Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Hawstom

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[edit] Hawstom

Vote here

(21/4/0) ending 17:34 18 October 2004 (UTC)

Tom has had 1356 edits since 4 September 2004 2003, knows a lot about religion, and is strongly dedicated to NPOV. He's very skilled at seeking and reaching consensus, even on very tough topics. His style of writing is amazing. Kim Bruning 17:40, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Note: Rather than alter someone else's words, I'll just note that I am positive Kim means that Hawstom began here in 2003. He's certainly been around longer than 5 weeks -- I've seen his work on different pages for months and months. Jwrosenzweig 22:46, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Accept Thank you, Kim, for this kind, unsolicited extension of trust. Regardless of the outcome, your goodwill stirs me ever the more to live up to your expectations. Tom - Talk 16:53, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Support

  1. I checked and discovered he wasn't an admin yet. ;-) Kim Bruning 17:40, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  2. —No-One Jones (m) 19:09, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  3. I'm pretty familiar with his work on Wikipedia, and he's a really good, NPOV contributor, particularly on religion issues. He's devoted to Wikipedia policies, and he's been actively involved in resolving a number of significant POV disputes; for good examples, see Talk:Mormonism and Christianity and Talk:Human. COGDEN 20:16, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)
  4. ugen64 20:48, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)
  5. Tom has fewer edits, in my opinion, because he works on contentious articles, and, unlike so many of us, he works slowly and carefully to establish a consensus version of a contentious passage before adding it. Rather than accumulate edits in the article space by hammering out a version in back and forth, he accumulates those edits on the talk page -- preferable, in my opinion. Another fine editor with the perfect demeanor for admin who should not be penalized for his careful style simply because it generates fewer edits than those of us who forget to hit "Show Preview". Jwrosenzweig 20:59, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  6. Everyking 21:04, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  7. You've got the right idea. I apologise, I thought you'd been around since September 2004. ;) -- Grunt   ҈  21:10, 2004 Oct 11 (UTC)
  8. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (talk)]] 00:35, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)
  9. I've worked with Tom and find him to be a patient, knowledgeable, and effective consensus-builder. If sysops are to be wikipedia's diplomats, Tom is a top-notch candidate. He edits, reverts, and adds impressive content to explosively POV subjects. His mine-walking should be acknowledged. Cool Hand Luke 06:59, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  10. I like what I see. {Ανάριον} 08:28, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  11. ℛyan! | Talk 11:21, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)
  12. 172 12:36, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  13. –Andre (talk) 14:16, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)
  14. Michael Snow 15:54, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  15. I know that my vote here will have no effect on how he treats what I say. ---Rednblu
    • I'm questioning the appropriateness of Rednblu's vote here when at this moment Hawstom is mediating serious allegations[[1]] against him. This seems highly inappropriate. Comments anyone?--FeloniousMonk 08:18, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  16. Knowledge and courtesy are okay in my book. Mackensen 03:00, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  17. Should have been done a long time ago - Tom gets my support. -Visorstuff 18:44, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  18. I was originally going to oppose because most of Tom's article-related edits are focused on religious topics. It's generally a good thing to have admins with broad interests. But then I remembered that religion is a ridiculuously huge target for POV warriors; WP:RFC attracts Zionism like a magnet. In Tom, we have a reasonable, thick-skinned editor who prefers religion as a topic. On top of this, he follows the NPOV policy, acts as a mediator, and has said "I would most likely not initially use my administrative privileges at all". Whoa. Tom has my full support. • Benc • 01:07, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  19. Skimmed through his history, and I'm impressed: consensus builder, and dedicated to NPOV. Also answered question 3 well. func(talk) 23:59, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  20. uc 14:39, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  21. Support. ffirehorse 20:20, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Seems like a very nice user, prone to discussing things rationally and with courtesy. Problem is the 1356 edits; of those, 457 are in Talk:, 370 in User:, and only 23 are in Wikipedia:. The rest of edits in a very narrow scope surrounding the religion subject. Sorry, doesn't meet my personal standards, since we can't gauge readiness. -- Netoholic @ 18:16, 2004 Oct 11 (UTC)
  2. Agree with Netoholic. --Lst27 20:23, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  3. Far too few edits by my standards. Would probably support after 2,000 edits and a wider variety in topics edited. blankfaze | (беседа!) 20:43, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    I cannot in good faith support someone this new to the community, even with more than 1000 edits. You've got the right idea; come back in a month and a half. :) -- Grunt   ҈  21:03, 2004 Oct 11 (UTC)
  4. Based on my recent experience with Hawstom mediating an dispute over a user's alleged POV campaigning in bad faith, I can not recommend Hawstom as an Admin. Though I do not doubt his initial intention to remain objective, in the mediation he publicly slipped a number of times in being overly deferential to one party and made several explicit and implied statements favoring one party in the mediation, both on User talk pages and by email. His NPOV in the dispute was far from complete/optimal. Hawstom also was unaware of the wikipolicy on Refactoring, a policy central to the allegations, and only became aware of it when I pointed it out. His method for resolving the dispute was lengthy, inefficient and did not produce tangible results. Questionable tactics employed by one party in the mediation went unchecked by Hawstom, as did a number of ad hominems. Additionally, Hawstom failed to respond/reply to my 5 emails sent in reply to his contacting me. When asked about this, he promised to respond to them but still has not. In defense of Hawstom he had a prior friendly working relationship with the defendant, so remaining genuinely neutral would have been a real struggle for anyone. But that also causes me to wonder why Hawstom initiated the mediation (I did not seek it), and that he mediate it, in the first place.--FeloniousMonk 07:31, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • I'm sure that FeloniousMonk is acting in good faith here, but as full disclosure, I'd like point out that FeloniousMonk is involved in said mediation. Kim Bruning 08:28, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Your additional disclosure is appreciated, but it was already apparent to anyone who followed the links to the mediation I've provided several times. I've never attempted hide my role. My opinion is the result of my direct personal experience with Hawstom. Please note Kim that you fail to make the same pointed full disclosure statement for Rednblu, also a participant in the mediation, who voted in support of Hawstom above. Being that you're the person who made the initial nomination for adminship, singling one out for mild censure while ignoring others could appear to be subtle cronyism. I'm curious why is it you only responded thusly to one who's position you disagree with, while ignoring another identically involved individual who's position you support? I've already voiced my concerns here about appearances of propriety.--FeloniousMonk 19:06, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • You did the disclosure for Rednblu yourself. Kim Bruning 20:48, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • I'm sorry, but had you disclosed Rednblu's role, I would not have had to do so myself. Your reply here does not explain why you did not, nor does it address your reason for waiting to do so, and then only for my vote, until I voted in opposition. Based on what is seen here you apparently only insist on adding disclosures to those votes that differ from your own opinion in support of Hawstom. Fairness would dictate otherwise I think.--FeloniousMonk 06:39, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Is that in the spirit of wikipedia? Time will tell whether my concerns over favoritism and cronyism based on what I've seen here are justified; patterns seldom fade. Thanks for your contribution clarifying my concerns.--FeloniousMonk 18:40, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • I think you missed the point. See your user talk. Kim Bruning 19:28, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Neutral

  • One voter above expresses a concern about Hawstom working on a "very narrow" area and I wonder how that's a bad thing. The lead quote on my user page is "Try to learn something about everything and everything about something." A specialist, patrolling his fields, seems preferable to expecting him to police everything. There are certain areas in Wikipedia I've never gone into--e.g. the hard sciences, religion--even where I have an interest because I don't trust myself to be able to competently contribute. Strother Martin in Cool Hand Luke was right: "A man's got to know his limitations." PedanticallySpeaking 17:53, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)
    • After being questioned often about other votes where I expressed that, I made up a personal page about my thoughts. There are two concerns when someone, who wants to be an admin, works on a very narrow scope of articles. First, there are a lot of maintenance tasks to be done here and admins are expected to do a lot of them, by virtue of those abilities granted. I myself tend to confine my major edits to a narrow scope of articles where I have particular knowledge – nothing wrong with that. An admin candidate should show willingness to work outside their area doing what's needed, and many copyedit or maintenance tasks don't require major knowledge in that other area. My second concern is that an admin candidate, who is too tied to a subject area or a few articles, will cross the line and abuse the admin abilities to inappropriately "protect" that area of interest. It certainly has happened before. -- Netoholic @ 18:39, 2004 Oct 12 (UTC)
      • That first argument is totally flawed logic. We don't have a limited number of adminship positions. If someone is an admin, and only uses the extra abilities very rarely or in a very limited area, they are still helping take a little of the load off the others. I rarely use my admin-flagged abilities any more, but I don't abuse them and when I do use them it saves someone else the trouble. Isomorphic 18:50, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
        • Sorry if I'm confused - are you replying to my comments? I never said anything about a limited number of admin positions. -- Netoholic @ 19:57, 2004 Oct 13 (UTC)

Comments

  • I appreciate his efforts to mediate allegations of bad faith and NPOV at [[2]], and will base my future vote up or down by 10/18 based on his objectivity and performance there.--FeloniousMonk 18:33, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In reply to Felonius's remark, I don't think it's policy-wise wrong for Rednblu to vote, as Hawstom is mediating in an unofficial capacity. Honestly, even if Hawstom was acting as an official mediator or arbitrator in a case involving Rednblu, I don't think there's any policy opposing that. Ethically, I think each person has to decide on their own. It may be a mark of Rednblu's great esteem for Hawstom's fairness, in that he knows that Hawstom is an honest and just enough person not to be swayed by such things. That's my reaction. Jwrosenzweig 21:41, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I appreciate your response. I bring it up because outside of wikipedia, many organizations preclude plaintiffs/defendants from actively supporting a action that benefits the judge to avoid the appearance of impropriety, quid pro quo/one hand washing the other, etc.--FeloniousMonk 07:31, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate
A few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:

1. What sysop chores, if any, would you anticipate helping with? (Please read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.)
A. While 1) I sincerely thank Kim Bruning for extending the Wikipedia hand of trust to me, 2) I understand that adminship is to be "not a big deal", and 3) I therefore accept this unsolicited nomination, I am not schooled in the particular reasons why more admins are needed, and what chores I might best do. I would most likely not initially use my administrative privileges at all, and I anticipate I would slowly begin to use them as I became more appreciative of the need for them. I have only recently begun to feel my community duty to the larger scope of Wikipedia, answering RFCs and welcoming anonymous editors. These forms of "spreading my wings" don't require admin privileges. So I leave it to my peers to judge whether I will soon be finding need for admin privileges as my sense of duty expands further. Tom - Talk 16:53, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
A. As I indicate on my user page, I am most pleased with the team efforts that have brought NPOV success to Mormonism and Christianity and Human. I am also recently pleased with my recently blossoming efforts in welcoming newcomers and helping other Wikipedians feel valued and understood. Tom - Talk 16:53, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
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 will deal with it in the future?
A. Thanks to the shining example of Angela who first welcomed me gently in September 2003 when I created all kinds of new-user technical havoc, I have never felt the desire to be at odds with any user. Energetic User:BoNoMoJo caused me great stress with some very difficult e-mails at one time, but I thankfully was able to respond cooly. Wonderful Wesley caused me stress (not by any irresponsibility of his) early on, but I don't think I ever allowed that stress to affect our relationship. I have been fortunate to have dealt with all potential conflicts with patience, kindness, and respect. I hope to continue to do the same always. For an example of my worst behavior (pushing too hard, sacrificing relationship for issue), see Talk:Utah War.