for that long time and along with his wife is really dedicated to this project. - Darwinek 23:34, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  12. Support, after objectively analysing contributions. BD2412 T 02:29, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  13. Support, although we disagree on the Userboxes issue, nominee's answers to my questions on the subject were well-reasoned and civil. User:Zoe|(talk) 02:54, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  14. Support. Being the aforementioned wife, I do most certainly support Haukur, and I even do so with a perfectly clean conscience :) I honestly feel that he will help improve this community even more than he already does, should its members decide to grant him admin powers. Arndisdunja 04:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  15. SupportWell mannered. --Masssiveego 06:23, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  16. Support. I opposed last time, but I've had some discussions with Haukur since then that make me think he'll be a thoughtful and careful admin. SlimVirgin (talk) 06:59, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  17. Support. Very good and responsible contributor. Answer to the IAR question also indicates a great deal of maturity. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:18, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  18. Support edits look good.--MONGO 08:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  19. Support --Terence Ong 10:03, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  20. Support Excellent user. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 11:05, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  21. Support, will make a good admin. --Angr (tɔk) 12:07, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  22. Support: the joint venture. --Bhadani 13:00, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  23. Support, of course. - Mailer Diablo 14:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  24. Thought he was one. He has been very civil and reasonable in my dealings with him. Johnleemk | Talk 14:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  25. Support, I supported his original RfA and I'm supporting this too. We need more admins who try to preserve correct spellings. JIP | Talk 16:02, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  26. Support. Palmiro | Talk 16:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  27. Support, should have been made admin last time around. Disclaimer, I largely agree with Haukurth's views on article titling (although I would go less far in certain cases), but I recognize that there is room for dispute, and I trust that Haukurth will not abuse his privileges in relation to this (I mean, I am an admin, and I share Haukurth's views, and yet I don't go about abusing my privileges because of that). dab (ᛏ) 17:18, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
    Good point. If the community trusts me with the tools I'll have to tread especially carefully when applying them to that area. - Haukur 17:28, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  28. Strong Support Editor deserved adminship last time; his sound judgment is fit for any role in Wikipedia. Xoloz 17:44, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  29. Support. An intelligent, thoughtful, committed editor who would make an excellent admin. Chick Bowen 17:51, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  30. Support He is a civil and thoughtful editor who has made many valuable contributions. 21:13, 16 January 2006 (UTC) That was me, sorry Dsmdgold 21:26, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  31. Strong Viking Support. One of the best. Just don't let the janitorial tasks get in the way of adding content. u p p l a n d 21:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  32. Support. Good editor, deserves the tools. -- DS1953 talk 21:36, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  33. Support. — Matt Crypto 21:38, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  34. Support for same reasons as previously Dlyons493 Talk 21:39, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  35. Support Izehar 22:29, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  36. Support. KHM03 23:00, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  37. Support. -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 03:04, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  38. Support. No reason to oppose. Silensor 05:34, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  39. Support. —A 05:44, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  40. Support Grutness...wha? 11:16, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  41. Support. Glad to have someone like this involved with the project. -Colin Kimbrell 14:21, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  42. Support. Let Him be promoted this time. -- Eddie 15:05, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  43. Support. Jayjg (talk) 19:53, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  44. --Signed by Chazz - Responses to (responses). @ 21:54, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  45. Support.James James 22:41, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  46. Support. After reading this nominee's response to Q4, I am quite confident that he will make a terrific administrator. Hall Monitor 23:07, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  47. Support — Moe ε 02:35, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
  48. Support.Seen him around quite a bit. I think he will make a good administrator.--Dakota ~ ε 22:37, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
  49. Support again, should make a good admin. JYolkowski // talk 02:50, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
  50. Support Edits I've seen from user have been good, and deserves lots of credit for the numbers previously opposing that now support, disposing me to think well of his ability to take on board reasoned criticism. Remaining objections to date seem very slight. Alai 19:51, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
  51. Support--nixie 04:24, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
  52. Support—thames 05:08, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
  53. Support. --Ghirla | talk 10:14, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
  54. Support. A good editor and should be a good admin. Rhion 13:26, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
  55. εγκυκλοπαίδεια* 00:48, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
  56. Support, not one already? Alphax τεχ 06:50, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
  57. Absolutely, I'm glad I saw this in time to squeeze in another support vote. Everyking 07:17, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Strong oppose, per oppose comments on Haukurþ's previous RfA 2½ months ago. Not that I know the cases mentioned there, but my recent experiences with Haukurþ (e.g. wikipedia talk:naming conventions (people)#Thomas and similar hair-splitting efforts trying to compromise down wikipedia's quality) are that he hasn't changed a bit in these two and a half months. His answer to question 4 below strikes me as particularly dishonest in this sense (I want to assume good faith, and had hoped to be able to use a less strong term than "dishonest" in that sentence, but that's the weakest terminology I could find without becoming dishonest myself) --Francis Schonken 21:34, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
    Changed to strong oppose because of Haukurþ's attempt to edit-war with Jimbo Wales, which made Jimbo say: "Your show of bad faith is absolutely beginning to get on my nerves", two days ago --Francis Schonken 08:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
    Viewing the entire exchange here, as well as the discussion of the misunderstanding between the two of them here, *and* a related discussion here clears up the matter- they did not understand each other's actions at that time due to how edit summaries were used. I respectfully ask that you reconsider your comments here, as they do not seem to reflect what actually happened- specifically, your quotation of Jimbo's comment is out of context if one peruses the entire event as detailed in the links I have provided here. → P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 09:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
    Well, I've had that kind of "misunderstandings" with Haukurþ more than once. Frankly, I don't care all that much whether they are due to his lack of understanding of the English language, or whatever other cause, when we're talking about whether or not he should become sysop: the misunderstandings occur too often IMHO, see for example also Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Norse mythology)#Mediate?. If the thing with Jimbo is cleared out, I can only be happy, but it shows, at best, Haukurþ to be a good editor, not necessarily a good sysop. I've never seen Jimbo being thus direct on a user talk page, and that's a signal to me. Further, Haukurþ didn't even take part in the discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Disrespect of community opinion from an admin, he chose to go straight for edit-warring... So, no, I keep with strong oppose for the time being. --Francis Schonken 10:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Oppose. I was bothered by the comments on the first RfA (linked to by Francis Schonken) and by Haukur's response on this RfA to Ghirla's point ("Probably not my finest hour. Sorry."). While I'm glad Haukur apologized for his recent comment the fact that the original comment occurred in December, and that the issues surrounding the first RfA occured in Novemeber 2005, raise concerns about this RfA. If Haukur could state a good reason why these recent incidents are in the past and should be ignored then I might change my vote.--Alabamaboy 17:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC) Changing vote to neutral (see below).--Alabamaboy 00:21, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
    My last RFA got completely unwieldly when I tried to address everyone's concerns. I hope you don't mind that I'll drop you an e-mail instead :) - Haukur 17:38, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
    Thanks for the e-mail explaining the situation. While I'm still not completely convinced about this situation, you seem like a good editor who is making an effort to fix the situation. I'm changing my vote to neutral.--Alabamaboy 00:21, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
    You may want to drop one to me too :) --Ghirla | talk 17:45, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  2. Oppose per Ghirla's diff. freestylefrappe 00:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  3. Oppose Amalekite. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC). Even worse -> user reverted Jimbo when Jimbo was ruling on something as god-king. [1] Hipocrite - «Talk» 14:59, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
    That isn't quite what happened in that diff, as I see it. I'd encourage people to check it for themselves. Jonathunder 15:05, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
    Hipocrite's comments give the wrong impression about Haukurth's "revert" of Jimbo. Jimbo wrote a note that he was exercising his right as god-king to close the CfD discussion and to force the category to be kept. Haukurth did not try to deny or contest this decision, but completely respected it. His edit was a pure technicality to restore the discussion that Jimbo had blanked. Jimbo's decisions overrule anyone else's but that doesn't mean every edit he makes is sacrosanct and set in stone. JIP | Talk 21:40, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Neutral

  • Neutral for now. I met this user only once, when he took part in bullying me back in December. We have too many partisan and/or POV-pushing admins here, no need to add another one. --Ghirla | talk 07:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC))
    • Probably not my finest hour. Sorry. - Haukur 08:29, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Let me elaborate slightly: In characterizing the conflict between Halibutt and Ghirla by emphasizing their respective nationalities I was clearly implying Ghirla is a Polophobe. That was stupid and unfair of me. I'm sorry I did it and I retract the comment. - Haukur 09:06, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
        • Hopefully you understand that stalking is a serious accusation which may lead to admin action, so I retract my vote. --Ghirla | talk 09:21, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  1. Neutral Per previous RfA and Ghirla's comment, I think you don't quite have the coolness necessary for an admin. But there's nothing wrong with your policies, answers to questions, etc. so I can't vote to oppose. If you were try again in 6 months, I think I could support you. Ashibaka tock 02:24, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  2. Neutral. Per comments above.--Alabamaboy 00:21, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
  3. Neutral. Per Per above. Pschemp | Talk 06:42, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Comments

  • Edit summary usage: 99% for major edits and 98% for minor edits. Based on the last 150 major and and 150 minor edits outside the Wikipedia, User, Image, and all Talk namespaces. Mathbot 20:00, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  • See information about Haukurth's edits with Interiot's edit count tool or Interiot's edit history tool.

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. Last time I answered this I was conservative in estimating the areas I could help out with. Now I feel I have gained enough experience to be able to participate in essentially all admin-related drudgery that goes on around here, as far as time allows. What I'm most interested in, however, is helping out taking care of biographical articles on living people where I think some of the admin tools would be very useful.
2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
A. Pádraic mentioned Hrafnkels saga but it's been a year since I wrote that so I think it's time to crank out another FA :) Currently Freyr is my number one target. Check my userpage for more samples of my work.
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. My previous RFA was hands down the most stressful experience I've been through on Wikipedia. I think my skin has grown thicker since then, though. I've also been in some rows over diacritics in article names but I'm hoping I've grown up a bit there too.
4. What is your stance on the philosophies Ignore All Rules and Process is Important?
A. I added this question myself since everyone seems to get asked something like this anyway :)
Our guidelines and policies are getting more numerous by the day and it's often difficult to find out if a certain special case is covered somewhere or not. This problem can be especially acute for new editors who don't know their way around. I'll take a hypothetical example.
Let's say I'm a new editor eager to contribute an article on a particular German opera. I don't know whether to write the article under the German title or an English translation of that title. I'm a conscientious editor and I want to do things right so I try to find a rule to tell me what to do. Okay, I come upon Wikipedia:Naming conventions. It tells me to use the title most recognizable to English speakers. Hmm... I'm not sure what that would be, let's see what else there is. Wikipedia:Naming conventions_(common names) tells me to use the most commonly used name. Okay, I think that would be the German name. But wait! Wikipedia:Naming conventions_(use English) seems to imply that the English translation would be preferred. Or, wait again, maybe it doesn't - it also seems to say that the most common name is preferred. I'm leaning towards the German title then. But further down the same guideline says that the use of diacritics in article titles is debated. Crap, the German title has diacritics. It even has an 'ß' in it which seems to be even more disputed. *sigh* I don't want to step right into a minefield here. But look! There's something called Wikipedia:Naming conventions (operas), maybe I'll finally find the answer there. Hmm, it tells me to go with the form used in the New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Crap, I don't have that book :(
Rather than getting paralyzed in our jungle of (sometimes conflicting) guidelines this hypothetical editor should just Ignore All Rules and create the article under whatever name she thinks would be suitable. If it turns out that some guideline somewhere recommends a different title then it can just be changed later on. No big deal and no-one should get cross with the editor for failing to "follow the rules".
So I think that Ignore All Rules can be a useful philosophy in the right context. But I also think that Process is Important. The English Wikipedia project is so large by now that "rule by common sense" just doesn't scale. In some areas we have and need well-defined procedures to make daily operations run smoothly and minimize conflict, just like any large society does. This applies especially to actions like blocks and deletions which are limited to sysops. If the community trusts me with administrator tools I will take pains to closely follow policy and consensus in applying them.
5. What is your view of the use of Userboxes on User pages? User:Zoe|(talk) 00:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
A. I think the majority of userboxes are harmless, fun and potentially a useful way to build a happy community. Take User:Quarl as someone who makes good use of userboxes on his page. His boxes are useful and non-divisive but still whimsical and expressive. On the other hand I don't really like boxes which express strong political opinions. The impression given is: "The Wikipedia project provides users with a built-in mechanism to express standardized sound-bite views about a bunch of topics." That, I think, gives people the wrong idea about the project.
If someone wants to express a strong opinion against, say, the House of Saud on their user page then that's okay. But it's much preferable that she states her thoughts and opinions in her own words rather than make use of a standardized box which boils down a complex issue into one sentence. That's why I voted to delete that box. Free speech on user pages (more or less) but some more oversight on template pages :) If people want to put their opinion in a little box then they can always hand-code it.
But I don't support out-of-process deletion of content like that and I have spoken out against it at Deletion Review. This is a relatively minor issue and it is not terribly urgent. For the time being, at least, templates like that should go through the normal deletion process. And if they're kept then I guess we'll have to live with that, it's not the end of the wiki-world.
6. What is your view of the use of Fair Use images on User pages? User:Zoe|(talk) 00:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
A. Hmm, not something I've really given much thought. I understand the guidelines tell us not to use them there and that seems sensible, considering the goal of minimizing legal risk to the project (though I'm not a lawyer and don't really have a good idea of the stakes or risks). On the other hand I hope this is something which we can work through in a friendly way. I've seen some blocks over this issue and that feels a bit out of place. The problem is surely not so great or urgent that punitive measures are required.


The above 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 article's talk page. No further edits should be made to this page.