Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/MichaelBillington

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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.

[edit] MichaelBillington

(16/20/4) Ended 10:49, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

MichaelBillington (talk · contribs) – Michael has been a Wikipedian since December 14, 2005. He's made heaps of useful edits to a wide variety of articles, such as 2006 AFL finals series and POSIX. Additionally, he's been involved in administrative work: helping out with RfC, RfBA, and the WikiProject on open proxies. He's a regular on various Wikimedia IRC channels as well, under the nick Mike42. Just today, he asked me to block an open proxy and take care of some users behind it, which drew my attention to his lack of access to admin tools (although I've noticed him before as a good contributor). Wikipedia would definitely benefit from him having a mop of his own, and I'm pleased to have the opportunity to nominate him. --Slowking Man 09:09, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 09:35, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm withdrawing my RfA, as it seems clear that it wont suceed, and a pile-on oppose is looking likely at this point. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 10:49, 4 November 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 have noticed recently that CAT:CSD has been anything but 'speedy', and also that CAT:RFU has been similarly slow. I would definitely like to help in those areas to keep the system working quickly. As for backlogs, some people may have seen my work adding timestamps to every item on WP:RFCU/A, which at least indicates I have the attention span neccesary to do boring, repeditive tasks, (i.e, perfect for clearing backlogs). I would also like to be able to block open proxies on sight, rather than yelling for a sysop in #wikipedia
2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any with which you are particularly pleased, and why?
A: I am particulary proud of my writings in the area of Australian Rules Football umpiring, as well as stubs to fix various red links around the wiki. I also helped to write a large portion of Computer Programming, and I am quite happy that I was the first one to get to the Tax collector article (though it still needs more work). Of all the articles (and I've written a few), the contribution of mine I currently like the most is the (the unfinished as of yet) Jim Mahoney (umpire) article, though I'm sure this will change as soon as I find something else to work on :D
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 have generally not been in edit wars or any other conflicts, but I regulary have run-ins with abusive vandals, though i've always kept a cool head and simply reverted. I have however solved edit wars between other users, such as the regular 3RR violations on Hazara. I am generally a cool-headed user, and don't get annoyed easily (hence the lack of disputes...)
4. Are you now, or have you ever been, a theatre critic for The Guardian, a recently deceased actor, or (even more eerily), an operative of the Lyndon LaRouche movement?
A: All of the above. Not that I'm aware of, though I may have been distantly related to the actor.

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: I have interpreted the former to be a sort of extenstion of WP:BB, as in "Be bold in ignoring silly policy that is tying you back from helping the encyclopaedia". I do think that IAR should never, ever be applied in a content dispute however. WP:SNOW on the other hand I think is somewhat similar, in that it advises you to ignore usual AFD discussion times if the outcome is overwhelmingly to speedy keep the article, or the nomination is clearly not going to result in a single delete vote, as with the AFD for Bill Gates.
6. Is there ever a case where a punitive block should be applied?
A: No, not at all. Blocks should be applied to stop any further damage to the encyclopadia that a user is causing, not to punish them after something has already been done and there is no indication that it will continue.
7. What would your thought process be to determine that a business article should be deleted using CSD:G11?
A: Any article that A) has a stong POV towards the product and B) after some quick googling can be found to not be notable. If it has a strong POV and does appear to be notable, then in my opinion the article can be cleaned up and rewritten to be encyclopaedic.
Optional question from Deon555 (talk · contribs)
Ultimately, why do you want to become an administrator?
A: If I had any stong desire for a sysop flag then I would have nominated myself prior to this. I think this nomination came as a result of the admins sick of me bugging them on IRC, so to answer your question: I'd like the sysop flag to speed things up, because yelling for a sysop uses a considerable amount of my wiki-time. (the sysops don't like it and neither do I)


General comments

Discussion

  • Everyone is free to use their own criteria for judging an editor's fitness for adminship, of course, but this #wikipedia-cabal-en thing strikes me as a tempest in a teapot. I was present in the channel at the time, and the discussion, to me, consisted of little more than ha ha only serious talk of acting as a "cabal" (does anyone seriously think Draicone was going to nominate deletion review for AfD?). I'm not aware of any restrictions on attempting to influence others, and I don't see discussing an RfA and agreeing to vote a certain way as anything unacceptable. If one was seriously attempting to conspire, a public channel probably wouldn't be the place to do it, either, and if IRC "back rooms" are a problem, we should probably get rid of all the private, invitation-only channels for administrators, arbitrators, and the like. --Slowking Man 20:34, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
The discussion here about activities off-wiki makes me less willing to work on Wikipedia. It seems that if we are going to start judging people based on things they do off-wiki then there will be very few editors or admins left. If the IRC channels are going to be included in the mix when deciding a RfA then I say it should be noted in policy. Otherwise you will be blindsiding people with it, unless that is the whole intent. Otherwise, the IRC channels should be left out of the RfA or they should be closed. --Kf4bdy talk contribs 21:40, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Support

  1. Support I believe this user would make a great admin.--Kf4bdy talk contribs 09:40, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  2. Strong Support, ditto above. Had this page on my watchlist waiting for creation, because Mike42 is a perfect example of a user who Wikipedia would benefit from getting the tools. Daniel.Bryant [ T · C ] 10:09, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  3. Strong Support - okay, once again need to interrupt my 10+ day thus far wikibreak to support this man. Mike's an class A guy, smart, knows policy, great man and good friend. Bring it on. Glen 10:22, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  4. Support I've seen good work (even if his national cricket team are a pain in the proverbial). Same name as an actor I've enjoyed the work of, too, not that that's particularly relevant - the positive comments on his talk page are relevant, though, as are his contribs (which look excellent). Grutness...wha? 10:23, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  5. Support I've seen Michael around - seems like a sound guy. BTLizard 10:38, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  6. Strong Support helpful user, always on IRC ST47Talk 11:13, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  7. Mike | Happy Thanksgiving 12:07, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  8. Oh come on, that channel was created as a joke. He could have done the same thing on any other server under any other nick. I have been in that channel and Mike definately did not ask me to oppose Rory's RfA. I will lend in my support here for a user I have known since a long time and who has been working his ass off to make wikipedia look good. — Nearly Headless Nick {L} 12:27, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  9. Support. ugen64 19:50, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  10. Support Good, competent, user that deserves to have the tools. Hello32020 23:01, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  11. Strong support I have seen this user on IRC and his dealings there are anything but "shady". I was not aware of it previously, but the Rory096 RfA issue has been blown way out of proportion and I see nothing in the incident which makes Mike a "cabalist" or unstrustworthy with the admin tools. Also I see absolutely no reason to accuse him of dishonesty for his nominator's minor omission of a fact that should not even matter in regards to admin tools! Now this user has done a lot of good work in areas that would definitely be helped with an extra admin there.--Konst.ableTalk 02:17, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
  12. support keep up the good work Mjal 02:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
  13. Knife-Edge Neutral lean toward Support Golly thats long :P — Deon555talkReview 06:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
  14. Support per above.  Doctor Bruno  07:42, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
  15. SUPER DUPER ZOMG SUPPORTZ He is teh r0x0r and he needs a mop to unleash his full awesomeness. TehKewl1 08:15, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
  16. Edit Conflict Support After my block, Mike offered me encouragement and helped me reform into a valued Wikipedia contributor. He's one of the few nice users in a place full of idiots (i.e. IRC). --J.L.W.S. The Special One 08:34, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Strong Oppose Candidate has been part small group of users that have engaged to attempt to negatively influence recent RfA's. Someone that games the system, so to speak, and wilfully disregards fundamental concepts such as consensus is not someone I would trust with any extra responsibilities hoopydinkConas tá tú? 10:22, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    Comment Can you provide some difs, please? This sort of thing would change my opinion if it was substantiated. (aeropagitica) 10:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    Sure thing. The thread from AN/I can be found here. As the thread's title suggests, a lot of the the candidate's snarky actions happened off-wiki, which should probably also be factored in to your estimation of the candidate. I hope this helps in your decision-making process. hoopydinkConas tá tú? 10:40, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    From that link there, it is shown that what I said in that channel amounted to telling a user who entered the channel why random people from the #wikipedia channel were in there, and me stating what I had said on Rory's RfA, after being asked. I didn't however make any attempt to negatively influence the RfA, though I agree others in the channel may have been up to something. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 10:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    If it helps I followed this fairly closely, and admittedly I was not on IRC when it happened but from others comments it seems Mike's synopsis above is accurate. Also, I respect Hoopydink tremendously but do take issue to the "a lot of the the candidate's snarky actions happened off-wiki, which should probably also be factored in to your estimation of the candidate" comment - IMO offwiki is offwiki. Glen 10:53, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    I believe the comment that Mike42 referring to actually refers to his ambition to solicit various "different" users to help him skew consensus in his favour so as not to be "obvious". It's clear from the chat log that he visibly attempted to game the system. In regards to the italicised snippet, I meant to basically convey that offwiki is offwiki and my opposition could and should be taken with a grain of salt. However, as IRC is becoming more frequented and there are established, official Wikipedia channels, it's very important that any potential admin does not stand for this sort of nonsense whereever it may occur hoopydinkConas tá tú? 10:59, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  2. Not willing to trust this user with admin tools following that farce with Rory's RFA. – Chacor 13:29, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  3. Strong oppose Call it women's intuition but I'm not at all comfortable with this candidate. This feeling was confirmed by his failure to note that though, as his nominator states, his account was created 14 December, 2005, he did not make his first edit until 16 March 2006 and even then his editing was very sporadic until the end of May. I think it's dishonest to allow his nominator to present him to the community as a "Wikipedian since December 14" when that's clearly not the case. I am not willing to trust him at this point. Sarah Ewart (Talk) 14:17, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    Why punish him for the nominator's mistake? And have you seen WP:MWT, by the way? :) — Nearly Headless Nick {L} 15:49, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    Nick, I'm not trying to "punish him for the nominator's mistake." I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear, but my issue isn't with the nominator making that statement (I believe wholeheartedly that it was a good faith error, rather than something deliberately dishonest). My issue is with Michael not correcting it. He accepted the nomination, signed off on it and then put it up on the the RfA page. I pressume he read it carefully first? The length of time a candidate has been editing is often seen as a critical piece of information at RfA and signing off on misleading information, that many people use to decide whether to support or oppose, is not something I like to see in a candidate. However, this issue only affirmed the opinion I already held. In addition:
    • I don't ever use !votes as punishment; that's not what RfA is about. It concerns me that people seem to view adminship as reward/punishment.
    • Yes, I have seen MWT; I first became aware of it awhile ago when I was looking at Michael's page, but it doesn't change my opinion in either direction. Such projects are fantastic and I applaude the contributors, but it doesn't gift adminship.
    • When I reviewed the article edit histories, I found linking to articles like Umpire (AFL) and Computer programming in response to question 2 rather confusing because his only contributions seem to be reverting vandalism and spam. But again, none of these points impacted on my decision. Thanks Nick, Sarah Ewart (Talk) 19:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Addit:The link that Dlohcierekim provided is enough on its own for me to oppose. We don't need admins who cannot stand up to spammers. Sarah Ewart (Talk) 23:55, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    I ran the edit counter and saw that his first edit under that account was not for a few months, but I didn't think that was particularly relevant, because registering an account indicates, to me, interest in contributing. I've added a note above to clarify. --Slowking Man 20:34, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  4. Strong oppose — per the Hoopster and Sarah; I also see little encyclopeadia building -- this also concerns me.. -> shows a lack of understanding of policys and guidelines imho. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 14:40, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    To clarify, what about the image do you find problematic? --Slowking Man 20:34, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    "To the uploader: please add a detailed fair use rationale for each use, as described on Wikipedia:Image description page, as well as the source of the work and copyright information. Please include in your fair use rationale details of the particular edition (publisher, market & year of publication) of the edition you have used, and also acknowledge any cover artist if such artist is acknowledged in that edition's frontmatter." thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 20:44, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    I'm still trying to sort through the IRC situation, but this image strikes me as a non-issue. The image is a copy of the 2006 Australian population census form. It's self-evident that the publisher is the Government of Australia, that the document was widely distributed to the general public, and that the year of publication is 2006. Newyorkbrad 20:49, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    "To the uploader: please add a detailed fair use rationale for each use" thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 20:55, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    In most countries, government documents, particularly forms, are in the public domain, so this would be a free use situation and fair use wouldn't even come into the picture. I'm not 100% sure whether this is true in Australia but a single error in this complicated area doesn't strike me as very relevant to adminship. Newyorkbrad 21:33, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
    Actually in most countries government material is copyrighted - the United States is the unusual case in this respect. In any event, I've deleted the image under CSD I6, failure to provide a detailed rationale, which incidentally is a fundamental requirement when uploading fair use images and not some trivial error. --bainer (talk) 10:19, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
  5. Oppose per the AN/I diff. Probably started as an attempt at humor, but crossed the line into disruption. Off-wiki is off-wiki, unless one is talking about and acting on Wikipedia, and one's comments come to public notice on Wikipedia. This does call into question candidate's judgment. Besides, I trust Sarah's intuition, having none available myself. Xoloz 15:48, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  6. Oppose I'm assuming WP:AGF on this AN/I-IRC thing, especially since we don't have all the details. But I do feel this RfA has come a bit too early with respect to this incident - like to see more growth as an editor. All the best, Rama's arrow 17:23, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  7. Offwiki is offwiki, but this Strong Oppose is onwiki based squarely on what's offwiki. - crz crztalk 18:28, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  8. IRC lobbying => Probably Cabalism => Going Sideways with Mop. - Mailer Diablo 21:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  9. Oppose adminship is about trust, and even if the incident was blown out of proportion it still affects perception of the masses, and admins must also being perceived as trustworthy in addition to being trustworthy. Don't let that stop you contributing and eventually gaining that trust (again). Agathoclea 22:05, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  10. Tentative oppose based on apparently reaching a deal off-wiki with an anon to allow a link to a commercial site rejected by consensus as spam.Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 23:20, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  11. Oppose I don't think this candidate is ready yet, but will be happy to support in a few months' time.--Runcorn 23:24, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  12. Oppose per the Rory096 RfA thing. Kavadi carrier 23:44, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  13. Oppose per Hoopydink and Sarah Ewart. I worry about maturity. Sorry -- Samir धर्म 00:45, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
  14. Oppose per perceived dishonesty and shady off-wiki activity. --Mr. Lefty (talk) 01:28, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
  15. Oppose concerned about the IRC abuse going on, not so much about skewing another RfA, though that's pretty dubious, but about allowing spamlinks onto Wikipedia and then trying to prevent them being removed by requesting page protection. Yesterday, there were 6300 links added to Wikipedia - if that continues daily (and it does) that's 2.3 million links per year. The last thing we need is someone who will let spamlinks be added to Wikipedia and the can protect the page from being reverted through the use (abuse) of administrative powers. Sorry, but unless there's some sort of campaign of mis-information concerning Michaels IRC usage, I feel I have to vote against this RfA. As I say, I'm sorry. Best Wishes Heligoland 02:59, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
  16. Oppose per all the above concerns. Although, I must note here that this user is a great contributor to this project. In the meantime, do not lose hope and try again after three months. --Siva1979Talk to me 05:31, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
  17. I'm also not happy about the whole Rory's RfA thing. -- Steel 18:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
  18. Oppose per Siva. Michael 20:44, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
  19. Oppose per question four and the Rory thing. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
  20. Oppose per Dlohcierekim and Heligoland. I don't like to oppose, but off-wiki conversations are relevant when it affects the encyclopedia, and these conversations fit that description. The use of the hard work of volunteer Wikipedia editors to support blog traffic and corporate marketing strategies infuriates me. It's not simply annoying – it's a credibility problem that affects the core of the We cannot allow any editor to negotiate the addition (or deletion) of ELs, off- or on-wiki, and we certainly cannot allow it to be done by an admin. I'm sorry. KrakatoaKatie 02:40, 4 November 2006 (UTC)


Neutral

  1. Neutal Support. A great contributor no doubt, I care about the #wikipedia-cabal-en issue.. but it was off-wiki, although yeh.. hard :s. As I said, Mike is a great contributor, but I just don't _quite_ see the need for the mop. Answers to my question may be disambiguating... — Deon555talkReview 22:20, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  2. Per Mailer Diablo. Not really comfy with opposing, but I'll sit on the fence for now. riana_dzasta 22:37, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
  3. Neutral leaning oppose the dual issues of IRC conduct and collaboration with a spammer is too troubling for me to support.-- danntm T C 15:23, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
  4. Neutral, okay guy but Rory RfA issues give me pause. ~crazytales56297 O rly? 01:38, 4 November 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.