Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Moralis

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

[edit] Moralis

Ended 02:15, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Please note: The formatting of this page is intentional. It was done after much discussion on WT:RfA and with the consent (read: consent, not necessarily support) of the candidate. Please do not alter it without discussing the issue at WT:RfA.

Moralis (talk · contribs) - Excellent editor who has been with Wikipedia for quite a while and deserves to be an admin. I've found him always helpful, professional, and polite, even when dealing with trolls. He's helped out a lot on The Black Parade and other related articles, and really deserves this for all his hard work. mcr616 _Speak! 01:38, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:

I feel honored just seeing this page come into existence. I accept.

A comment in that empty space up there says that the candidate may make an optional statement here, so I will.

My edit count might not be as high as some users', but a lot of what I do is RC patrol. I've made a lot of posts to AIAV over time, and adminship would certainly cut down on that. The reversion tools would also be helpful. I've got a masochistic interest in doing the various things that a lot of users probably consider mind-numbing, like addressing copyedit backlogs, and staring at an IRC readout of recent changes, looking for oddities to fix.

Recently, I've developed a strange interest in mediation. This started out as simply butting into discussions, but over the past couple of days, I've found myself getting involved with the Mediation Cabal, which has given me a unique perspective on the various issues we have with each other as Wikipedians.

I've often considered adminship a long-term goal, thanks to the various small ways it would help me with RC patrol. I also decided a while ago that I would never nominate myself, however, so I'm pleasantly surprised to have ended up at RfA anyway. --Moralis (talk) 02:15, 12 April 2007 (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 participants:

1. What sysop chores do you anticipate helping with?

A: Cutting down the backlogs at WP:AIAV and WP:RfP is a biggie. Responding to speedy requests, as well. It's my basic intention to keep an eye on everything that could potentially become backlogged (the Administrative backlog category might be helpful) and then spend too much of my free time keeping that from happening. --Moralis (talk) 02:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any with which you are particularly pleased, and why?

A: I've done a lot of revamping of The Black Parade, but I'm mainly proud of being dubbed a "Vandal Huntar" by User:Ryulong. I spend a fair amount of my free time on RC patrol, mostly via IRC. And I have a LOT of free time- I'm unemployed right now. --Moralis (talk) 02:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

A: For the most part, conflicts with other users have involved mistaking a legitimate edit for vandalism, and this always means a prompt apology and restoring the material I've messed with. Most recently, I was involved in an NPOV dispute, but I think I remained appropriately civil throughout. I had just submitted a Mediation Cabal request when the dispute died down. --Moralis (talk) 02:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

4. You edited as an IP before? Good for you! Do you remember which IP address or addresses you used? We can then look at those edits too. --Kim Bruning 19:25, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Apologies for being long in responding. I didn't notice this question hwere until just now. Unfortunately, I didn't have a static IP, and I also wasn't keeping track of my edits at the time, so I can't provide such information. Thanks for being interested, though! --Moralis (talk) 06:07, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Optional Question from User:Bucketsofg.

5. What is your interpretation of WP:POINT? Does the non-standard organization of your present RFA fail it? Does my question?

My interpretation of WP:POINT: "If you disagree with a policy(/guideline), attempt to change it reasonably through our policy-making system. Do not create violations to prove that the policy is flawed. Also, don't create a situation where the policy is used even though it plainly doesn't apply/isn't reasonable. Basically, if you can't make your point through traditional discussion, you probably haven't got a point. Don't use underhanded means to try to make one anyway."

In other words, "Obey the spirit of the rules. Don't ignore them to make your case, and don't abuse them to make your case."

I don't believe that this RfA violates WP:POINT, because the format of an RfA is not policy, to my knowledge. Please correct me if I'm wrong- I haven't paid too much attention to RfAs in the past- something I intend to change now that I've seen how the discussions usually go.

I also don't consider this terribly underhanded on the part of the user responsible. This is, as stated, an experiment. If it works, it might become something we use in the future. It might not. I don't know. Since this isn't a policy violation, I don't see anything wrong with trying something out and seeing how it works.

I don't think WP:POINT applies to your question. While it may have been a leading question, I don't see how WP:POINT addresses that. It was a legitimate question about my interpretation of a policy, and that's a perfectly good question to ask an RfA candidate. --Moralis (talk) 06:07, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Completely optional and possible frivolous question from Physchim62

answer at your own risk

7. Under what circumstances would you be willing to ignore all rules?

A. I think WP:IAR is very similar in its message to WP:POINT and WP:SENSE, insofar as all of those policies implore the user to enforce rules only with respect to the spirit of those rules. Primarily, if it's appropriate to Ignore All Rules, you're already dealing with a WP:POINT violation. There are also situations in which "consensus" may be ignored if that consensus is a result of meatpuppetry- primarily, I think, where a number of users have ganged up on a smaller group more for the purpose of being right than to actually accomplish anything.

Rules are enforced for the wrong reasons all the time, although in a lot of cases, those issues don't exactly make it to the public eye, because they're often localized disputes. Sometimes this take the form of content being deleted "per policy," when it very plainly does serve a purpose (users have axes to grind, for the most part). A lot of people use WP:NOT or WP:NOTE to remove articles or content as advertisements or vanity when what they really need is some TLC, rather than death by fire.

A lot of content is also removed that, while the rules do provide for its removal, just isn't hurting anybody. Of course I respect WP:NOT, but exclusionism can be taken at least as far as inclusionism, and it sometimes is. I tend to ask myself whether I can envision a reader finding the article helpful (read: useful- interesting and useful are two separate issues) and if the answer is yes, I will generally support the content's inclusion, regardless of what the policies have to say about it. It's my opinion that, in general, if content is useful to somebody, it's made Wikipedia more useful as a whole.

Needless to say, the result of an AfD is still something that must be respected (that particular rule generally should not be ignored). If approved, I'll obviously act according to the community's wishes, regardless of my opinion. I do think there's some validity to the argument that if content is really appropriate it'll find its way.

Basically, ignore all rules applies to content whenever inclusionism makes sense- and I will not pretend to be able to describe when that is, as it's kind of a case-by-case decision for everybody, based on the merits of the content in question and how they stack up against policy. IAR applies to all guidelines and policies when enforcement just plainly isn't fair- the unfortunate thing is that what I consider a common-sensical toss-out of a rule might to you be a flagrant violation. That is both the beauty and the curse of a collaboration. I feel like I haven't answered your question very well, but as of now, I'm quite tired and can't think of more specific examples. I hope this gives you a decent idea of what I'm getting at. --Moralis (talk) 13:30, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Please note that my use of the word "policy" in the above is for the sake of simplicity (not having to type "policies, guidelines and conventions" every time I refer to them). I am fully aware that not all of the pages I've noted are necessarily "policy." --Moralis (talk) 08:45, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

• See Moralis's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool. For the edit count, see the talk page.

Optional question from User:TimVickers

If a point in an article is disputed between two editors, and both can produce some reliable sources to support their position, what is the correct way to reflect these two views according to the WP:NPOV policy? Should the two points of view be separated into two equally-sized "criticism" and "defense" sections? Or should the two points of view be merged together into one section split evenly between the two perspectives? Are there any other questions to address before making this decision?

A: Much of my answer to this question is, obviously, situation based- while the relevant policies are very clear, where content fits into them isn't always. The first thing that needs to be established is whether the sources furnished by both sides are indeed reliable and being used correctly. For example, I was recently (briefly, I have now stepped away because I have lost my neutrality) involved with a mediation case involving the ethnicity of the article's subject. One of the main points being argued was the subject's daughter's interpretation of the subject's ethnicity. Some users claimed that she was a secondary source, because she was obviously not the article's subject. However, because of the unique nature of the information she was supplying (it reflected her own ethnicity as well), many considered her a primary source (the position I took).

Once the reliability of sources has been established, it needs to be determined how significant each viewpoint is in relation to the others. At the surface, this involves looking at how many sources each side has provided, how mainstream those sources are, and a little bit of common sense: does one viewpoint really overshadow the other, or can we be reasonably certain that each view is relatively equal in prominence? This is one point where I may disagree with other editors- I believe that if more prominent and more verifiable meant the same thing, policy would just have us count sources and give proportionate weight.

That last part is often the most contentious work, but once you've established how prominent each position is (and therefore how much weight is "due weight") you now have the impossible task of helping the editors come up with a version of the content that 1) is NPOV and 2) is acceptable to both parties, or at least is so clearly in line with policy that there's absolutely nothing else you can do for the dispute.

Whether the content should be split among sections is entirely dependent on the situation. If the content is a major focal point of the article, this makes more sense than if you're mentioning a small aspect of the subject. I don't think neutrality policy is clear on their being a "correct" way to format anything- that's more of a manual of style issue, if anything. --Moralis (talk) 19:11, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that is an excellent reply to the question. The relative weights that should be given to the two positions is indeed the core of the policy. Inexperienced editors often think NPOV means "equal weight to both sides", but I think your clear grasp of the policy to the contrary is evident in this reply. TimVickers 19:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Contents 1 Moralis 1.1 Arbitrary break 1 1.2 Arbitrary break 2 1.3 Arbitrary break 3 1.4 Arbitrary Break 4 1.5 Arbitrary break 5

---

Please keep criticism constructive and polite.

Discussion

• Did you edit as an IP before you registered? Just curious, your edits seem quite knowledgeable for a newbie :) User:Veesicle 02:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I did indeed. I really wish I'd made an account, so I'd have that history to point to now. I also think I'm pretty good at absorbing info, but that's just me talking myself up ;) --Moralis (talk) 02:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Wow is this a silly format or what? Anyway do I answer here or there or where? Sorry if I'm in the wrong spot but anyway I Oppose until nominee gains a greater level of expertise across a wider spectrum of Wikipedia.Bec-Thorn-Berry 10:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose It is good to see users that want to help Wikipedia, but I don't think you have enough experience just yet. Only 700 edits is too few to apply for adminship. Try when you have more, and you will be likely to succeed. Captain panda 02:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  Comment While I can respect that position, I do think that opposition on the basis of edit count is rather unfair, considering the potential number of edits a user might have made before registering. --Moralis (talk) 02:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Fair edits; seems to know the policies well. Will put admin tools to good use and seems unlikely to abuse them. Adminship is no big deal. ➪HiDrNick! 02:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support. As HiDrNick notes above, adminship is indeed no big deal. Moralis has shown greatly impressive work at WP:MEDCAB, and has carried on the mediation tasks in a professional and intelligent manner; and the main-space contributions I have looked through from this user's edit history have been well thought out. In my random sampling of edits, I was unable to detect any civility violations. When faced with this profile - obvious awareness of how to go about doing things, civil attitude, and clear usefulness in solving disputes - I think we should be less carping about matters such as edit-count and time length, and not carry on this ridiculous pursuit of editorial dick-waving. --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 03:07, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support. I am sick of all this editcountitus. He is a good user who I am confidant will not abuse or misuse the tools. -Mschel 03:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose It's not just the number of edits that concerns me - it's the distribution of them. Looking at the contribution history, the candidate did 100+ edits on Dec. 13-14, 2006, mostly with anti-vandalism work. Then he more or less disappeared until March 1, when he assembled another pile of vandalism reversions. Then another month of relative quiet, followed by 100+ edits in the last week. That edit pattern doesn't conform with the long-term record of consistency I expect to see in an admin candidate. It might be better to come here more often and do fewer edits each time. YechielMan 03:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  Comment My disappearances have both been due to the loss of my laptop. When I'm around, I do think it's ridiculous how much time I spend logged in and active (not that you all can see that =P) --Moralis (talk) 03:13, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  Comment - I fail to see the logic here. First of all I find the explanation acceptable. 2nd, shocking as it may seem, people have lives to lead. As long as this editor makes valuable contributions as often as he can he's an asset.Mark83 11:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support. From what I have seen Moralis is a good user, while his edit count may be lower than some, I really couldn't care less about edit counts. --Danlock2 03:27, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose I just wish I could accept you, but you simply don't have enough experience with your account. I agree with the two votes above; you need to be more regular with your editing and need to have more edits. Through your contributions, I can see that you do a good deal of vandal fighting and participate in mediation disputes. A suggestion (not that I'm an admin) is to work more on the backlogs and be active in Xfds. It seems you have quite a bit of experience here, with your excellent knowledge of most aspects of Wikipedia. Hopefully, you'll make adminship, but if you don't, those are some of the things you may want to work on. Sr13 (T|C) 03:33, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  Huh, this is different: an Oppose comment where the editor goes on to say "Hopefully, you'll make adminship..." (and clearly talking about this RfA, not some future one).Herostratus 15:38, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Edit count isn't an issue, the user is obviously very experienced with Wikipedia, and could be a more valuable contributor as a sysop. Look at the content of his edits, he is a positive force in the community. - Bennyboyz3000 04:20, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitrary break 1

• Neutral Did you have a static IP address to edit from? If you could provide that then it would certainly help to demonstrate your depth of knowledge regarding contributing to Wikipedia. (aeropagitica) 04:37, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  Unfortunately, no. At that point, my IP address was changing frequently... and, at any rate, I wasn't keeping track of what it was. --Moralis (talk) 04:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. The candidate does not have yet have a long enough record as a consistent contributor to earn my support for adminship. Singopo 06:03, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support: per Bennyboyz3000 Anynobody 09:09, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral leaning towards support. Despite the convincing answers and nomination, I really feel uncomfortable supporting you with a low edit count and irregular activity. —Anas ^talk? 09:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support Terence 09:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose such a low rate of activity since registering in 2005, just over one edit per day, doesn't really cut it for me, sorry. The Rambling Man 10:09, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Change to Neutral - a willingness to ditch the previous RFA format and go for the new refactored version (even though I don't necessarily agree with it) shows a great level of dedication to the project. Well done, but still more activity needed for me... The Rambling Man 20:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose sorry, but you're too inexperienced to support, particularly in Wikipedia space. --Dweller 12:00, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• After reviewing the contrib history, I see no problems. Very civil user, will make a decent admin. —AldeBaer user:Kncyu38 13:17, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support - I kept on asking the Admins if there should be a minimum edit requirement but they decided against it so if the Admins dont have a problem with someone with 700+ edits..Neither do I..Go For it..--Cometstyles 14:06, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral. I am concerned about the candidate's statement that he wishes to become an administrator (found in the userboxes on the candidate's user page). However, I would likely support if the candidate were endorsed by a WikiProject, since such endorsement would tend to indicate the necessary social and collaborative skills for adminship and might overcome my concerns that this editor is seeking adminship for the sake of having it. Kelly Martin (talk) 14:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Under the circumstances and on the receipt of additional information as well as the opportunity to observe the candidate's interactions, I have chosen to waive my endorsement requirement for this candidate, and do hereby support his candidacy. Good luck! Kelly Martin (talk) 14:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  This reason to deny support continues to baffle me. So to be a good admin, never admit that you want to be one? Certainly in my workplace promotions are given to people who openly and strongly state that they want the job!--Xnuala (talk) 22:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  I was just reading something about that. Apparently promotions are often given to people who are good at getting promotions, as opposed to people who are suited to the job. Put that way it's totally logical ;-) On the internet, but even as far back as Roman and Greek times, people have known that (perhaps paradoxically to some) often the job is best given to the person who least wants it. --Kim Bruning 14:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC) and, this being an encyclopedia I couldn't resist looking it up: Cincinnatus is the classic times example of someone who doesn't really want the responsibility, and does a great job, in part because of that. --Kim Bruning 14:48, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support, without question. This guy does mediation work? And with that sort of recommendation from Nick Turnbull? We should all be falling over ourselves to support this guy. --bainer (talk) 15:12, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support. If a low edit count doesn't mean he wouldn't be an OK admin, then why bring it up? Unless it tells us something useful about the person, it can be ignored. He can work on his edit count while an admin, if that matters. No indication that he wouldn't be a good admin. Herostratus 15:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Checking through this user's contribs shows nothing but thoughtfulness and usefulness to the project - edit count means very little. No qualms about making him an admin whatsoever. User:Veesicle 17:24, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose needs more experience. Crum375 17:24, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support: Those in opposition can't come up with anything other than ridiculous editcountitis crap to base their opposes on. Sorry, but that's not evaluating a candidate as to whether they can be trusted or not. I *HAVE* done a review of the candidate, and find nothing to suggest this candidate can not be trusted. In fact, I've found quite the reverse. He's patient, thoughtful, articulate and level headed. All qualities I'd like to see in an admin. Those opposing based on editcountitis (all of the opposes, to date) should be ashamed of themselves. --Durin 17:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose - Not nearly enough experience--$UIT 18:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose - Not enough experience. Naconkantari 18:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral - leaning towards support. It's not so much the edit count as the diversity of experience. Getting involved in mediation is a huge plus, though. We always need more mediation folks. You're definitely on the right track and I'll likely have no problems supporting you in the future - Alison^☺ 18:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• --Tony Sidaway 18:32, 12 April 2007 (UTC) This fellow seems to be competent in a number of spheres useful to Wikipedia, and has no history of bad behavior. I don't think we need ask more of an administrator.
• Neutral: While I do believe this user can be trusted and would probably be an asset as an administrator, I am not quite sure if this user has enough experience quite yet. I am not leaning towards support or oppose as I am completely undecided and I think this user still needs to prove themself before being accepted as an administrator. While I would not be dissapointed if Moralis did become an administrator I do not think they have the experience needed quite yet.  Orfen ^{User Talk} | _Contribs 18:46, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support - Low edit count and lack of experience, but whatever. Adminship is no big deal, and we should give it to (within reason) anyone who wants it. Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 18:59, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support. His edit count is high enough to give a decent sample size and I don't see any evidence that he'd misuse the tools. As an aside, I definitely prefer this format and would like to see it used on more (if not all) RfAs. ChazBeckett 19:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Edit counts can be used in analysis of an editor's contributions, but they have their limitations. Opposing purely on grounds of "no experience due to no edits" does not consider two things - the first is that reading policies, engaging in discussions, writing articles, or in this case, mediating disputes do not require pressing "Save page" that much; as a result, they're not properly measured in edit counts. The second is that life happens: laptops break down, people move, classes or work take priority, etc. That does not necessarily mean that a user with 700 edits is any less committed to advancing Wikipedia's mission than a user with 70,000. Besides, as they say, if an admin makes one admin action a year, it is still a net benefit to the project. Ergo, support. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 19:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose Neutral. If This edit summary by Durin states correct in saying "Refactoring per discussion with nominee; do not revert as this was agreed upon.", then Moralis' agreeing to make the bureaucrats RfA closing job harder does not seem to demonstrate a willingness to help others in their tasks. Diffs would help to review the agreed upon discussion. (This discussion did not help clarify things.) In any event, Moralis' does not have enough reviewable experience to determine whether he is a trusted users who understand policy. -- Jreferee 19:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  It does not make the bureaucrats job any harder in any respect. Bureaucrats are expected to evaluate consensus. They are not expected to count votes. The suggestion to change RfAs into this style was brought by User:Sjakkalle at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Reform#Proposal_by_Sjakkalle. The format of this RfA has NOTHING to do with the capabilities and qualities of this candidate, and I would ask that you remove this element from consideration and focus on the candidate, not the form the RfA is taking. --Durin 19:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  Evidently, members of the admin's board were interested in refactoring an RfA in order to remove the support/oppose/neutral ratio from obvious viewing. I, personally, don't think that a direct vote tally should be used by a crat in determining whether to promote or not, so I agreed to be their guinea pig for this experiment. I fail to see how this makes a bureaucrat's RfA closing job any more difficult, if they're not basing their decision 100% on the vote tally. --Moralis (talk) 19:36, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  The reason given for the refactoring made it appear that this RfA was refactored during the RfA because of an agreed upon discussion between Durin and yourself. The diffs now provided by Durin and your explanation did help in understanding your participation in the refactoring and I revised my reasoning accordingly. Since your statement on future process did not change my position on evaluation of your present process understanding, I maintained my neutral reasoning. -- Jreferee 23:12, 12 April 2007 (UTC) On reconsideration of the additional information provided in this RfA, I struck my neutral opinion to give more weight to my reasoning which states, "Moralis' does not have enough reviewable experience to determine whether he is a trusted users who understand policy." -- Jreferee 17:09, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitrary break 2

• Neutral leaning towards support, perhaps. I'm curious enough about further edits that we haven't seen yet, that I'm not yet ready to commit to either choice. :-) --Kim Bruning 19:28, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Support After very well reasoned reply to question 7. If they always think that carefully before any action, this candidate may well make for a good admin indeed. --Kim Bruning 14:56, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose I see very little participation in policy making, and I don't see much at all in the areas where admin tools are useful. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 19:33, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral Nothing in your history would compel me to oppose your adminship, but I feel that you do not yet have the experience I feel is necessary for one to be an admin. I would like to see more interaction in policy-related areas. Your contributions to AIV are valued, keep up the good work. Leebo ^T/C 19:36, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral I am leaning toward support, though I can follow both sides of the argument on this one. I think he needs a little more experience with Wikipedia before becoming an administrator. Though, I see nothing wrong with this candidates behaviour and been part of Meditation is a big plus. I also think his decision to allow his RfA to have its S/N/O tally removed is not a reason to oppose. Camaron1 | Chris 19:49, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose Not enough experience with the Wikipedia namespace (half of Moralis' contribs there are less than a week old). No it's not editcountitis: I just don't see a way to convince myself that the candidate currently has enough experience with Wikipedia's processes to be an admin. On an unrelated note, I hate the refactoring of the page which makes it harder, imo, to make sense of the debate. Pascal.Tesson 20:21, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
  • • What, you mean read people's comments? --Durin 20:29, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  Doesn't the bureaucrat do that anyway? Mackensen (talk) 20:22, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Durin, I mean precisely that it's easier to understand a discussion when reading the arguments in favor of the candidate and those in opposition separately rather than reading all comments in chronological order. Sure, it's still the same set of comments but then why not sort them by alphabetical order of their contributors? Sorting comments semantically is a natural thing to do in any debate be it an RfA or a debate about whether Pepsi tastes better than Coke. Pascal.Tesson 20:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Except, this is supposed to be a discussion...not a vote. You can't sort a discussion. --Durin 20:48, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Is it really that difficult to sort a discussion where every contributor starts with a boldface support, oppose or neutral? I'm all for thinking up ways of reforming RfA but I do find this particular experiment to be unconvincing. Pascal.Tesson 20:51, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Further discussion is --> that way. --Durin 20:53, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. Besides the lack of experience, I went and looked through your edits today. In the timespan of roughly 19:30 to 20:00 today, you made a lot of vandal warnings on user talk pages, yet almost no actual reverts to the page. I would've excused a vandalproof glitch for a couple things, but certainly you would've kept a browser window open to make sure you were rv'ing the edits? It shows rather questionable judgment to me. The two combined, plus the idea that you're joined all this other stuff such as MedCab very recently suggests progress towards adminship, but not there yet.--Wizardman 20:31, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  Apologies for the occurrence- I just noticed the problem myself. It is indeed a VandalProof glitch. I've never used VandalProof before- and now I'm thinking I probably never will again, as its "rollback" buttons don't seem to actually revert the page. --Moralis (talk) 20:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  Indeed. In your defense VP hasn't been workign right for a while now.Wizardman 20:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  I also have the feeling that even if not promoted now, Moralis will certainly pass the next RFA, what with all the activity, and the otherwise trustworthy personality. :) --Kim Bruning 20:45, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose for lack of Wikipedia experience. I could perhaps be piling on, for which I feel bad about if I am, but the lack of numbers makes it hard for me to see if there are already 11 opposes and 14 supports and 10 neutrals (the real tallys, mine makes 12 opposes) for which I certainly then wouldn't add my oppose and added them up anyways to make sure I wasn't doing such. MECU≈talk 20:38, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support This user is willing to do the work, and I see no evidence that this user will misuse the tools or use them in bad faith.--Xnuala (talk) 22:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose, sorry. Very, very low edit count in all areas with this account, not enough evidence that this user (whose devotion and enthusiasm are most welcome) is experienced enough to be entrusted with the admin tools. Adminship is indeed no big deal, but it's quite a responsibility and should not be taken with levity.--Húsönd 22:28, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support Every experienced, civil, even-tempered editor should be given the bit. I disagree that this editor's edit count is too low, or that (beyond being too new to be evaluated) edit count even matters. Vadder 23:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose Low overall contributions doesn't give sufficient evidence of policy knowledge. You do, however, look like a great editor that would merit a lot of support in the near future based on your current activity and progress. Do keep up the good work. — Scientizzle 01:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose Although account has been registered for a while, has only been recently semi-active. Needs more current experience with the process. Adminship is not a goal, it is a job. You listed a desire to work with mediation, and that would be a good place to get active in, and does not require sysop rights. More interaction in the project space would also be helpful. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:21, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose I have had one encounter with this user and it was where he edit-warred without joining the talk page. That's not acceptable for admins.--Aminz 01:57, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  Just to clarify: I don't consider my conduct on that page "edit warring." While running RC patrol, I mistook a legitimate edit on Antisemitism for vandalism. It looked like certain content was being blanked, in violation of WP:-( and WP:3RR. I reverted it, incorrectly, because that's what we do with vandalism.

  Now, it turned out that the content was considered OR by some users, and correct by some others. While I admit that I might've been too defensive, I ultimately apologized, though I also suggested that the edit war was probably violating policy and that the users seek mediation before continuing. I also expressed a desire to step out of the situation, which I only walked into by accident. If anyone's interested, the dispute is probably still on my talk page. --Moralis (talk) 06:07, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support I see nothing that would lead me to believe this user would abuse the admin tools. Thank you for trying a new kind of RFA. Frise 04:55, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• E-gads! What's all this mess?! - Like I said, what is all this jumbled voting??! I can't get my brain around all the different thingys! Geesh, if this is the new style of voting, I'd hate to see what a WP:200 RfA will look like... Gulp! Absolutley horrible... Spawn Man 05:28, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Endorsed.--Húsönd 13:25, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Please remember that this is not a vote. –RHolton≡– 03:02, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Interesting to see this format up for a trial run. Low edit count can be a concern but reviewing the history I see enough responsibility and maturity to support the candidate. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. This RFA is poorly formatted, and I find the decision to use this type of formatting in his RFA an indication of poor judgement. I don't want an admin who 'fixes' things which aren't broken. Also inexperienced per YechielMan.AKAF 06:29, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  Comment: I did not change the format of this RfA, I simply agreed not to stop the people who did. Also, nobody's trying to fix anything. Just trying something out. --Moralis (talk) 06:33, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  Reply: I would oppose (mostly) someone who had the poor judgement to accept an RFA nomination only a week after their first nomination, because it reeks of poor judgement. In the same way, your acceptance of a new formatting for your RFA shows (in my opinion) poor judgement. The stated purpose of trying out this RFA format is to fix percieved problems with RFA (see the talk page).AKAF 09:08, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  I can't speak to the stated purpose of this format. All I can speak to is the way the issue was presented to me: I was asked via IRC if I would mind having my RfA reformatted, and I said no. If that's poor judgement, please elaborate on how (I'm not trying to be sarcastic here- I try to welcome all criticism and learn from my errors). --Moralis (talk) 09:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  If you are genuinely uninterested in the formatting of this page, then I'm sorry. As it stands, the effective outcome of your acceptance of the format change is that you are the flagship and main proponent of the new format. The outcome of your decision is that your RFA is (at least in part) a referendum on the alternative formatting. The fact that Mackensen's RFB (still open) is also a vote of this type should have at least given you warning about the result of your decision. Thus I find your acceptance poorly thought through if you were indeed aware of the consequences. Additionally I dislike the alternative format, and much of the thinking behind it. I strongly disagree with Mackensen's idea that voting should be completely suspended and admins appointed by bureaucratic fiat, which is what your RFA format is an extension of. Your responses indicate that you agree with this new formatting, which I personally find to be poor judgement. I suspect that if other users are correct and you are simply inexperienced, that more experience in wikipedia would have lead to you understanding the ramifications of your acceptance.AKAF 11:11, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  I was fully aware of the potential ramifications. I just don't think they're very reasonable- how is it fair to associate me with the supporters of the change, or especially with Mackensen's RfB, on the basis of my not refusing to let this page be used as a guinea pig? "Guilty by association" isn't a good argument in the article namespace. Shouldn't be here, either. But after thinking about it, I don't really think it's appropriate for me to be talking this point in my own RfA, so I'm going to step out of this discussion while I'm still pretty neutral on the subject. --Moralis (talk) 11:18, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  Anyone opposing this RfA because of format should be directing their hate and derision towards me and not Moralis. I didn't come up with the idea for this format, but I was the one <cough> stupid enough to actually attempt formatting of an RfA like this. You want to take issue with this, take it up with me. Further discussion on the merits of the format is --> this way. Stop targeting Moralis. --Durin 13:26, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  Support (changed from oppose). This is an inexperienced user with very few non-trivial edits and no consistent pattern of editing. However he has achieved support from a large number of experienced editors, who clearly feels that his temperament make him well suited to be an admin. AKAF 15:13, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose not active enough, not enough edits, too inexperienced.  ALKIVAR™ ☢ 06:45, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Support per statements made by the nominee, and several other factors: high-quality work in both editing and mediation (I would rather see a lower amount of good edits than a mish-mash of tens of thousands), communicates very well, understands how things work, and displays a willingness to assist with tasks that desperately need attention. I have complete trust that the tools will not be misused or abused. *Vendetta* _{(whois talk edits)} 07:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I have just reverted an edit that partially returned the RfA to its original format. While I am not opposed to using that format, I don't think this should be done without discussion. I haven't checked WT:RfA for discussion of the issue yet, because I wanted to revert it before somebody else had the opportunity to vote on the half-fixed iteration, thus making a potential problem for both an editor who might reformat the page and an editor who might be undoing the reformat. Just wanted to let everybody know why I reverted so suddenly. --Moralis (talk) 08:09, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral. This user shows poor judgement and poor grasp of procedure concerning the format of this page. Both are essential qualities for an administrator. Errabee 08:39, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I think in this case, it seems to me that Moralis was right. Please do not assume that you are all-knowing and always correct. --Aminz 08:46, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Stop patronising. I am absolutely wholeheartedly opposed against this kind of RfA. If Moralis supported this change, it shows poor judgement in my book. That's all I said. Errabee 08:50, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Comment Errabee, your edit summary reads, "This recent action shows poor judgement and poor grasp of procedure. Therefore oppose." Are you opposing me on the basis that I reverted your reformat of this page? If you're opposing me because you don't like this format, while I find that unfair (as I am not responsible for the format, just because it's my RfA doesn't mean I formatted it) I can accept it. If you're opposing me on the basis that you disapprove of my reverting your edit... well. Like I said, I'm not opposed to changing the format of this page back to "standard." I just think it needs to be discussed first, rather than being done out of the blue by one user. Furthermore, I think it needs to be done in one edit to be sure that no comments are erased by accident in the process. Also, while I appreciate your support, Aminz, please do be nice =P --Moralis (talk) 08:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Comment. I question your decision to agree with this experiment. So while technically you didn't reformat, you accepted to having it done, which amounts to the same thing. Besides that, I think it should be made clear on this page that this is not just some mistake in format, but an experiment. Errabee 09:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC).

Errabee, the format of this RfA is an experiment in a new format. Having been mooted by a group of people who think it would work better, we looked around for someone who would be willing to try out the format, and we found Moralis. There's discussion ongoing at WT:RFA about the formatting issue, you're welcome to participate there if you don't like the format, but I think it's verging on childish to express opposition for a reason that has nothing to do with the question at hand, namely whether the candidate should be given the mop. --bainer (talk) 09:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

It tells about the way Moralis makes decisions. Anyone with just some common sense could see that this change of format would turn this process into a mess. If Moralis hasn't seen this happening, he lacks the ability to foresee consequences of his decisions, which is an important quality in an administrator. As such, it has everything to do with the question at hand. Errabee 11:13, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

• Well, I certainly hope the bureaucrats are capable of seeing this for what it is. Opposing someone for the format of an RfA is frankly absurd. We move Wikipedia forward in part by experimenting. The value of an experiment is not reduced by whether that experiment fails or succeeds. Moralis should be applauded for being willing to be a guinea pig, not burned at the stake. Further discussion on the merits of the format is --> this way. Stop targeting Moralis. --Durin 13:30, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

• Well, I'll try to show some mercy by changing to Neutral, although I still think it was terribly ill-advised to consent to conducting an experiment that was doomed to fail from the start. It has never been my intention to target Moralis. Errabee 14:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

• Moralis seems like a rational editor, after looking at his edit history and talking to him in #wikipedia. Adminship is no big deal, and it appears that he would benefit from having it. --Philosophus ^T 09:48, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support Bucketsofg 13:55, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support - you know what? This format actually forced me to look at the candidate, his comments, the answers, his contribs, and everyone else's opinion first for a a change. Wonderful. I heartily urge the closing crat to ignore each and every opinion based on editcountitis: this user seems thoughtful, well-intentioned and fairly knowledgeable about how things work. That's good enough, and if he doesn't know something I trust him not to mess up guessing and to leave it for someone else. Ignore the edit count: this one deserves the tools. Moreschi ^{Want some help? Ask!} 13:57, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Note to closing crat - please also ignore any opposes relating to the formatting of this: whether the candidate chooses to very mildly refactor the usual RFA format as part of an agreed-upon experiment is his business, not anyone else's. Moreschi ^{Want some help? Ask!} 13:59, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
    • More notes for closing 'crat Please ignore any notes from anyone telling you to ignore something, since you can make the choice yourself. Alternatively, perhaps ignore "support" commenters who attempt to make such notes. Xoloz 14:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
      • So you think a person should be prevented from being an admin because of the format of their RfA then? --Durin 14:10, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
        • Of course not. But this page is already filled with so much intertwining dialogue, the last thing needed is for everyone to be leaving note for the 'crats on what to do. I assume they know their job. In case they forget that they know they're jobs, I left them a note to remind them! :) Xoloz 14:16, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
        • Durin, do you think people haven't been prevented from becoming admins because of malformed RfAs? I've seen minor formatting mistakes lead to snowball closures within an hour or two. The fact that this one is on purpose has its own bad side. I'm refraining from supporting or opposing this RfA, but "newfangled format indicates that Moralis is a hippie and an agitator" seems like a valid point to me. Kafziel ^Talk 20:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
      • Wikipedia is built on consensus. Some opinions are worth less than others, especially irrelevant ones. Moreschi ^{Want some help? Ask!} 14:08, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• STRONG OPPOSE I suspect this editor was selected as the RfA "test subject" because he is so far below the mean. Very few edits altogether, virtually no experience in project-space. Needs way more experience. I'm sorry if I failed to engage in any ongoing discussion, but I find this format distressing (but b'crats -- who apparently now look vigilantly for any minor reason to disqualify a vote, as at Danny's RfA -- note that I am not holding the format against the candidate, so please don't disqualify me.) Xoloz 14:01, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
  • The only reason this candidate was selected was because it was expected there would be a number of opposes. If there were a controversial candidate with 10,000 edits that would have done fine as well. To test the format, it had to have opposes as well as supports. I strongly urge you to separate your feelings about the format of this RfA and send it this way. As to your vote, do you have any reason to oppose other than the format of this RfA and perception of lack of experience? --Durin 14:06, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Did you read my comment, Durin? I said I was not opposing on the basis of the format. I oppose because the candidate is inexperienced. That is "my perception", yes, but there is no need to use "weasel words" to undermine my rationales. Your perception may differ, but mine is perfectly reasonable. I need no more reason that that. Xoloz 14:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I was told that I'd been selected as the "test subject" because at the time of the reformat I was the user with the fewest comments on my page, or the most even distribution (it was around 11/6/6...ish). --Moralis (talk) 14:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Witnessed this user in conversation with someone critical of him showing a lot of both sense and courtesy. I assume anyone who can respond to frustrating situations like that will also be able to do whatever is required of an admin with the same sense and courtesy. And beyond a minimal consideration of time and experience, that is really all I ask. I don't care how many Portal Talk edits you have or whether you want to get your hands dirty making the sausages (how's that for a mixed metaphor?) or whether you edit consistently or in bursts. Any level-headed person should be able to be an admin. And the format of this page is only to be counted in favor—it's about time people had to read all the comments. Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 14:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support, appears to be levelheaded and intelligent, and unlikely to abuse the admin tools. The opposition to this candidacy advances the usual trivial concerns, but is unique in that it also offers vindictive and irrelevant concerns. None of the issues raised are sufficient to justify opposition. Christopher Parham (talk) 14:31, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• I'm happy with this candidate. I can care less if Moralis is not on here all the time, the times that Moralis is on is quite a bit. I don't see any real issues like serious editwars or attempts to promote one view over another. Adminship is not a big deal :) Go for it! —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 15:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• I think Moralis would do a good job as administrator. He has a good head on his shoulders and giving him adminship should just be no big deal — if nothing else, he can block vandals directly rather than having to run off to WP:AIV constantly. His answers to the optional questions show a good knowledge of how Wikipedia really works, as opposed to most of those fluffy RFA answers we get from people who are only pretending to know how it works. Oh, and support per Kat, and anyone opposing this RFA just because you feel threatened by the new format: let it go. Moralis doesn't deserve to have your frustration taken out on him. --Cyde Weys 16:28, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
  • A sampling of ten WP:AIV reports way back on 14 DEC 2006 (the they appeared to use AIV with any regularity) showed that only half of the blocks were placed by other admins, and that several of the reported accoutns/ip's wer already blocked; indicating lack of familiarity with the process. If this RfA does not pass I urge candiate to continue to use WP:AIV to report blatant vandalism though, as it is is generally a streamlined process. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:43, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
• Opposse No real reason to trust with tools offered. Lack of experience is a real reason to distrust. Answers to questions are also unacceptable, is far too likely to become a problem admin, as opposed to a valuable, unnoticed admin contributor. GRBerry 16:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  Unacceptable? How? Grandmasterka 16:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  If you don't mind my asking, what is it about my answers that leads you to believe I'm likely to become a problem admin? --Moralis (talk) 17:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  There is a strong positive correlation between admins that I know spend time on IRC and admins that I consider to be problem admins. Almost every admin in the latter category is in the former. Similarly, they all are strong believers in WP:IAR, while missing the most important words in WP:IAR, as your answer does as well. The combination is a red flag. To ice the cake, you described all of WP:SENSE, WP:POINT and WP:IAR as policy, but only one of those three is. One is an essay, not even a guideline. Essays are no more than one (sometimes a few) editors personal opinions. Thinking of essays as policy is setting off down the slippery slope to taking one's personal opinion as policy, and anyone that does that is going to be a problem admin sooner or later. GRBerry 03:06, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

  You'll note that I referred to them initially as "policy(/guidelines)," in order to point out that I used the word policy as a catch-all for simplicity's sake, not out of ignorance. Perhaps my meaning wasn't clear, though. I'm adding a comment to my answer to clarify. --Moralis (talk) 08:45, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support. This is just the sort of candidate we should be supporting right now; no history of problems, good policy knowledge and sufficient experience for me. This RfA is a headache, but I can see what we're trying to accomplish. Grandmasterka 16:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• The purple sparrow flies at midnight. --W.marsh 17:38, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Doesn't seem to have done anything wrong, but hasn't done much that would lead me to vote "support" if this were a vote. 1/3 of the contributions are from last week; I don't find that very appealing. Kusma (talk) 17:46, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Adminship is no big deal. He wants to help with admin chores, and I see nothing to indicate he would misuse the mop or the bucket. The user has little experience long term, but shows good judgement and activity. If you don't succeed this time, try again in 3 months and if you keep this level of activity you will pass with flying colors.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:17, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose - Too few edits. Real96 19:17, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Interesting. How many is enough? If a person has enough-1, are they unqualfied? What about enough-10? enough-100? Where would you like to draw the line or is it purely arbitrary? Do you have anything other than edit counts on which to discount the contributions of this editor? Have you been able to find anything that suggests this editor is incapable of being trusted? --Durin 19:38, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
    • The number of edits is up to each user's discretion, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a specific number, but rather a well balanced distribution among several different areas of Wikipedia with particular attention to those within the usual administrative intervention. Edit-countitis might sometimes be unfair and inaccurate, but I'm yet to see a better indicator of a user's experience (and I stress "indicator"). This trend to blame edit count for unsuccessful candidacies is unnecessary. Opposing due to edit count represents concerns related to lack of experience or preparedness, and these are perfectly valid arguments.--Húsönd 20:45, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
      • Except, it isn't an indicator at all. --Durin 20:47, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
        • Well, that's also up to each user's discretion. --Húsönd 20:54, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
      • You might not be aware of this, but you are able to view all of a user's past contributions quite conveniently. Assuming that you were aware of this feature, can you explain how edit count is a better indicator of experience than actually examining the user's edits? Christopher Parham (talk) 16:04, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
        • I'll refrain from replying with unnecessary sarcasm, and just say that yes I was aware that I may view all of a user's past contributions quite conveniently. Edit count is a better indicator of experience because experience is defined as "the knowledge or practical wisdom gained from what one has observed, encountered, or undergone". On Wikipedia, administrators are supposed to be users who have gone through this, thus prepared to face situations that require special intervention. A high edit count indicates that a particular user has had encounters with many different situations from which experience was acquired. On the other hand, a careful examination of the edits made by a user with a low count indicates the way they are prone to react to a low number of situations. Experience is a bulky process and is usually proportional to the edit count, like it or not.--Húsönd 20:38, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
          • Um, what if a person has had prior experience in one or more similar wikimedia wikis? What if their name is Ward Cunningham? What if their name is Jimbo Wales? Doesn't that demolish that particular argument? --Kim Bruning 15:13, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitrary break 3

*Oppose, unfortunately. While I think he'll make a great admin in a few months, I would prefer not to have anyone who thinks "interesting" or "useful" are valid AfD arguments evaluating or closing AfDs. I think some more experience will help with this, and I imagine next time around I'll be on the other side. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: I believe you have misinterpreted my comments. I wrote that I believe that if an article is potentially helpful to a reader, that fact should be taken into account when commenting on an AfD. I then elaborated that "helpful" means "useful" not "interesting." I also specifically stated that when closing an AfD I think it's almost always proper to go with the community's decision regardless of my opinion on the AfD. I'd like to politely request that you re-read my answer to that question, just to be sure you interpreted my statement the way I meant it. --Moralis (talk) 19:52, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  Unfortunately, I do stand by my reasoning, as I think the answer shows a lack of understanding of what our purpose is. There are a lot of things which would be potentially useful and harmless (say, for example, the name, location, and type of every restaurant in New York City), but would still not belong here. Our mission is to create an encyclopedia, not something else. Of course, if you would like to elaborate further, I'll be happy to listen and consider what you say. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  Well, the comments you're referring to were in response to a question about when I feel it's appropriate to ignore all rules. In the same response, I did mention that the merits of the article have to be weighed against the merits of the policies I listed, WP:NOT being one of them. The conclusion that I drew was that such a decision is common-sense based- and has to be a case-by-case decision for everybody. I also said, although perhaps not in such explicit words, that my intention there was not to be inclusionist but merely to avoid taking exclusionism -too- far. --Moralis (talk) 20:09, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I can go for that. Changing to support based on a good answer to that and a willingness to discuss and clarify. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:21, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. I don't think I'll go along with the frenzy of buildering in fancy dress, thanks. Mediation work is good, but this not therapy, or mock court, but rather the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. If The Black Parade is Moralis's best work, I can't possibly support him. What I take away from reading it is that he hasn't taken the time to read and digest MoS stuff - things linked Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles, which is an intro-level document - in 2.5 years. If he couldn't or wouldn't do that, I don't see how he can be trusted to read and then correctly implement the sometimes byzantine policy and process stuff. Angus McLellan (Talk) 20:50, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  Apologies for being long in responding. I didn't notice the comment in diffs at first due to Prodego's a couple of minutes later. At any rate, I am confused as to why you consider policy enforement through article improvement to be a prerequisite to adminship. I don't want to sound combative, because I'm not looking for a fight here- but your comments come off as disparaging toward mediators and recent change patrollers, insofar as you would ignore those contributions in favor of my article edits.

  Whether we like to acknowledge it or not, Recent Changes overflows with malicious or misinformed edits and various disputes. I should think that the resolution of these issues is 'at least' as important as direct improvement of articles- indeed, one thing that mediators and RC patrollers have in common is that each of their success stories breeds at least one productive editor where there mightn't have been one before.

  Incidentally, I have read the manual of style, and I do think that The Black Parade was decently handled insofar as my contributions to it have mostly been copyedits and proofreading rather than the actual addition of content. However, I'm not particularly interested in debating the merits of that article. My concern is that you've- from what I understand of your comments- ignored my contributions in other spheres to focus on it. --Moralis (talk) 02:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

  There are two things you want to do. First, WP:RFPP. Here I have no problems. The biggest issue with protection is handling the complaints which follow, since someone is bound to think it's the wrong version. I think even your harshest critics would accept that you've shown here that you could do this. WP:AIV, on the other hand, is a problem. It doesn't stand alone and someone who works on AIV needs to also work on C:CSD. You don't seem to have much experience of speedy deletion, and the limited evidence I can find is not particularly reassuring. Again we come back to my point about reading the process stuff: hoaxes are not (except when CSD G1, A1, or A7, can be stretched to fit a particular case) speedily deletable. So, yes, common sense is good, as is politeness, but what nearly all admin work boils down to is following some process more or less exactly. Bad, or badly informed, decisions by administrators can have a surprisingly large impact, and that's just as true of page protection as of blocks or (un)deletions. It is not some arbitrary number of edits that I'm looking for, but rather a solid grasp of the relevant processes - because nobody understands everything - and a continuing engagement with creating or improving articles. So, no, not yet. Angus McLellan (Talk) 11:33, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose Not active enough. Prodego ^talk 20:54, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support shows good enough policy knowledge, we all have to start somewhere. Viridae^Talk 22:44, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support. This editor gives sensible answers to questions and grasps the spirit of policy even if he hasn't weathered as many policy debates as some (no wonder he's such a kindly editor). I have no concern that this user will act rashly and he's held up well during this discussion. Mackensen (talk) 01:32, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
• Regretful oppose, I'm just not seeing the need for the tools. This, and the answers to the questions just don't do it for me.

And a Comment: Entirely unrelated, but the formatting of this RFA is obnoxious at best...as if removing sections and a number count will change this process from anything other than a vote. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 02:52, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Forgot to prefix the logical operator NOT (!) to "vote"! ;-) --Iamunknown 03:08, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll call it a !vote when RFA stops being a vote. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 04:31, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Finally, someone else who finds the (!) prefix very very annoying... I agree totally with demon here; this is just a way to gain publicity. In my opinion, any editor who is ready to try & disrupt & weasel his way around process in bad news. As I stated above, when a RfA reaches WP:200 as they rarely do, or even WP:100, which poor buero is going to have to sift through all this mess to get what we already have, a tally. admittedly, tallys aren't the best method of deciding, but it makes it a hell of a lot easier. Will oppose below. Regards, Spawn Man 08:25, 14 April 2007 (UTC).

• Disrupt RfA? Excuse me? Nothing is being disrupted. This RfA is the way RfA used to be run. Gosh, I guess RfA must have been a shambles back then, and nobody was promoted. Bureaucrats are NOT charged with counting votes. They are put in their jobs to evaluate consensus. A vote tally has NOTHING....NOTHING'....to do with consensus. If you want bureaucrats to count votes, then we might as well get a bot to promote candidates. --Durin 12:50, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose between the limited experience and agreeing to this breach of painful RFA formatting, I have serious reservations about this candidate.-- danntm ^T _C 03:04, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

  So you have nothing to oppose this candidate except for format of this RfA? He must be an outstanding candidate then. --Durin 12:37, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose - Per my opinions above. The only reason I believe this user got so many supports was because he went against the grain & used this format. A user with under 800 edits would never get this far without this stunt Moralis has employed! - Spawn Man 08:25, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

  Comment I resent the allegation that this was a "stunt." As has been heavily mentioned, I did not come up with the idea, I did not implement it, and I don't have an opinion on it. I consented to being a guinea pig- this does not indicate my support of the proposal and I had no reason to believe that it would garner me any publicity when I did. Besides which, it's obviously engendered as much resentment as it has support, and I wish users would learn to detach me from the format of this page. Just because this page is a discussion about me does not mean that I am responsible for the format that discussion takes. --Moralis (talk) 08:45, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

  This is every bit a stunt. The only reason that a crat hasn't withdrawn it is because of it & the fact they can't be bothered looking for a solid tally in all this mess... Spawn Man 09:07, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

  This isn't a stunt Spawn Man, and you should be ashamed for criticizing Moralis for it. The only thing he is trying to do is help Wikipedia by being a willing guinea pig. If anything, he should be applauded not criticized for it. Anyone opposing this RfA because of format should be directing their hate and derision towards me and not Moralis. I didn't come up with the idea for this format, but I was the one <cough> stupid enough to actually attempt formatting of an RfA like this. You want to take issue with this, take it up with me. Further discussion on the merits of the format is --> this way. Stop targeting Moralis. --Durin 12:37, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

  Comment: that's not true. Someone with a similar background was made an admin with an even lower edit count a bit over a year or so ago, with very little opposition. (And you would have an exceptionally hard time convincing me that the necessarily qualities of a good admin have changed so much in that time that it is now unacceptable and stuntlike.) Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 15:42, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment This debate is utterly unreadable. I can see why this mixed up format might be used, to stop things becoming a 'vote', but it's so confusing as to be useless. Nick mallory 10:58, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's any more difficult to read than a sorted debate would be. If you're going to judge me based on my responses, edits, etc., then reading other comments isn't necessary. If you're going to judge me based on other comments, well, the comments are no more difficult to read than they were when they were separated into categories. I think the major effect that this has had is to create more conversation on this page, for better or worse. I'm not defending the format- but I don't see how it's unusually difficult to read, just to tally. --Moralis (talk) 02:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

• oppose I stated my opinion that I find this layout unreadable because, you know what? I do. The fact that you don't is up to you, I'm just saying that I think it's a pain to read. If you're going to argue with me about what I find easy to read or not should you really be an admin? I didn't make any comment about your abilities or not as an editor, I was merely commenting about the format, which I didn't blame you for. The fact that you respond in this way makes me query whether you should have extra powers over others. I hope that's clear. Nick mallory 11:33, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I was not "arguing". In fact, I even stated in my response that I wasn't defending the format- I was just responding to your comments in what I think was very clearly a civil and intellectual way. Your response is overly hostile, and it looks like you're just taking out your frustrations with the format on me as a candidate. While I will not question your !vote, I think you've overreacted a bit just in general, and I'd ask that you at least remain civil if you're going to participate in this dicussion. --Moralis (talk)

Not for the first time in this debate you accuse someone who disagrees with you of being 'angry' with you. You say you weren't defending the format and then immediately defend it by saying that's it's as easy to read as the standard format, despite endless posts from lots of different people telling you the opposite. Calling your own comments 'intellectual' while terming mine 'overly hostile' is not making me warm to your position. I had no opinion about you as an candidate, but based on this little discussion I now think you're unsuitable. How could you even presume to 'question my vote' for example? I'm being perfectly civil, it's you who chose to enter into a debate about my simple comment that this format is a complete mess. Nick mallory 08:11, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose per lack of experience and lack of edits in the various talkspaces other than vandal warnings. Also per lack of edit summary usage per all the red here. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 12:52, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
• Fnord. Looks promising, but I would personally prefer him to gain a little more experience first. the wub "?!" 17:01, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

  Oh my! I can see the fnords! --Kim Bruning 17:04, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose Clearly not ready yet.--Runcorn 17:02, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

  Seeing as there's also a number of supports, I'm not sure it's entirely clear. Could you explain why you think Moralis is not ready at this moment in time? (And, possibly more importantly, what Moralis can do to be better ready next time?) --Kim Bruning 17:04, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

• Delete per nom, uh, I mean, oppose due to inexperience. I may reconsider in a few months. - Mailer Diablo 18:11, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose per Mailer diablo, Dweller, Crum375 and Naconkantari.--Brownlee 18:32, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose per all of the above that have pointed out Moralis needs more experience. Other comments:

1. Moralis, thanks for agreeing to be the guinea pig in this experiment in RfA reform.
2. I sure don't hold the new format against Moralis. In fact, I am worried that one by-product of this experiment may be that a few editors may hold this RfA's formatting against Moralis in a future RfA
3. This format was worth trying -- and now that we've tried it out, I can say I certainly don't care for it. AfD ≠ RfA.
   1. Article inclusion is supposed to be based on objective evaluation of objective criteria; an admin is within his/her rights to close against consensus if the consensus is clearly very flawed and in contravention of policies and guidelines. As I understand it, the AfD comments are made to assist the admin.
   2. By contrast, RfA is an inherently subjective measure of community trust and confidence. We don't have objective criteria and a bureaucrat's closing an RfA against community consensus is just not right. As I understand, the community decides and the bureaucrat just executes that decision.
   3. Tallies provide some transparency to the rest of us as to how well the closing bureaucrat's action matches the RfA consensus.
   4. Tallies also tie into the various color-coded RfA summaries (such as {{User:Dragons_flight/RFA_summary}}) many of us have on our user pages -- they help us track what's going on and which RfAs to go back to a second time.
4. Moralis, I think you have excellent admin potential, temperamentally. Thanks for putting your foot in the water this time and I look forward to supporting you in a future RfA when you have more experience. --A. B. ^(talk) 21:03, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I like your way of commenting :-) I do disagree with a few points.

I think RFA *is* supposed to be objective. It's not a popularity contest; it's a way to figure out if someone will act well as an admin.

Both AFD and RFA have been deeply flawed, but to my surprise, at some point RFA deteriorated so far that it actually became worse at determining whether someone should be admin than AFD is at determining if a page should be kept.

The refactor on this page is one way to try to improve the quality of RFA again.

So in summary, I think that the fact that we're having such a calm conversation in the first place actually disproves some of your points. :-)

Once again, even if I do disagree with some of them, thank you so much for your reasoned arguments! --Kim Bruning 21:14, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I would trust this user as an admin, and am purposely not putting my opinion in boldface. Abeg92contribs 01:31, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Me too. Moralis has shown, throughout this RfA, a great tact that is an asset as an administrator, a willingness to discuss with others and a desire to help out and interpretations of key policies that I wish had come from my mouth because they seem so in line with what I think. I would definitely trust Moralis as an administrator. --Iamunknown 02:23, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. Far too little editing experience. No way to tell what this user would do with the tools. --- RockMFR 02:44, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• I think he needs more editing experience, I see 300 article edits and most of them are reverts. I could understand a hesitance to claim any specific IP address edits (maybe serious privacy concerns), but I would think that would be a minor issue as he has already stated his name and location on his user page. If his previous edits were actually made using a different user name, he could always just say so. Oppose. — CharlotteWebb 06:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose due to the formatting; if he is comfortable with this system, then I am too nervous about his views to be comfortable with granting him adminship. However, I support giving him the opportunity to start over with a new vote with the proper formatting, and if he does that I won't oppose his candidacy. Everyking 07:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support I belive this user has great potential. He shows willingness to learn and experience beyond his edit count (bah @ editcountitis) Viridae^Talk 07:52, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose Firstly because Moralis does not strike me as qualifying as an excellent editor - by that I do not mean that he isn't - just that 760 edits total over 17 months simply doesn't show us he is excellent (indeed his edit count in terms of summaries alone seems to exclude the possibility), secondly his nomination states that he has been with us for quite a while - but for the first 12 months of that time the candidate made 7 edits in total. Thirdly because for me (and I suspect for a lot of other commentators above) - I note that an RfA is as the first word indicates a REQUEST - FOR TRUST FROM ONE'S PEERS I therefore take my comments (read !vote) seriously (I know some others don't and some always vote the same - and despite their attempt at gaining moral high ground such action IMHO only appears to belittle us all). Therefore having considered this applicant, overall I cannot support his/her application at this time.--VS ^talk 12:36, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

  Comment I don't consider my registration to be the beginning of my participation with this username. As I have stated several times, I didn't bother logging in for probably a year after registering because until that time I frankly just didn't mind whether my contributions were tied to me (mostly proofreads and blatant vandalism, anyway). Obviously this was a bizarre view to take. Now, I'm not asking anyone to consider that year an active year, but I am asking them not to hold it against me. That I registered a year before I started contributing doesn't mean anything, as far as I'm concerned. My contributions (as far as you guys can see) pretty much begin in October, 2006. --Moralis (talk) 18:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

  Comment I appreciate your frustration, but please understand that many people like to look through your edit history before deciding whether to bestow the tools. The fact that you edited with an IP for so long prevents people from having the number of edits to evaluate that they prefer. If you could provide the IP or list of IPs that you used, I think that would give people more to evaluate and could possibly change some of the comments that you are receiving. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 18:24, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

  Comment You misunderstand the reason for my frustration =P I can't provide IPs because I didn't have a static IP and I wasn't keeping track. My issue is with the notion that "Moralis didn't do anything for his first year after registration," and how that fact is being used to lower my edits-per-month ratio (which is then being held against my candidacy). I think I've been fairly transparent about when this account's activity began- October of 2006- and I'm not understanding why some users seem to mind that I had this account before I started using it. --Moralis (talk) 18:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

  Comment OK, I think I understand now. I think you're not going to like my conclusion here, but I think it is the format. It appears to me that the faith that you have in the others here to read the page are not as well founded as you would hope. I don't think that they are not believing your claim. I think rather, that this is just too much for people to wade through, so they give up. They look at your edit history, see the gap, and draw a conclusion. You could say they are taking the easy way out, or you could say that the format has made it too difficult for the average user to make a properly informed opinion. After all, people are hopefully here for the primary purpose of working on the encyclopedia, rather than devoting perhaps an hour to digesting all this before they can voice their opinion. Frankly, due to the formatting, I’m not sure that you will even come back across this comment that I am making now to be able to reply. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 01:57, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

  While I understand your qualms about the format of this page, please do realize that there is no more content on this page than there would be if it were sorted into "support" and "oppose" sections. It doesn't take any longer to read through this than it would to read through all the conversation on a regular RfA. --Moralis (talk) 03:34, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

  Whether or not it takes longer to actually read is moot if the reader gives up before they read it because they perceive that it will take longer. You are correct that this text takes the same space regardless of how it is sorted. But, in my opinion, you are greatly mistaken if you don't believe that there are far more repeated comments on this page, that would have been reduced to "per User:X". If all of this were sorted, there would be less duplication, which would improve readability, which would keep you from being frustrated about the situation. Also, you are getting at least some opposes from people who can't see your responses, that might have supported you if they were more easily able to parse all of the text on this page. Let me say, this is your RFA, and if you want it to go this way, that’s your call. I’m just trying to help rationalize what is going on here. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 04:26, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support per oblique Show Biz Kids reference. Also, his responses to to opposers on this page have impressed me a great deal. —freak(talk) 12:46, Apr. 15, 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose for now. Not enough experience as yet, would support once more editing experience gained. Davewild 14:06, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. I hate this format, but would overlook that if this candidate's qualifications were very strong. I'm sure they will be with more experience we could review, but not just yet. Jonathunder 15:34, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose - mostly due to lack of experience. Addhoc 17:58, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose per Jonathunder, Addhoc & others.--Holdenhurst 18:58, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose due to this unusual formatting. This flies in the face of standard procedure. Andre (talk) 21:12, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Are you suggesting that this unusual formatting will hinder Moralis's ability to be a trusted user? --Iamunknown 21:17, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Interestingly, normally, changing the formatting of your RFA is an automatic support from me. (Too bad Durin is claiming responsibility for this one. Candidates have no guts these days. <sigh> ). People should understand the basic fact that this is a wiki, and that wikis are mutable. With so many people these days who join and fail to grasp that simple concept, sometimes I wonder how long wikipedia is still going to last :-/ --Kim Bruning 21:39, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support per the well articulated and wholely reasonable rational set forth on my user page. I don't much care for the formatting changes. Disregard me altogether if you wish. Life will go on. Edivorce 21:57, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't mind the format of this RFA, I kind of like it. Quite a bit of activity recently but account was opened in 10/2005 with seven edits and then a long period of inactivity until 10/2006. Then gone again until March 2007.The long periods of inactivity are troubling. I see quite a bit of anti-vandalism work but not much to XFD and project space. Most of the mainspace edits are vandal reverts. There are not enough all round edits to be able to judge your ability as an admin. I think though that you have the potential but just aren't ready quite yet. This page gives an idea of what is expected of an admin.--Dakota 22:19, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitrary Break 4

Update: I have decided to claim full responsibility for the format of this page. As it would seem that users are going to judge me based on the format regardless of my position, I hereby declare my support for this RfA format. As the format of an RfA is not set in stone, I do not believe this to be a violation of WP:POINT. WP:POINT is not intended to protect the status quo- users of Wikipedia are encouraged to "be bold."

I apologize to those who are offended by my choosing to allow the reformat. Please keep in mind, however, that this format is merely an experiment- some users would say it is working, while others believe it is failing miserably. Determining whether something works is the very purpose of an experiment. The only people whose lives are made more difficult by the format are the b-crats, and at least one crat has stated that they'll need to see the format tried before passing judgement on it. So here we go, trying it out, so that you all can point to this RfA as an example when you argue about it later.

If your complaint is that you can't follow the discussion- well, at risk of sounding sarcastic (and I apologize if I do), you're all just as capable of reading comments in chronological order as you are of reading comments sorted by their meaning. In closing, if you're going to vote based on the format of this page, please remember that RfA formats are not policy (or even in a guideline), and there is obviously no consensus on what is the "proper" format. I believe that accusing me of a breach of policy or procedure is factually inaccurate, but if someone would like to refute that assertion, I'm quite open to criticism. --Moralis (talk) 21:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

• comment Dang! I had already supported! --Kim Bruning 21:57, 15 April 2007 (UTC) Too bad I can't support twice. :-P
• Go Moralis! Go! Woohooooo! What a blatant testimony to an editor getting it. This guy deserves editor of the month or something. --Durin 23:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Strong support. And I said I wasn't going to bold my opinion... Oh well. Abeg92contribs 23:56, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment as Moralis is currently mediating in a case I am involved in, I think it would be inappropriate for me to vote. However, I have found him to be a polite and respectful person who listens carefully to both sides of an argument. I do not agree with all his interpretations of policy eg diff, but feel confident he will impartially assess other points of view. TimVickers 00:57, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Comment pffff - Sorry I'm not so easily influenced by this as Durin and Kim Bruning seem to be - indeed the game being played here is simply to show the wiki community how easily others are influenced by the glib prose of others? However I could be persuaded to change my Oppose stand if you would actually provide us with a reasonable list of article and details - which I assume you would know either by your general areas of interest related to the times when your laptop went missing etc so that we can see the type of edits/edit summary etc you made when you were anon. In other words can you give us a list of anon IP edits that you claim credit for? I assume a full list would take some time because no doubt (given some of the comments relating to obvious experience) there will be 1000's of edits so how about say 50 or so edits and dates that you are willing to claim anonymous credit for? Can you do that Moralis because then your argument as to confirmed edit count under your registered name versus edit count under your transient anonymity will have a far greater level of veracity.--VS ^talk 01:07, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Please keep your hostility in check. I did not make any anonymous edits while my laptop was damaged (not missing, as I mentioned above) and in the shop (Apple Store sent it to Tennessee for repair, Tennessee sent it back with a note saying "we'll fix it for $900," Apple sent it back with $900, Tennessee sent it back to me... twice). If I were able to make anonymous edits while that were going on, I would have been able to log in, so making edits as an IP during that period would have been pointless. No, I took a Wikibreak during periods of not having my own computer, as I was working during the library's open hours anyway. No. I made edits as an IP during the period between my first five or so edits, and the rest of my edits- a roughly year-long period of time.

And no. I cannot lay claim to any specific IP edits and I don't understand why you're so hung up on it. Whether or not I edited as an IP is not the basis of my candidacy. I have stated several times that I don't expect users to take me at my word on that. I only ask other users to review the contributions I have made as Moralis and judge me based on those.

Even if I could lay claim to specific IP edits, I wouldn't. Then we'd get into a much uglier discussion about whether or not those were really my edits. Seeing as I wouldn't even be sure, there's no reason to expect anyone else to be. Frankly, I just don't see why you're spending so much time focusing on this issue. Have I edited as an IP? Yes. Can I provide examples? No. What more do I need to say? I think it's a pretty straightforward thing.

I'm sorry if I seem reactionary here, but from your comments above, you seem to be rather angry over my inability to attribute IP edits to myself- and that strikes me as a very poor reason to be angry. --Moralis (talk) 01:21, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• Quick return - Not sure where you are picking up that I am angry with you. Nothing is further from the truth. I just wanted to ask you a facts question directly - to confirm for myself that you probably couldn't provide any facts. I appreciate that you are getting harrangued from several quarters but I can assure that I have absolutely no hositility towards you - but as you say you are probably being reactionary and that says a lot more about your candidacy than your lack of any proof regarding anon IP edits.--VS ^talk 01:25, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Um, as far as you think I'm feeble minded. I'd already decided to support earlier. I do automatically support people who take responsibility for editing their RFA pages, but meh. Finally, hey, if Moralis really *could* sway people just by nice words... well, I keep telling (and showing) people that that's the very very best kind of admin. So there you have it. --Kim Bruning 01:31, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• Further comment - Rather than continue and having to remind anyone that by candidly asking for facts such request is not a way of expressing anger - I have moved my reiteration of this point to Moralis' talk page.--VS ^talk 01:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure why you are mystified by his reaction -- you described his prior statement as glib, which would surely be offensive if he put significant thought into it, which seems likely. You also implied that describing him as "experienced" is insupportable on the contributions of his current account, which is obviously not a particularly friendly remark. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Well actually Christopher your interpretation is incorrect - My response glib prose of others is written in the plural and is not referenced at Moralis. It follows on from the comments of Durin and Kim Bruning and I mention their names. Glib is defined here You will note that Durin (who appears to have a strong interest in this nomination) states the following in his comment Go Moralis! Go! Woohooooo! What a blatant testimony to an editor getting it. This guy deserves editor of the month or something. - which is glib - and that is not meant to be offensive to Moralis, (as I have now said on 3 occasions) or in fact to Durin or Kim Bruning. As for your comment on measuring excellence - whilst you may see the fact that I argue that his lack of a large quantity of edits as being unhelpful in proving his excellence as unfriendly - I am simply stating it as my interpretation of a fact. And for my money that is something that a would be administrator (or their supporter/s) should be able to make comment on - or to ask me for further clarification (you will note again that I had immediately in two places - for all to see - explicity stated that I was not angry with him/her) - without any person assuming (in bad faith) that I am angry.--VS ^talk 03:50, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I was going to leave this alone, but conversation is taking an ugly turn and I feel obligated to step in. I didn't mean for you to think that I was accusing you of being angry, VS. I was letting you know that your comments came off that way, and asking why you were reacting that way. I thought I was pretty level-headed and understanding about it, but I guess I still came off as emotional or frustrated and for that I apologize. I would argue that your wording was unfortunate, and I confess that the running sentence in your first comment read like sarcasm to me when perhaps I shouldn't have.

Please understand that I was not assuming bad faith, which I thought my words conveyed (again, I guess I was mistaken). There are obvious limitations in the effectiveness of communicating by text, and I interpreted the way you were pressing the issue of my IP edits seemed far more hostile than appeared to me to be rational. You also made a couple of comments that several users, including myself, perceived as hostile. My response was intended to try to find out why you were so upset/angry/offended/call it what you will- I now understand that you weren't, but your words did make it seem that way. I'm very sorry if you thought I was trying to make trouble or perpetuate that dispute. I was genuinely concerned that someone could be so offended by this RfA and I wanted to get to the bottom of it =P --Moralis (talk) 04:00, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• In the hope that this closes this portion of your RfA - I will just reiterate that I am not offended by YOUR PERSONAL attention to this RfA one iota and I wholeheatedly accept your apology. In addition as you know because of comments I have personally left on your talk page a couple of hours ago - and as is my right I do not support your nomination BUT my congratulations will be forthcoming if you do gain adminship.--VS ^talk 04:12, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Not familiar enough with Moralis to comment favorably or unfavorably here, but as for the page layout, I think things might be a lot clearer if we structured the discussion around non-arbitrary section headers dealing with particular aspects of the editor (article creation, community interaction, familiarity with policy, etc.). That approach might be more effective at focusing discussion on the relevant topics. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 04:32, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose for reasons having nothing to do with the hideous format of this RFA. (1) I don't consider 1000 edits to be a hard cutoff or anything like that, but 750 edits when many of them are semi-automatic reverts is kinda low. (2) Deletion discussion experience. I reviewed your participation in deletion discussions - there were only four of them. One was the Brandt thing and your comment there bothers me - get rid of it because he doesn't want it - [1] was a red herring. The real reason for deleting it was because we are an encyclopedia, not a tabloid and we don't need self-referential garbage about people who have no notability outside of what they did relative to Wikipedia. I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that you have sufficient experience. --BigDT 06:14, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

  While it's obviously not the main rationale behind your vote, just for the sake of clarification I feel it prudent to add that my "delete it because he doesn't want it" position is exclusive to Brandt. Frankly I just felt that covering him brought us more grief than it was worth. Deleting his article won't make him go away, but it'll make it a lot easier to ignore him and (hopefully) prompt the users who spent so much time worrying about him to go worry about slightly more meaningful things, like Essjay's credentials or the format of an RfA =P (I jest, please do not bite me) --Moralis (talk) 07:16, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support--MONGO 06:56, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Moralis's responses within this section show that he has a good grasp of what's really important on Wikipedia. (Hint: it's not RfA formatting or edit counts.) I trust him with the admin tools. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 07:10, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• The calm and patience shown in dealing with this experiment in interactivity in an RfA - plus the willingness to be a victim guinea pig for a frankly excellent new layout - really give me great confidence in this candidate's ability to be a sane mop-bearer.   REDVERS ↔ SЯEVDEЯ  08:03, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support The only criterion - is 'have we seen enough good stuff to be reasonably confident that the tools won't be abused?' - well, we have, and I think we can. Edit countis be damned.--Doc^g 09:57, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. Far too little experience. I'm not crazy about edit counts, but 760? Nobody's standard is that low. He has huge gaps in editing, and a lot of his edits are just reverts. I don't see any edits showing a need for the tools, and his adminship shouldn't be pushed through just because the debate about the layout here is overshadowing his actual record. Kafziel ^Talk 12:19, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Uh, my standards are that low. In fact, my standards have nothing to do with edit counts as they show nothing about the experience and ability of an editor. We've promoted a rather large number of admins who had considerably fewer edits than Moralis, starting with Angela. An amazing thing happened. Wikipedia didn't collapse.
  • There's a flawed notion that's become vogue; since there's plenty of tools out there that allow for quick, repetitive edits the value of a single edit has been declining. A person can rack up a thousand edits in a few days using one of these tools, and therefore any single edit isn't "worth" as much as before. This is flawed reasoning. An edit that made significant improvements to an article is just as valuable as it was five years ago. There's no reason to believe it is any less valuable. Yet, people are treating such edits as less valuable. This is a horribly wrong attitude in every respect. Edits like [2][3][4][5] are not any less valuable because trivial edits are easy to rack up now. Yet, the culture that has developed treats these edits with less value now. This is both sad and silly.
  • Also, I'm wondering what your standards are; how many vandalism reverts does an editor need to make in order to demonstrate a "need" for the rollback button? Moralis has made 138 of those (since you seem to be very focused on edit counts) and it accounts for 15% of his activity. Seems like his contributions here have demonstrated a need for the tools. And why is a "need" for the tools a requirement to having them? Either the person is trusted or they are not. That's the only question to consider. --Durin 12:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia wouldn't have collapsed if we didn't promote them, either. If you think you can build sufficient trust after 50 edits, congratulations. I don't. As I said, though, this is not solely based on count; it's based on quality. I see very few quality contributions, long periods of inactivity, very few situations that demonstrate a particular level of trust. A couple hundred reports at AIV might demonstrate a need. Simple reverts? Limitless. There's never a need for the tools if all you do is revert vandalism here and there. Wikipedia was a very different place back when Jimbo said adminship was no big deal. If you still choose to believe that, that's fine. I don't. The behavior of our admins is making national news now and, in my opinion, a history of 760 low-quality edits simply doesn't demonstrate ability or need. Kafziel ^Talk 13:03, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
      • I can understand most of the rationales presented here in opposition to Moralis, but I would expect proper support for calling his edits "low-quality" to avoid being unjustifiably insulting. Perhaps low-importance, or small, might be what you had intended? But in that case, is it not true that those who make the largest per-edit contributions, the editors who work mainly on actual creation and revision of content, are also the editors who would have the least use for a mop and bucket? --Philosophus ^T 14:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
        • My opinion does not, in fact, "require" explanation. This isn't my RfA; the fact that I have more important things to do than keep coming back here all day to justify myself doesn't make my input any less valid. I stated my opinion. That should be the end of it. But yes - I do think reverting vandalism constitutes a low quality edit. I've done thousands of them myself, but that doesn't make them awesome edits. Reverts are crap. All they show is the ability to tell the difference between legitimate content and "SALLY IS A SLUT - I HATE STUDY HALL D;KFJA;KDFA;FKDJA;FKA;KF;AFHG". Forive me for not being impressed, but it doesn't show any sort of advanced judgment. I see very little in his contributions that strongly indicates he'd be a good judge of where an article should be located, what should be deleted, how to respond to a 3RR report, how to mediate lengthy disputes, when to protect a page, or when to close a discussion. Editors who have worked at length on articles learn these things through context and experience. Editors who revert vandalism all day have very little experience with the rest of that. That doesn't necessarily mean they can't be good admins, but it takes quite a bit more experience than Moralis has. Kafziel ^Talk 15:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
          • RfA is supposed to be a consensus gathering mechanism. Part of consensus gathering is working towards a common agreement. Stating one's opinion, and then leaving the discussion doesn't help that process. Having a discussion does. I don't see anything wrong in people questioning people's opinions. It's part of the process by which we gain consensus. --Durin 15:33, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
            • You can call it consensus building if you want. I call it a vote. The directions for voting recommend supporting your position, but it is not required. And it's not as though I just said "Oppose" and signed it. I put a decent amount of justification in my first entry. I've got 3RR coming out one ear and AIV coming out the other and I shouldn't have to spend all day at RFA arguing the semantics of "vote vs. consensus" or "quality vs. importance". I don't think anything I said was unreasonable, out of line, or unintelligible. Kafziel ^Talk 15:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Durin, I'm not sure that systematically replying to every oppose is very productive. You have now said that opposers should be "ashamed of themselves", are too lazy to read a poorly factored RfA and dismissed all concerns as absurd. If the only admin tool that Moralis needs is a rollback button, then I suggest he use popups. While a high edit count may indeed be a poor indicator of experience, I still feel, as many do, that a low edit count is a pretty solid indicator of a lack thereof. Pascal.Tesson 13:10, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
      • Perhaps you should read this RfA. I've responded to a mere handful of opposes, not systematically to every oppose. Thanks for your input though. --Durin 13:13, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Strong Comment I concur completely with your comments concerning Durin's behaviour during this RfA. I am sorry to say that Durin's behaviour is nothing more than a form of Wiki-Bullying. Unfortunately this type of behaviour does occur often in RfA's - and it always in my view leaves a stench of unfairness either for or against the candidate. In my view, a fair editor with Durin's views would sit back and watch the opinions of others without further comment and I say this because try as I might I can not remove the vision of Durin pushing his own barrow expecially when he is the mother of this otherwise reasonable page but appears in this case clearly to be tampering with the research for or against that position. Wiki-Bullying during RfA's should cease and especially so when the bully/ies has another less obvious agenda! Do you have any views on this please Moralis?--VS ^talk 22:52, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I have several views on this:

1. Putting me in this position is unfair. While I am sure it was not your intention, your question basically puts me in the position of speaking out against my own support or endorsing what you call wiki-bullying.
2. Durin might come off as a tad overbearing, but he is not trying to beat a support vote out of anybody and to accuse him of that is just plain rude. While he's probably too blunt about it, he's mostly just asking certain editors to elaborate on their views where they don't necessarily stand alone.
3. I think that all of you are dragging your hostilities from the format debate here, and that's not fair to me as a candidate or to anyone else as a reader of this page.
4. If Durin is bullying others by making the comments he's made, you're certainly bullying the same group of people by making these comments. Durin has not claimed that opposers should be ashamed of themselves for opposing- he's claimed that users should be ashamed of themselves for opposing for reasons that he considers blatantly unfair. You're twisting his words and THAT'S just not polite.

Please keep your beef with other users off of my RFA. It's not civil and it's not helpful. --Moralis (talk) 05:55, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. Far too little experience at the moment. Johnbod 16:09, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• I support this candidate's approval for the sysop bit; length of service/servitude seems sufficient to meet my criteria, experience with the Mediation Cabal easily meets my requirements for civility, and I find the opposition's complaints of experience unconvincing. Consider this a strong support if such a bean-counting tally is necessary. :) -- nae'blis 17:35, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - I would advise editors concerned about the candidate's relatively low edit count to study his reply to the optional question I asked above. This shows, in my opinion, a very clear grasp of policy. TimVickers 19:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough although I'd also invite you in return to read the answer to the question on IAR. That one, in my mind, clearly shows the inexperience of Moralis. Pascal.Tesson 20:22, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Howso? I would summarize my answer as, "IAR applies when the policies interfere with common sense." I don't know how else to interpret it. --Moralis (talk) 21:09, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

While that summary might make a decent answer, you also did write things such as "Sometimes this take the form of content being deleted "per policy," when it very plainly does serve a purpose (users have axes to grind, for the most part)." To me, this shows a lack of understanding of WP:AGF. Pascal.Tesson 21:21, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Saying that some users have an axe to grind is not a violation of WP:AGF. I don't think my comments in any way suggest that I would be going in under the assumption that users have axes to grind.

In other words- my position was that one could Ignore All Rules when a user was enforcing policy in order to grind that axe, not that one should always Ignore All Rules because a user has an axe to grind. Those interpretations of my comments are very different, and I thought I was fairly clear about which was correct, but I guess I was mistaken. --Moralis (talk) 05:55, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose I am sure that this editor will one day make a fine admin, but at present only just over 900 edits, albeit evenly spaced, do not indicate enough experience across the project.--Anthony.bradbury 23:12, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose: Too little experience. I'm saddened at the anti-edit-countitis gone too far here. -- Renesis (talk) 01:38, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose Sorry Moralis, I feel bad about your RfA because it seems that it has was hijacked from the start by people with their own agenda, but I'm just not comfortable with your experience level, or, at least, your visible experience level since we can't view your edits as an anon. Sarah 03:35, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose User isn't experienced enough to obtain admin tools. Wait a few more months. Then I'll support. Shindo9Hikaru 04:33, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

  Curious question. Some users are challenging my edit count, but why a few months? I mean, time-wise, I've been around for too long, at least according to most of my opposition. I'm just wondering why you've chosen a time-based response rather than edit-based. --Moralis (talk) 05:55, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose, Don't care about pure editcounts but lack of serious content writing is a concern. Too much emphasis on policing. While we need to deal with vandals, they are by far not the largest problem of Wikipedia. Neither it is the most difficult one. --Irpen 10:09, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support looking over Moralis's contributions, I could not find any problematic edits or unreasonable behaviour. Good luck ابو علي (Abu Ali) 15:14, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitrary break 5

• Oppose. Primary reasons are lack of experience and edit summaries. I personally do not like the RfA format, but do not hold it against him. -- LeCour^T:C 18:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support despite lower level of credited edits, the candidate displays a high level of knowledge and prowess. Great work at MEDCAB which is the hardest job on WP, in my opinion, because you are trying to solve problems without even the credibility of an official group like MedCom or ArbCom. Question of trust is a no-brainer. --Mus Musculus (talk) 18:42, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I'd just like to comment and say I totally endorse Mus Musculus's comment. (I wish I had said it in those words myself.) --Iamunknown 18:52, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
    • I find the argument that he's been doing great work at MEDCAB a bit puzzling. As far as I can tell his first work there is a week old. Of course, maybe he's been doing fantastic work in that week but I can't shake off the feeling that it's a bit early to evaluate his work on that front. Am I missing something? Pascal.Tesson 19:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support; I'm not sure this is the best RFA format, but it did force me to read through the comments (and it shouldn't be held against Moralis for trying it this way; that's just absurd.) Looks like a good user who could use the tools, Why The Hell Not? Ral315 » 19:27, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support Dealt with questions well and seems intelligent. Kla'quot 07:01, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose The editor in question has very few edits, 927 total, and only sporadic involvement. Many recent edits lack an edit summary. I'd like to see several months of solid involvement and more experience. You don't need sysop powers here to make a difference. You can investigate, tag, and weigh in on discussions. With more experience, I would support. Jehochman (^talk/_contrib) 10:07, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose Editor has far too few edits and experience IMO. He should come back again when he has more solid involvement both in article and non-article space so that the community can better judge whether he would make a good admin.Ivygohnair 14:24, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral. After reading all the comments yesterday and checking things out, I couldn't help but agree that too few edits is true. After today coming across one of the MedCab cases he worked on, I wanted to support, out of admiration that he didn't just run screaming from the masses. But... it is still too few interactions with people disagreeing with him, which is what a couple people above have pointed out is the real test.     BTW: this format is tedious, if perhaps more illuminating.   Shenme 20:18, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
• * Oppose Editor's heart is in the right place, but he does not currently possess the judgment to be an effective admin. Case in point is the bizarre mediation mentioned immediately above. (In terms of full disclosure, I should point out that I was part of the debate being mediated.) The editor, working as mediator, noted that there was considerable meatpuppeting going on in the debate, yet then claimed I was completely out of line for bringing up that very relevant fact myself. He proved susceptible to the lengthy diatribes posted by the various meatpuppet accounts in this debate -- at one point actually agreeing to watch my contributions in future on behalf of these meatpuppet accounts. This vow was made to a user, user:spamjaguar whose account has since been identified as a multi-user attack account and indefinitely blocked. The first edits this now-blocked account made to wikipedia were extended, blatant vandalism attacks on my user account, yet Moralis decided to ally with this user. I suggest this shows a lack of judgment. Perhaps more experience will benefit this user before his promotion to admin. With a little more experience, he will be a good admin, as he has a positive attitude. Larry Dunn 22:42, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

  Comment I did not "ally" myself with Spamjaguar. I offered to keep an eye on your contributions because you were guilty of vandalism- I very politely made it clear that all users were guilty of policy violations. Please do not overstate my criticism of you- I merely said that you were hostile when you pointed out their meatpuppetry, not that it was irrelevant. It was rude of you to make a blanket statement accusing all of the users who disagreed with you of vandalism and meatpuppetry, and I said so. I also criticized the vandalism and meatpuppetry that did go on. Please also do not make a big deal out of my criticizing you without mentioning that I was at least as hard on your "opposition" for lack of a better term. I was also extremely nice about everything I said, which can't be said for the rest of the parties involved with that case. It should also be noted, for the sake of clarity, that Larry Dunn was the only person to refuse to be a part of the mediation. --Moralis (talk) 05:50, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Response -- I did not state that all users were meat puppets, I stated that meat puppeting was going on. You seem unable to identify the difference, which I would suggest is further evidence of lack of qualification for admin status. It's also very irresponsible for you to claim that I was guilty of vandalism in responding to massive vandalism from multiple users, and meat puppeting which you yourself observed. For your agreement to help an attack account, users may look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Moralis/Archive_1#IABSM_-_Thank_you_for_your_efforts_but

Other users with only a cursory knowledge of the situation were nonetheless able to immediately identify this account as an attack account, but you were not, and claimed that my attempts to fight off the meat puppetry and vandalism were "disruptive," so I'd suggest that you don't have the right judgment to be an admin at this point.

It's also clear from your edit history that you haven't added much of substance to wikipedia articles as an editor, and as such would have no context in which to administer others' editing. Before you administer, you have to understand what's being administered.Larry Dunn 16:01, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support per Doc. Mike Christie (talk) 04:14, 19 April 2007 (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.