Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Northenglish 2

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The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a request for adminship which did not succeed because the candidate withdrew. -- NORTH talk 20:51, 15 October 2006 (UTC) Please do not modify it.

[edit] Northenglish

Final (38/10/0) ended 20:51, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Northenglish (talk · contribs) – I am pleased to nominate Northenglish (or NORTH) for adminship. His earlier nomination failed with many Wikipedians expressing the opinion that he needed more experience. He has gained that experience in the last three months. In addition to participating in xfD debates [1] [2] [3], he is active in several highway wikiprojects one of which he started himself.[4] His participation in the surprisingly fractious debates surrounding U.S. state highway naming has always been civil and constructive.[5] [6] I am confident that Wikipedia will benefit from his having the mop. Eluchil404 03:58, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I am pleased and honored to accept this nomination. -- NORTH talk 22:16, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia in this capacity. Please take the time to answer a few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:

1. What sysop chores do you anticipate helping with? Please check out Category:Wikipedia backlog and Category:Administrative backlog, and read the page

about administrators and the administrators' reading list.

A: In my prior nomination, I indicated that I would most like to help with the backlogs surrounding XfD debates. In fact, looking at the backlogs at TfD and MfD was what prompted me to nominate myself several months ago. Since that time, I participated in XfD debates on a daily basis until my wikibreak. (I did not have a reliable internet connection while on break from university.) After I complete the to-do list on my user page -- based on tasks I've inherited from WP:SRNC -- I plan on bringing my XfD participation up to and beyond its prior levels.
I am also interested in keeping an eye on WP:ANI and WP:AE. Whenever I was invloved with an incident there, I was more than willing to participate, and occasionally would research other incidents on the page at the time and offer my neutral third-party opinion. If I were to be made an administrator, I would be more than happy to keep a more regular eye on those pages.
2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any with which you are particularly pleased, and why?
A: As Eluchil404 stated, I am an extremely active participant in the various state highway WikiProjects here on Wikipedia. I have actually started two of them on my own (the NJ one he linked to, as well as WP:ORSH), and plan on starting one for West Virginia. In starting the Oregon one, I also created new SVG images for every route, and edited every article to bring them in line with the WikiProject guidelines as well as the new style guideline created as a result of WP:SRNC.
I am very pleased with the way the state highway debates have been resolved recently, and was glad to play some small part in that along with my fellow editors. On less minor issues, I have led and resolved discussions in various places. (See sections 2 and 4 on WT:WASH, and a great many sections on WT:NJSCR.)
3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?
A: In Eluchil404's humble opinion, I have remained civil in the state highway naming debates. In my humble opinion, I will say that I tried my hardest to do so. There were some minor concers with incivility in my previous nomination, and I have tried my hardest to correct that. I am sure that many editors will be quick to point out incivility when I made my temporary (advertised as permanent) departure from Wikipedia.[7] I am not proud of that decision, nor what I said leading up to that decision. I think wikibreaks are wonderful things, and resolve to take them in the future before I get close to the levels of incivility. I did not participate in WP:SRNC until after Part I was complete and the most important decision had been made. Some might accuse me of turning coward for not participating in that part of the discussion, but I honestly had no vested interest in which Principle would be adopted, and I felt my time could be better spent elsewhere on Wikipedia.
In my recent conflicts, I have decided that it is often best to simply take a step back and breathe, then discuss things logically and rationally until a conclusion is reached (whether or not that conclusion is what you originally agreed with).

Question from Malber (talk · contribs)

4. What do the policy of WP:IAR and the essay WP:SNOW mean to you and how would you apply them?
A: Ignore all rules is a policy that needs to be applied very carefully. Rules do exist on Wikipedia, and they exist for a reason. WP:IAR does not say ignore all of the rules all of the time. I actually prefer Wikipedia:Interpret all rules. Rules should be followed when it is reasonable to do so. Wikipedia policies and guidelines are not perfect, however, and they make room for exceptions. Following the spirit of the rule and participating in the Wikipedia community civilly are more important than following the letter of the law. Not every policy violation deserves iron-fist blocking, and a rare few deserve no consequence whatsoever.
WP:SNOW is a useful device that can prevent debates from becoming too fractured. For example, it is often the case with blatantly non-notable articles that when brought to AfD, every experienced editor "votes" to delete, whereas the inexperienced creator of the article (and often a couple of his/her friends) adamantly demand it be kept. The snowball clause allows an administrator to close the debate after (for example) only a day when 10 editors have supported its deletion and no editor with a legitimate reason has supported its being kept. This, IMHO, is much better than allowing the debate to run the full five days with unnecessary threaded discussion and immaturity/incivility.

Question from Doc glasgow (talk · contribs)

5 Have you previously edited under any other username?
A: No, I have not. There are well more than two possible interpretations to the situation that Cyde Weys gives below. One additional one -- and the correct one -- is that because my "expertise" is in highways, I was thrust into the highways debate from the moment I entered Wikipedia. My comment "I have been nice to SPUI up to this point" that Freakofnurture cites meant not that I had been directly nice to SPUI prior to then, rather merely that I had refrained from villifying him as had other editors involved in the debate. I did not mean to describe the MedCabal case itself as controversial and protracted (although any user can read the case and determine whether or not it is now, regardless of whether or not they were present at the time); my comment was meant to describe the debate as a whole, which must have been controversial and protracted in order to get to MedCabal.
I have never claimed to have been invloved with the highway debate prior to April. But one doesn't have to be involved with the debate in order to know what happened and what was said prior to that point.
If I follow correctly, you were inwardly nice to SPUI (most of us are) prior to joining the highway debate, and prior to creating an account for that matter, as you've stated you had no previous usernames. If I may ask a couple more things, since they are not explicitly covered in Doc's question above: (A) Did you previously edit Wikipedia solely as an anonymous user? (B) Were you in any way acquainted/familiar with User:SPUI in any online forum or venue other than en.wikipedia? If so, your comments would begin to make sense. Also, you assert that you were "thrust into the highways debate from the moment [you] entered Wikipedia". Perhaps this thrusting occurred off-site, as I searched various ranges of page titles using a recent database dump, and didn't even see any foreplay. I could look again after dinner, or if you've got diffs you might spare me the time. —freak(talk) 23:23, Oct. 13, 2006 (UTC)
(A) No, I did not edit Wikipedia as an anonymous IP.
(B) I was familiar with SPUI's personal websites, but had no communication with him person-to-person.
I apologize for not being more clear with my wording. Clearly we're guilty of two opposite things. During the Arbcom case, I frequently interpreted others' words too loosely. Here you are interpreting mine too strictly. I honestly fail to see what the issue here is. No one literally forced me into the debate -- I felt the need to participate since all of my early edits were on Washington state highway pages. I was greatly confused when the page I created with my second edit, Washington State Route 539, was moved twice within the first month, thus I felt the need (was forced/thrust) to participate in the debate.

Statement

When I accepted this nomination, I did so reluctantly, knowing that my nomination would probably be controversial. However, this is far from what I expected. I expected to be opposed on the grounds of my occasional incivility and the immaturity inherent in my departure from Wikipedia in August. I worded my responses to the initial three questions with the goal of damage control on this issues. I did not expect that to be enough for certain editors, but I was hoping that those who were not involved with the highway debate would be able to see beyond my minor issues.
It's clear to me that Freakofnurture opposed my adminship not because of the diffs he provided (which are essentially just a rehash of debates we had in arbitration case), but because of a grudge he bears from losing out on WP:SRNC. If I am wrong, then I lack the ability to assume good faith, which means he is right and I do not deserve to be an admin at this point in time. But even if I am right, clearly the timing is not right, it is too close to the resolution of a heated debate, and I still should not be an admin right now.
I'm still utterly confused by the false accusation that I edited Wikipedia prior to registering in April, and even moreso by the editor who opposes my adminship "per question 5" after I explained that I hadn't.
Even if 20, 50, or 100 supporters come out of the woodwork the way 10 opposers have since the tally was 30-0, this is not the way I would like to become an admin. If someone has the cojones to nominate me again when the Wikipedia community is more removed from these heated debates, I will happily accept the nomination again. But until we all get over ourselves, I am happy to work on Wikipedia without a mop.
I will be taking about a week-long wikibreak from my scheduled contributions, but will continue to monitor my watchlist (including my talk page). If you wish to respond to this statement, please do so on my talk page rather than here. -- NORTH talk 20:51, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
General comments

Discussion (for expressing views without numbering)

Support

  1. Support per nom. Michael 22:47, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
  2. Support Seems like a good article creator. Has started quite a lot of new content. Though I would want you to broaden your admin activites. Seems like every potential admin just wants to close AFD's though i have nothing against it. --Ageo020 (talk • contribs • count) 22:54, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
  3. Support. Although I was a bit worried at first when I looked at the number of user talk edits, I saw that the user has contributed to Wikipedia-related and article-related discussions. I have no worries abuot this user. Nishkid64 23:02, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
  4. Support as nominator Eluchil404 23:11, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
  5. Support T REXspeak 23:21, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
  6. Support per user's exemplary actions at WP:SRNC. --210physicq (c) 01:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  7. Swimming support per nom. Well done, sir. Grandmasterka 01:27, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  8. Strong support Remained civil and cooperative during WP:SRNC and stuff beforehand, diligent worker. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 02:21, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  9. Support. Civil and cooperative, has contributed a lot to Wikipedia. --Esteban F. (con.) 02:25, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  10. Support per nom. Couldn't have said it better myself. A great all-around editor and contributor. --TMF Let's Go Mets - Stats 04:06, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  11. Very Strong Support per last and this nom. Rama's arrow 04:57, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  12. Support I will support but I would like to see more vandalfighting evidence with user Talk warnings in the future. (aeropagitica) 04:59, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  13. 1ne 05:00, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  14. Support - no reason not to. —Khoikhoi 05:22, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  15. Support --Terence Ong (T | C) 06:04, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  16. Appears to be a well-versed user. >Radiant< 09:03, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  17. Support. utcursch | talk 11:34, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  18. Support. - Mailer Diablo 16:02, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  19. Support A good established user. Hello32020 19:08, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  20. Support Well, I can't find any reasons not to. A good editor. --Siva1979Talk to me 19:56, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  21. Support solid candidate willing to help clear backlogs. Addhoc 20:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  22. Support weel qualified.-- danntm T C 20:40, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  23. Support I don't know the user and I don't know about the roads issue, but the answers to the questions are promising, editor looks like a diligent worker, the other support comments are convicing, and I like the answer to my question. —Malber (talk • contribs) 20:47, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  24. Support per Radiant and Malber. —Mirlen 21:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  25. Support no evidence this nominee will abuse admin tools.--MONGO 22:37, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  26. Support. I'm perhaps a little disappointed not to find the "controversy" the nom predicted in his statement. Themindset 23:44, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  27. Support - we need more hands at CAT:CSD. JesseW, the juggling janitor 01:42, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  28. Support I opposed last time, and I'm proud to say I support now. Good guy, will make a great admin. Alphachimp 03:47, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  29. Support Go for it, why not? Charlie MacKenzie 08:28, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  30. Support I'm not sure where the potential controversy might stem from, as the candidate appears to be a very good user who has demonstrated that he can be trusted with the extra buttons hoopydinkConas tá tú? 10:13, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  31. Merovingian ※ Talk 23:01, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  32. Support per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mega Society, which was the most hellish AFD I ever closed, his thoughts there impreed me. Jaranda wat's sup 23:28, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  33. Support  Doctor Bruno  01:36, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
  34. Support. So he's not perfect. Who is? He's perfect enough by my standards. RyanGerbil10(Kick 'em in the dishpan!) 18:31, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
  35. Support per nom. I doubt anyone's going to come out of the road controversy perfectly clean, but I'm not seeing anything bad enough out of there to cancel out the good work he's done. BryanG(talk) 19:47, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
  36. Support per nom. The highway controversy isn't enough to cancel out this RfA for me; if anything, Northenglish seems to have improved because of it. Lesson learned and applied. AuburnPilot 02:17, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
  37. Weak Support per above. Go for it. People Powered 03:34, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
  38. Support. The Highway Debate is not all-important. NauticaShades 19:10, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Strong oppose based on pushing to renew and continue debate in highway naming controversy far past the fruitfull point, even after agreement had been reached, on the Minnesota highways, for example, and "manufacturing controversy" in highway projects--as he admitted to. Jonathunder 16:50, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  2. Strong oppose. User has a habit of presenting flawed logic [8], realizing it's flawed, then continuing to defend it [9], exhibits a frighteningly parliamentarian approach to decision-making [10], personally attacks people he disagrees with [11], [12], defends his words by presenting a self-serving definition of "vandalism" [13], and other wiki-lawyering [14]. Frequently assumes bad faith [15], puts words in others' mouths: "SPUI admits (through my interpretation) his moves are frivolous" [16] manages to deliberately misinterpret the comments of his opponents, no matter how meticulously they are worded [17] (in response to [18]), then flaunts it [19], becoming, he only person happy to be involved in WP:RFAR/HWY, [20]. and perhaps even excited about its bureaucratic aspects. Acts unaware of the disambiguation pages SPUI and I had been creating to address his concerns long before they were even raised [21] However, his very first edit was to the Route 27 disambiguation [22] (now moved to List of highways numbered 27 [23]). What most puzzles me about this user is his 76th edit, 03:40, May 11, 2006 (→User:SPUI is at it again on Utah) [24], where he enters a discussion about SPUI's edits to Utah roads, saying "I've been nice to [SPUI] up until this point, but that's just moronic", however, Northenglish had no previous interaction with SPUI, let alone any that might provoke such exasperation and personal attackery. Sees himself qualified to describe Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-03-12 U.S. Roads as "controversial and protracted"[25], though it occurred over a month before he joined Wikipedia on April 21, 2006. Furthermore I noticed that more than half of his edits have been in the last two weeks [26], and most of them were pursuant to the moving of pages that should have stayed where the hell they were. To make a long story short, I'm having a bloody difficult time finding any reasons to trust this user, perhaps he could help me out. —freak(talk) 18:37, Oct. 13, 2006 (UTC)
    Yes, I told SPUI to "grow up". And yes, it was uncivil, but would you really go as far to say that it was a personal attack? The "grow up" comment was brought up in my prior RfA, only two editors found it cause for concern, and one explicitly stated that it was not. No one is perfect, not even current administrators, for example this pithy comment. I told SPUI to grow up several months ago; since then I feel I have been much more civil.
    I most certainly was happy to participate in the Arbitration case. I saw it as the beginning of the end, and hoped it would bring us to the point where we could put the whole mess behind us. I was guilty of a fair bit of wiki-lawyering, as was everyone involved in the case. It's just the nature of such a process. Was I incorrect at times? Of course. No one can be right 100% of the time.
    If I can help you out further, feel free to let me know. -- NORTH talk 21:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
    I am withholding comment on this nomination, but I'd like to understand what was meant by "should have stayed where the hell they were" since under WP:SRNC#Administrator_judgment, which is binding on all state road projects per the outcome of the process that started with the arbitration case (despite your comment to "Oppose in the name of all that's fucking holy. —freak(talk) 19:05, Sep. 25, 2006 (UTC)"), NJ road articles were slated to be moved. Do you think he moved them incorrectly, that is, not in accourdance with the standard consensed on and dcoumented at the official style guide? I am aware that you are not happy with the outcome of this process. I'm not either, inasmuch as I wish it had never been necessary to not use consensus in some areas to get the mess to closure, but that in and of itself is not a reason to withhold support. There may be many other reasons, I'm only commenting on this one. ++Lar: t/c 21:49, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
    So we meet again. Consider that WP:SRNC is a word-for-word violation of Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a Democracy (votes only, additional comments will be forcefully removed, etc.). Policy pages trump style guides and straw polls, and that poll had scarcely more than 50% support, so (unbelievably) you might be out-wonked here. I've read, top to bottom, the definition given at Wikipedia:Consensus, and this process fails it. Allowing it to be ratified and executed on numbers alone is negligence. Enforcing it as a binding fatwa is gross disservice. I have no aspiration of changing your perspectives on any issue. In the future, if I suspect you might be influenced by anything I'm about to say, it will be CC'd to your talk page. —freak(talk) 22:48, Oct. 13, 2006 (UTC)
    But then why, must I ask, was the consensus upheld at WP:ANI? Also, and this holds true with the next vote too: I find it odd to see that the both of you are still upset about the outcome of WP:SRNC- since you were on opposite sides. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 02:06, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
    This is not the place to debate how that went in depth but I offer the following observations: Consensus failed to work directly. ArbCom got involved and put it on the participants to come up with something. The participants came up with a polling process, and asked previously disinterested admins to help. That process, although it was not a consensus process itself, HAD consensus. The participants clearly had a consensus (not unanimous, but a consensus) to do it that way. The admins did what they had to do, what they were ASKED to do. When questions were raised about it, I took the process back to ArbCom and explicitly asked them if how it was going was what was intended. The only arbcom member that said anything gave approval. All the blocks that were handed out were taken to AN/I. One was reduced, but not removed, the other endorsed. All 6 of the admins that participated were unanimous in their consensus of how things went, every step of the way. Did I like that the highway crowd forced this on themselves? no. I hated it. It was entirely distasteful to me that it had to be done that way. But I stand by the outcome, and by my actions as being in consensus, and being good for the encyclopedia. I hope that we never ever have to do anything like that again. Ever. SO I think you've actually got me all wrong, whether you realise it or not. I welcome further discussion from you or anyone in whatever manner you think is appropriate, be it dialog on my talk, or yours, or an RfC, a recall, a new ArbCom case, whatever, because I stand behind what was done, even though I hated it. ++Lar: t/c 02:18, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
  3. Per Freakofnurture. I am very concerned with his claims of having been involved in all of this highway and SPUI stuff before any of his actual contributions show that he became involved. There are only two possible interpretations, and neither of them are good: either he isn't telling the truth, or he previously interacted with SPUI using a still-undisclosed "alternate account". --Cyde Weys 18:44, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
    See my response to Question 5 above. -- NORTH talk 21:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  4. "Out of retirement" oppose per freakofnurture. Admins should support consensus, not the imposition of a foolish consistency, even when other admins wrongly try to do just that. --SPUI (T - C) 23:18, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
    "Wrongly" is a matter of opinion. In this case, actually, a matter of consensus. And, in this case, actually, consensus was for imposition of consistency, whether you agree or not. See my response to Freak, above, but I wonder how many different venues you're going to try to re-fight this issue in? ++Lar: t/c 12:18, 14 October 2006 (UTC) (PS, your edit summary for your comment is profoundly non useful, given that three prior edits were a revert war with the same exact edit summary.)
  5. Oppose per question #5, User:Freakofnurture, low number user talk edits and need to warn vandals.--Dakota 00:37, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
    Why should he have to warn vandals? I'm opposing too, but I still feel it necessary to question your reasoning. --Cyde Weys 01:49, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
    It shows limited experience dealing with vandalism possibly indicating a shaky grasp of the very concept of what vandalism is.--Dakota 02:26, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
    Of course he knows what vandalism is. He's been here for awhile. You don't have to fight vandalism to be an administrator. That's a very CVU-centered worldview. There's actually much more important stuff to be done on Wikipedia than dealing with vandalism. --Cyde Weys 03:04, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
  6. The incidents FoN raise are too many to give me a good feeling at this time. Perhaps later. Oppose ++Lar: t/c 02:18, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
  7. Oppose per freak.  Grue  07:47, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
  8. Oppose per FreakOfNurture. I also have seen light incivility from the editor on occasion, and just don't feel comfortable seeing him with the mop for now. Xoloz 16:50, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
  9. Oppose per freak. I don't find Dakota's objections terribly compelling, but this user is far too bureaucratic and legalistic and just plain not nice. We don't need more bureaucracy around here, and we surely don't need more meanness. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:17, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
  10. Oppose per freak -- Tawker 03:42, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Neutral

  1. Neutral until question 4 is answered. —Malber (talk • contribs) 14:44, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
The above adminship discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.