Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Sherurcij

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

Sherurcij

Final (12/8/6) ended 15:13 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Sherurcij (talk · contribs) – Well I've been around for just over a year now I guess, and while I'm not really lusting after power - I would appreciate having the ability to block vandals myself, rather than having to message somebody or leave a note and walk through all their continuing edits.

My personal goal is to eventually get definitive articles on each of the 19 hijackers, though at this point I've only gotten 5 of the articles up to a level I'm confidant with. (And I've been working on them since July! *cries to self a little*). Anyways, my reasons/philosophy for writing are fairly well summed up at the top of my userpage

Obviously there will be people who oppose the nomination, which is fine, I don't know that I'd do any differently in your shoes to be honest...but it can't hurt to try and get the couple tools I'd like anyways. At least one 'problem' I'll admit to is that I have a tendency to leave brusque edit-descriptions, especially when dealing with vandals, simply as a way of adding a bit of levity to the situation. (Two recent examples would be omg vandalism is soooo funny, u r l33t-ass man! hero, spect! so awesome d00d! and I'm not sure which burns my eyes more, the atrocious spelling or the horrible POV). They're not meant to be mean-spirited, rather instead just to amuse (and entice to read the article?) people perhaps looking at Recent Changes, but I recognise that interpretation is in the eyes of the beholder.

Anyways, in summary, I mostly try to add information (and images) to articles, and occasionally find myself making small copyedits to articles I'm reading for my own research - I like to take a measure of pride in my ability to maintain NPOV...which I guess can be best summed up in my response here I admit it, I'm an NPOV-addict, and frequently finding myself editing it out of other articles (as well as my own), both left-wing and right-wing and every other -ist you can name...the world is a biased place, even when only sub-consciously. Sherurcij 10:36, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Support

  1. Support need more admins who take on the vandals.Gator (talk) 13:24, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
  2. Support. A quick review of his contributions shows an intelligent, articulate editor, and a true encyclopedist. His interactions with others show an even-tempered attitude (with rare exceptions, as MONGO pointed out) and good understanding of consensus. I'd be happy to see more consistent edit summaries, and an expansion beyond the topic of the 19 hijackers, but I have no problem trusting him with the Block button. It is also refreshing to see another editor eager to save articles on CAT:CSD.Owen× ☎ 21:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
  3. Support As an editor Sherurcij has made intelligent, interesting, fair-minded contributions. I am sure they will prove to be an intelligent, fair-minded admin. -- Geo Swan 02:58, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
  4. Support Seems to be a good editor and vandal fighter. --Rogerd 04:44, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
  5. Merovingian 05:45, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
  6. Support Exchange between myself and Sherurcij on his talk page tell me this editor is smart and patient with blunt questions and doesn't hide his true sentiments. Hence my vote change to support.--MONGO 10:48, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
  7. Support seems ok.  Grue  19:13, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
  8. Support, seems unlikely to abuse administrator tools. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:59, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
  9. Support, We need admins with participation on wide range of subjects.Zeq 08:05, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
  10. Oran e (t) (c) (e-mail) Make Céline Dion a FA! 01:29, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
  11. Yeah man! You're being opposed by all the right people. Grace Note 13:54, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
  12. Support I like the idea of re-cat'ing the 'NPOV Disputes' category, and adding templates. We are, as I userstand it, encouraged to Be Bold. I also don't see why one should oppose based on a couple (actually from here it looks like an iffy one) factual errors on one article. I would encourage you, however, to tone the rvv edit summaries down a little bit, some of them are somewhat extreme (this is the only thing keeping me from voting Strong Support. The merge thing to me, as well, sounds exactly as Sherurcij explained it. And I probably would have expected the 2003 invasion of Iraq media coverage article to contain at least something about George Alexander to be considered a Merge. (at least, in my mind, that makes sense.) I probably would have also thought it vandalism following this comment: "Hahahahahaha, impolite to him? He's dead! He didn't even do anything besides having those pretty zeros. --SPUI (talk) 00:47, 7 November 2005 (UTC)". I also applaud pointing out your failings and faults right there in the nom, and the fact that you seem to have invited your detractors to your RfA ;] Anyhow, Good luck, I think you would make a fine admin! --VileRage (Reply|C|Spam Me!*) 22:22, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
  13. Support Does some good work and is dedicated. Good admin material. deeptrivia 02:58, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Oppose for now, but I want to be fair and I'll reconsider depending on Sherurcij's response. I had some problems editing with him at Shehzad Tanweer, one of the 7/7 London suicide bombers. Sherurcij edited a number of mistakes into the article (factual, spelling, and grammar) and insisted that using an image of Tanweer about to board a train before blowing himself up was POV, which was bizarre given that Scotland Yard had confirmed Tanweer was one of the bombers. Sherurcij also fiercely opposed saying in the intro how many had died overall in the bombing (56 dead, 700 wounded), arguing that Tanweer should be associated only with the number he had actually killed (7), even though the police had confirmed the four bombers acted as part of a joint enteprise, and that it was a matter of chance exactly how many each man had actually killed. (And in fact, in his first preferred version, he didn't even want the number of people Tanweer had killed directly to be mentioned until the very last paragraph. [1]) He also uploaded a number of images without tagging and sourcing them, and even though he was warned they'd be deleted and was asked to find the source (I offered to find the right tag if he would just tell me where he'd found them), he ignored the queries, and the images were of course deleted, then he didn't go back to delete the red links. All in all, it was irresponsible editing, in my view. See Talk:Shehzad_Tanweer#Reverting until the end of the page, and here's his first revert of my edits, [2] where he has a brief intro saying Tanweer is a suspect (even though the police had already confirmed), but with no details until the very end of the article, and with odd writing like "his suspected death." However, Sherurcij may have moved on since then, so I suppose that's my question to you Sherurcij: have you? ;-) SlimVirgin (talk) 05:21, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
    Because I'm wordy, reply is behind a cutline Sherurcij 05:58, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
    Okay, thank you for being honest, but I don't see that anything has changed. You're still insisting, for example, that he wasn't unemployed beyond he helped out occasionally in his father's fish and chip shop. But all the sources reported that he was "unemployed" or "effectively unemployed," [3] and in fact the high levels of unemployment in that area are seen as partly responsible for the appeal of radical Islam to young men who may feel they have limited prospects, so to ignore what the sources were saying about that was odd, in my view. I'll stick with my oppose vote. Sorry. SlimVirgin (talk) 06:17, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
    Understandable, I rather assumed you would oppose when I invited you here, but hoped at least to have some criticism against me from somebody who's engaged me 'at close quarters' before. To defend the unemployed versus part-time work argument however, I'll point out that I sourced both the Washington Post and Daily Mail as stating that he held a part-time job at the fish & chip shop. Anyways, not to be combative, just because I'd like both of us to be able to show sources for our claims Sherurcij 06:23, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
    But here we go again. Neither of your links works. You were arguing this before you ever even claimed to have found a source, Sherurcij. He didn't have a job, and you reverted and reverted to prevent anyone from saying that in the article. SlimVirgin (talk) 06:32, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
    Rather than claim an apparently-valid link is "fake" or "doesn't work", it's sometimes best to see if codes have stripped away a hardspace, which they had in this case :) Both links work, and I'm unclear why you think I 'randomly' decided to claim he worked part-time at a Fish & Chip store part-time, then was 'later' proven correct. Check the talk page, I mentioned a good half-dozen sources for his employment. May I suggest that if you still have issues with wanting to claim he was 'unemployed' that you take them to his talk page, rather than my own plz. Much thanks, Sherurcij 07:41, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
    Both links work for me. SlimVirgin, does your vote hinge on whether "...sometimes helped out in his father's fish and chip shop" means unemployed or partially-employed? We have an editor who researches his topics thoroughly, provides ample (if ambiguous) sources for his claims, and goes out of his way to invite his biggest adversaries to vote on his RfA. The question is, do you trust this guy with admin responsibilities? Please reconsider; your opinion is important to me, and to many others. Owen× ☎ 14:23, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
    Hi Owen, the links work now, but they didn't, and it might be worth noting here that he didn't format them properly the first time he entered them, which is more of the same (as I see it) carelessness I found at Shehzad Tanweer. Also, the links don't actually bear out what he's saying, and I take strong issue with your claim that he researches his topics thoroughly. My experience of him is quite the reverse. I'm going to continue my response in the comments section below. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:03, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
  2. Modest oppose. While I have not slogged through your differences over content, SlimVirgin's comment on images led me to check yours: while tagging has improved since your arguments in July you are slipping too much fair use in here, particularly from news organizations. While I'm willing to be corrected, you can't just upload from Reuters and call it fair use--their policy is quite clearly all rights reserved. This would normally lead me to neutral, but weak edit summaries and a rather inadequate reply re. "shut the fuck up" lead me to oppose. Marskell 10:38, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
  3. Oppose. Per Marskell and SV's points. FeloniousMonk 00:44, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
  4. Oppose - concerned about actions at Shehzad Tanweer, and responses regarding those actions, and some concerns about images as well. Jayjg (talk) 20:22, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
  5. Oppose per SlimVirgin's posts above and below. I applaud the stated "NPOV-addict" goal, but am dismayed at the insulting/amusing edit summaries. Turnstep 02:28, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
  6. Strong Oppose Today he removed POV tags from two articles [4] [5], marking his edits as minor and using the deceptive edit summary "updating template/cat". He's also made such edits without comment [6] [7][8] [9] [10] [11] This is completely unacceptable behavior and shows complete disregard for Wikipedia policy. Carbonite | Talk 13:18, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
    Comment: I've also found numerous incidents of extreme incivility, such as edit summaries telling other editors "You vandalize a topic on my list, I'm going to do nasty things to your sister with a colander and some shredded cheese." [12], "Vandalize a topic again, I'll bite your ass" [13] "vandalize my topic again, I shall hunt you down" [14] "rvt - don't fuck with mai pages or I smack yo skinny ass up homeboy!" [15] "This is a stub, not a speedy delete, don't make me kick your ass" [16] Carbonite | Talk 15:26, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
    I believe you misunderstand the edits, they are the result of discussion on Category:NPOV disputes that with over 1000 articles, the category should have some subcategories. All I did was go through the article, and sub-categorize them to either Category:Political NPOV disputes, Category:Religious NPOV disputes and the (somewhat poorly named) Conflict NPOV disputes (about wars, battles, etc). Where I "didn't use edit summaries" would simply be accidental, or where I got the annoying "Wikimedia Foundation Error" page, so had to refresh/backspace to get it to work, a quick look at User Contribs should show that I (hopefully) used edit summaries on most of the changes. Sherurcij 13:34, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
    You removed dispute tags from about a dozen articles. A discussion on a category talk page does not result in a policy to remove the tags. It's essential to warn readers that the information in the article is disputed and/or may be factually inaccurate. Carbonite | Talk 13:39, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
    No, I replaced dispute tags from several dozen articles with an appropriate sub-categorization so that they would appear under Category:Religious NPOV disputes instead of the bulging over-full Category:NPOV disputes. The intention, as mentioned on relevant talk pages, if you'd please be so kind as to look, is to create new templates/categories based on these modifiers, so there is less confusion about why a particular article is contentious. Unfortunately, things must be done over time, and I apologize that I can't simultaneously clean out a category of 1000 articles, create new categories, and create new templates, all within 10 seconds...it does take a bit of time. There is absolutely no vandalism involved whatsoever, merely tidying up a category which has been requested to please be sub-categorized. Sherurcij 13:44, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
    Removing dispute tags from multiple articles is borderline vandalism. I know your intent was good, but the result was the readers would have no warning about POV or factually accuracy issues. The whole point of the tags is that they make it blantantly obvious to the reader that the article is in dispute. Replacing a dispute tag with a category is not appropriate at all. If you'd like to add the category and keep the tag, I don't see a problem with that. This is basic Wikipedia policy here (NPOV) and I'm rather puzzled that you're actually arguing that you were in the right. Carbonite | Talk 13:49, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
    See discussion below, no need for two seperate threads of discussion. Sherurcij
    I am also unclear why it is 'deceptive' to use the edit summary of "replacing template/cat" when that's exactly what I'm doing, and it's my understanding that cat changes (+cat, -cat, etc) are always minor...so I'm afraid I really don't understand your problem with marking "minor, replacing template/cat" ? Sherurcij 13:47, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
    That edit summary does not imply in any way that you removed a dispute tag from the article. That is far from a minor change. Minor changes are usually spelling corrections or fixing a broken link. Also, dispute tags should not be removed without discussing on the article's talk page. Carbonite | Talk 13:53, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
    replacing template/cat implies exactly what I'm doing, I'm replacing one of the template/category tags with another, which as I said, is typically marked as a minor change, since major changes are to the bulk of information in the article. With 1000 articles in Category:NPOV disputes, it's not fair or efficient to expect 1000 different talk pages to say "Would you mind if we move this from "NPOV dispute" to "Religious/Political NPOV dispute"? Again, the tags weren't removed, they are being replaced with more specific tags as requested by others on the talk page because the category is overfull. By putting them into a new category such as Category:Religious NPOV disputes, it makes it much easier to then go to each of the articles and add a ((religiousNPOV)) tag to them Sherurcij 14:01, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
    OK, please answer this: After your edits, did dispute tags exist on the articles? Yes or no? If no, then your edits removed legitimate tags and removed an essential warning to readers. Carbonite | Talk 14:05, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
    See "I can't completely fix WP in 10 seconds", I already explained to you that I am making new dispute tags that are more specific to tag onto the articles that were listed under the new Category:Religious NPOV disputes, Category:Political NPOV disputes and such, before you went and mass-reverted my two hours of work, rather than actually help improve anything. Sherurcij 14:18, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
    No one expects you to fix Wikipedia in 10 seconds. That's simply a straw-man argument. If you're making new tags, that's great, although I do recommend reaching a consensus to use the new ones instead of just replacing the current ones. However, you didn't replace the dispute tags, you removed them. That you may replace them sometime in the future is a rather absurd argument. Why the rush to "replace" the tags before you had a replacement ready? You didn't improve the articles by removing the tags, you eliminated a vital warning to readers. Listen, I realize you has good intentions, but you went about it in the wrong way. Carbonite | Talk 14:36, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
    Because if all the "religiously based NPOV articles" are in a single category, then it becomes a very simple matter to have a ((religionpov)) tag added to the top of each of them - a script can't distinguish between the 1000 diferent articles in "NPOV disputes" however. Even still, rather than go back and re-add a ((pov)) tag to the articles you needed one within the next 6 hours - instead you went and undid all the work of categorizing articles, simply putting them all back into Category:NPOV disputes. Sherurcij
  7. Oppose; has called my merge of George Alexander (US Army soldier) into 2003 invasion of Iraq media coverage vandalism. --SPUI (talk) 08:21, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
    Son of a...okay, first off, this isn't a question of whether or not you like me, it's whether or not I should have admin tools to block vandals. Coming here as "revenge" a minute after I warned you about vandalism is just blah. Anyways, more importantly, your merge is vandalism, and you've done it 9 times already, each time chided and reverted by another Wikipedian (twice by myself). I have also pointed you to the relevant talk page where your only contribution to multiple Wikipedians telling you to stop vandalizing the article is "Consensus" is not needed to do something that makes sense. --SPUI. I suggest if you have issues with that article, you consult the very handy guides I provided you on your talk page quite politely, or else try to formulate arguments on the talk page, instead of dismissing multiple people asking you to stop vandalizing the same article 9 times. Sherurcij 08:52, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
    Admins can block people for vandalism. Calling that merge vandalism is not a good thing for an admin to do. --SPUI (talk) 11:38, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
    A merge I would naturally assume was good faith, doing it 9 times when you were already warned not to, is vandalism. Sherurcij 11:41, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
  8. Oppose at least this time around, per Slim and Carbonite... To quote from the RfA page, Admins have no special authority on Wikipedia, but are held to high standards, as they are often perceived as the "official face" of Wikipedia. Admins should be courteous and should exercise good judgment and patience in dealing with others. Nominees should have been on Wikipedia long enough for people to see whether they have these qualities. I am one of those who holds self-nominations to a somewhat higher standard, but in this case I would've had to have voted "oppose" even if it weren't a self-nom... TomerTALK 01:23, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
  9. Oppose. Recently, for some odd reason, Sherurcij actually came onto my user discussion page and "warned" me to "watch my step" because in his view I was being too "POV" in an article (see "...watch your step a bit..." at User talk:IZAK#Kadima). He must learn to tone down his attitude/s before being granted more "powers" whereby, I can just see it, he would run around and warn unsuspecting Wikipedians to "watch your step...or else..." This is not what Wikipedia needs right now. IZAK 06:37, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    It's clear I'll lose the RfA at the point, so c'est la vie...but I'm curious...I don't see my comment on your page as anything other than polite, I quite clearly complimented your hard work, and then urged you to try and watch yourself because you were talking about "Sharon's skill..." and similar POV terms in an article about his new political faction. You were POV, just like SPUI was vandalism. Sherurcij 10:35, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    Sherurij: Again I ask you: What is "POV" about saying that Sharon has a "skill" in building political parties and coalitions? It happens to be a true and accurate description and statement of fact. All your reaction tells me is that you have great difficulty with understanding the meaning of plain words (or is it all a show?) I have no idea what your reference to "SPUI was vandalism" has to do with me? I know nothing about what you are talking about. But, my impression of your word usage here is that by writing a dubiously cunning sentence that reads: "You were POV, just like SPUI was vandalism" you are not-so-subtly attempting to "smear" me by association so that I am somehow in the same "orbit" as a "vandal" in your POV, which I strongly resent. Then again, what can one expect from someone who starts a sentence (on a page where you requesting adminship yet!) as you wrote above: "Son of a..." ? What emerges from your reactions is that you have a lot of negativity that lurks no-so-far beneath the surface and that you enjoy trying to "run circles" around people by playing time-wasting "word games" that only serves to harm the creative process needed in writing articles that most people, except you, will find readable and NPOV most of the time. Please do not waste my time with twisted responses, I see through them, and I don't appreciate it. IZAK 11:13, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    I know you don't appreciate it, but those who least appreciate criticism are usually those who need it the most. :) To address your first question, the issue of skill is always POV, should I say that Charles Whitman showed great skill with a sniper rifle? No, perhaps he was lucky, perhaps it was fate, perhaps it was skill, whatever it was, it's not up for me to report in a WP article, what is for me to report is what he did. If I want to read IZAK's opinions on Ariel Sharon, I will be certain to bookmark your blog...but please don't consider articles (especially those linked off the news header) as your personal soapbox for how much you love a guy. As per mentioning that were just as much POV as SPUI was a vandal, it was grouping you both as people who disliked the fact I confronted you about something, so came to my RfA - in a perfect world, RfAs would be simply run by people who hadn't interacted with you, since they can show the most objectivity. It's somewhat hard to see an oppose vote labelled Sherurcij actually came onto my user discussion page and "warned" me to "watch my step" because in his view I was being too "POV" in an article as anything other than subjective, based on the fact you didn't like me pointing out POV in your own writing. Read what I've written on this page, and you'll see that I don't consider vandals and POV-pushers the same at all, they are very different, and need to be dealt with very different. Vandals should be blocked after a warning, POV-pushers should simply be reasoned with and made aware of their own bias. (We all have bias, and 99% of us let it show in our writing, yours was just more blatant than many). As per starting a sentence on a non-article page with "son of a..." to denote frustration...I'm unclear how that shows that I'm a biased anti-semite out to get you? It's me expressing frustration, simple as that. In summary, what you call "time-wasting word games" are what stands between calling Osama bin Laden a "hero" and a "murdering dog", sure, disputing the terms is just "time-wasting word games", but it needs to be done because an encyclopedia should not show POV. Sherurcij 11:25, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    Look here, I never called you an anti-semite, neither did I allude to it, but if that's how you think you should be viewed then it clears things up a lot don't you think? And now for my last comment to you... YAAAAAAWWWWWWWWN !!! IZAK 11:35, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    Sherurcij may be rather untactful and even offensive, but that it clears things up a lot personal attack is totally out of line, IZAK. El_C 11:39, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    El_C: Please explain how Sherur's "untactful and even offensive" violent verbal attacks are not a personal attack (have you actually read all of Sherur's brutal comments against people here?), but acknowledging someone's open and repeated self-admission of possible anti-semitism is a problem in any way? He keeps repeating it about himself, so what should I think? What don't I get here? IZAK 12:06, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    Erm...where are these so-called self-admissions of being anti-semitic? Please don't lie, while lies are often enough to fool the easily-led-astray in the population, it's considered a very slippery slope. *rolls eyes* So, in summary, just because somebody thinks you're adding POV in your edits, doesn't mean they hate Sharon, the Jews or anything else...it means they think you're adding POV to an encyclopaedia. Sherurcij 12:21, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    Look, above you say: "...I'm unclear how that shows that I'm a biased anti-semite out to get you?". Which leaves me wondering... what am I to make of that highly-charged aside? Again, it shows how loosely you manage your own dangerous words, either by design or through carelessnes, and then try to argue against what you yourself wrote. This is truly absurd of you to be arguing this way. IZAK 12:54, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    (Aimed at IZAK, not El_C)Sorry, your exact quote is that you "gather that (I) most probably do" "hate Sharon", and am "lost in (my) own prejudice" if I suggest that that your gushing is somehow POV. So yes, it would seem that you are trying to imply that I must be anti-semitic, or at least anti-Sharon to consider some of your wording POV, in an attempt to dismiss the fact. In fact, as I mentioned on your talk page at the time, I'm personally quite a fan of Sharon, and spent more than an hour yesterday in conversation with a friend about Sharon...but that's personal conversation, where POV is allowed and encouraged, not a WP article. Also, I would like to point out to you, since the edit-mixup thing...it's considered poor form to actually go back and edit your previous comments to me, after I've already replied to them - making it seem like I was replying to a slightly different comment you'd made. Sherurcij 11:46, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    Guess the first one was too low, so here goes again: YYAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWNNN !!!!!! IZAK 11:52, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    I think you'd come off more mature if you put your fingers in your ears and shouted "I'M NOT LISTENING, CAN'T HEAR YOU, NYAH, NYAH, NYAH", just fyi :) Sherurcij 11:56, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    Well, I, for one, do find Sharon & his views & his tactics, and so on, highly offensive and questionable, but that is entirely an aside. IZAK, please keep WP:CIV in mind. Sherurcij, IZAK is allowed to modify his comments as he sees fit. If you find the changes problematic, note it in a diff, but do not modify any actual text within his comment space. El_C 12:00, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    Thank you all. And now, truly, Good nite! IZAK 12:06, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Neutral

  1. Sitting on the fence for now - but I must commend him for a very honest self-nomination. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 15:52, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
  2. Your ending comment "please shut the fuck up" made here hopefully is tongue in cheek. MONGO 19:37, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
    "Tongue-in-cheek" has always been a bit of a mystery to me, I've never quite been able to decipher its exact meaning, and I think that may simply be because different social circles use it to mean anything from equal to sarcasm, to witty, to ironic...so I won't swear on tongue-in-cheek, but the general context is supposed to be similar to Gene Wilder's infamous I said Good Day! from the original (non-crappy) Charlie & the Chocolate Factory film. I figure that since it's on my talk page...and I'm clearly not engaged in an overly intelligent debate, I have a bit of leeway with what is essentially trolling. Sherurcij 01:39, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
  3. I'll second the comments of the perceptive Haukur, and add that -- if your friends really know so little about the world (per your userpage) -- you should get more friends, especially among WPians, who are stuffed with knowledge! :) Xoloz 19:56, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
  4. Neutral, I don't know. Fahrenheit Royale 17:04, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
  5. Neutral. I see too much conflict here for me to vote one way or the other. I applaud your honesty, but the issues raised here and now are too great for me to actually side with Support until such time as I see them as not as important as they are now. I definitely urge you, should this RfA fail, to reapply in the near future. Best of luck! --Martin Osterman 03:06, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
  6. Neutral Because all the cool kids are in Switzerland. Too much doubt here either way. Karmafist 00:28, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    Unless my recent world history is out of whack, didn't Switzerland buckle and join the UN? Sherurcij 00:34, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    Ah, they'll always be neutral in my heart...Karmafist 05:19, 24 November 2005 (UTC)


Comments

  • I won't be voting, since I don't recall meeting you before this RFA, but I want to echo Haukurth's appreciation for your honesty in your self-nomination, and furthermore for your response to question It seems many admin candidates pledge that, if successful, they'll daily clear out WP:AFD, WP:CP, and WP:RPP, and go on recent-change patrol besides. I do want to point out, however, that the edit summaries you mention above in response to vandals are a mistake, though perhaps not for the reasons you think: I'm quite certain we've staved off unimaginable numbers of trolls who wander away disappointed when the only response to their beautiful defamatory edits to George W. Bush is "rv/v" and maybe "{{test1}}". —Cryptic (talk) 16:37, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
    I occasionally end up voting at AfDs (VfDs?), but typically only when an article I'm watching has been nominated, then I'll glance down the day's list and vote on a few more I feel strongly about. As per your comments on revert messages, you might be right..I shall have to retire to my chambers as per Yoda and dwell on this Sherurcij 01:39, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Owen, in response to your query about Sherurcij's editing of Shehzad Tanweer, if you look at the sources he's offered above, one says "While pursuing his studies, Tanweer worked part time at his family's restaurant and kept busy with other jobs." [17] But Tanweer wasn't pursuing his studies when the bombing occurred, unless we're counting his weeks-long trip to Pakistan as part of his studies, in which case he definitely wasn't working in his father's shop then either. The second source says: "Tanweer, who sometimes helped out in his father's fish and chip shop ..." [18] "Sometimes helping out" isn't what's meant by having a job. Other sources clearly stated he was unemployed, but Sherurcij didn't want him to be and therefore resisted it, and this is what I found in general. He inserted his POV then looked around for sources to support him after the fact, rather than the other way round; and even without sources, pressed ahead with whatever he personally wanted the article to say. So even when Scotland Yard had confirmed Tanweer was dead, Sherurcij still wrote his "suspected death," which was odd English, as well as ignoring what the authoritative sources said. This shows in my view he has a poor understanding of WP:NPOV and WP:NOR and doesn't know how to use sources. He also reverted using misleading or no edit summaries; for example, 02:38 July 18: he wrote "adding image," when in fact it was a revert; 03:49 July 18: a revert hidden among a bunch of minor edits to make it more awkward to undo, with no edit summary; 18:55 July 23: a revert of the number of dead in the intro, with no edit summary.
It wasn't only these points, or any other single issue, that caused me to oppose. It was the conjunction of factual errors; arguing about issues he seemed to know nothing about; uploading images with no tagging or sourcing; ignoring requests to find the sources so that other editors could sort out the image pages; reverting and arguing against several editors; inserting grammatical and spelling errors; a failure to understand narrative flow; either no edit summaries or misleading ones; and I have to say a general lack of maturity. I found him to be one of the most infuriating editors I've come across. I also want to add that I don't oppose adminships that often, and I very rarely add information to nomination pages to draw others' attention to negative aspects of a candidate; in fact, I can think of only two other occasions I've done this in a year of editing. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:36, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
  1. Yeah right. It's all to do with politics for you. Our guy tried to get a bit of the opposite POV and you jumped on him. Now you oppose his POV. The article on Shehzad Tanweer is a disgrace to Wikipedia ... Let the man be an admin. There's worse. Grace Note 14:04, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
    This is hardly what I would characterize as a "glowing endorsement"... Image:Tongue.png TomerTALK 05:14, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    I agree, let us all pretend that endorsement was never made ;) Sherurcij 12:11, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

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

1. What sysop chores, if any, would you anticipate helping with? Please check out Category:Wikipedia backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.
A. Really mostly just blocking vandals in all honesty, although I'm also often browsing through Category:Candidates for speedy deletion, usually looking for potential articles to save and turn into stubs or better, but would also appreciate the ability to clean up the category by deleting the ones that are clear garbage/vandalism/usertests Sherurcij
2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
A. The most pleasing articles are always the ones where I learn something fascinating and new, and hopefully manage to pass that knowledge onto a few more people in the world who may idly google a name they see referenced in a book or report at some time. Using that sort of criteria, I'd have to say that Patrick Arguello holds a special place in my heart since it was my first major 'project' that I spent 3-4 days working on. As I mentioned before though, my personal 'favourites' would have to be the 9/11 hijackers, of which I've edited I'm sure all of them, but contributed the bulk of the article, tidy, upkeep and such on 5 currently (the next one I do is going to be Ziad Jarrah which I've recently started).Sherurcij
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. The example that comes to mind would have to be a spat over the article about London tube bomber Shehzad Tanweer this past July, mostly with User:SlimVirgin - in the end I think the debate helped the article become better, and we got a vague sort of compromise worked out. (Probably chiefly because we were able to agree on several definite key things to keep/add/delete from other users). I'd like to think of that example as my 'learning experience' with conflict on Wikipedia. As for stress from other users, nope, I recognise this is the Internet, and there will always be people who think "Michael Moore is fat" or "George Bush is a Nazi" is a valid rebuttal to an argument, but hey, there are too many fools in the world to let oneself worry about them Sherurcij
4 You have clearly been involved in disputes in the past, with admins. At the time, you were essentially "powerless". What effect, honestly, do you imagine being on a level-power "playing field" will have on your willingess and ability to work toward and achieve compromise with other users, admins and non-admins? TShilo12 08:54, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Only the one that I can ever recall, which I'll point out I mentioned directly, then I went to SlimVirgin's talkpage and asked her to come here to offer an honest opinion...*shrugs* Anyways, I honestly don't think the fact she was an admin factored into at all, and whether or not I'm an admin in the future wouldn't either. It's a meaningless title in my mind, that just denotes this person is trusted with the ability to clean up the place a bit more, it has no weight in an argument and shouldn't be brought to bear as such (not that I'm saying SV did, she never did). Sherurcij 09:00, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Eh, just a closing rant Just thought I'd comment myself, on the off-chance one or two people actually read this far down anyhow. What amazes me is how several of the people opposing me are people that I've warned for vandalism, or for 'fairly blatant pov' in a Current Events article gushing about Ariel Sharon's skill, and how he's the best politician yet. Yet when I fairly politely just drop a message on their talk page, they say I must be an anti-semite, or hate Sharon, to possibly consider their language POV. Then when I say that "Sharon's skill..." is as POV as if somebody else said "Sharon's failing...", another WPian warns me that these are the sort of comments you should try to avoid between now and the next time you're up for RfA. So I'm curious, if we're not supposed to politely correct bias, and explain our rationale...what are we supposed to do? It's an insane discussion on that talk page, because his excuse for POV is best paraphrased as "It's not POV, Sharon really is that awesome!"

Vandals get blocked, POV-pushers merely get reasoned with, and asked to tone down any rhetoric or POV they're inserting into articles...saying "Sherurcij will just ban people who he thinks are POV" is ridiculous fearmongering - I've never threatened to ban anybody, and the only people I've ever requested be blocked are those who blank out articles and put "PENIS!" or something equally asinine in their stead. You deal with vandals by blocking them, but POV-pushers have no reason to be blocked, they should merely be made aware of the fact that others can see a POV in their writing, and they should be more careful in the future to be careful about wordchoices and such.

Then I've got Carbonite voting against me because he feels my 2 hours spent cleaning up a category that was requested to be cleaned up, infringed on his territory, and rather than re-add template tags, he just mass-reverts. Well that's a hell of a lot of motivation to go bust my ass for 2 hours cleaning up a category, so that somebody can run a bot to undo my work, then tell me to do it over again. Then to top it off, a complaint that the edit summary "replacing template/category" doesn't give any indication I'm replacing a template or category...*shakes head*

Finally to top it off, a vandal who's shown extreme bias, blanking an article 9 times after being told not to, complaining because again, I left him a polite and informative talkpage note showing him where to take his complaints about an article he felt "wasn't worthy", instead of just vandalizing it.

I'm not poor at handling criticism, Tomer's oppose about the "official face" is well-deserved, and like I said in my nomination, likely the most fitting complaint. Somebody who leaves 'borderline' revert messages to clearcut vandalism is helping WP, but likely too 'goofy' or even 'over the top' to actually be considered official. (At the same time, it was Tomer who told me to refrain from pointing out IZAK's fiercely "But Sharon really is that awesome, so the article should say so!" bias...so I admit I'm a tad confused by him)

In the end, sure, somebody who goes around pointing out POV (politely!) is likely to gain a bit of opposition from people who want to think that the only POV in the world is on the side they're not...they're not POV, they're just saying how awesome their side is because the other side says they suck...well not all POV is negative-based, from the fanworld, the two terms are "bashing" and "gushing". Saying "Adolf Hitler had some great ideas" is POV, but so is saying "Adolf Hitler had some lousy ideas", it's our job to inform people about the encyclopaedic content, a hopefully in-depth record of what happened, not an in-depth view. Save your personal opinions for your blogs. Sherurcij 11:02, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Hey buddy, don't lie, I never said Sharon is "that awesome" or anything like that. And, I never called you an anti-Semite! You are going too far in your path of falsification. Alas! You do not have a clue what "POV" vs. "NPOV" on Wikipedia means. I advise you to stop your lies before the matter get's out of hand. IZAK 11:35, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Actually you did, the direct quote is that you refrained from using the words "fantastic / wonderful / outstanding / amazing / excellent / superior", and therefore couldn't possibly be POV since you didn't apply those descriptions in the article. You then went on to say that Sharon has great skill, he has done what no other leader has ever managed to do, etc, etc...all quite POV. Also, unfortunately, I do know what "POV vs NPOV" means on Wikipedia, I believe I already summarized that most WPians seem to believe it means "Only the other side has bias!" - as noted in the fact that I equally remove bias from articles about Jews, Nazis, Saudis, Britons and Americans though, I like to hope that I'm disproving that statement, all sides have bias...and dare I say it, you've proven that fact. :) Sherurcij 12:01, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    Oh what a waste of good time this is! Yes, on the dicussion page I said that I did not use POV words, to make things clear to you to prove to you that I know the difference between using useless POV "complimentary words" and writing an accurate NPOV description and explanation which are perfectly legitimate empirical tools. I was not "endorsing" Sharon I was trying to provide accurate and informative information for an article that was basically not more than a stub when I saw it first. I stated he had a "skill" in building Israeli unity governments and coalitions (your analogy above to a Texas madman's so-called "skill" in murdering people is, again, an unfortunate example, of how you like to muddy the waters, and create "guilt by association" through poor use of words and twisted logic...by placing an Israeli prime minister in the same "verbal category" as a Texas murderer. Your methods of operation seem very evident as the clock ticks on...) You do not seem to know all that much about Israeli politics, but there are many facts that are true about Sharon. He built the Likud, that is a fact. He built many governing coalitions, that is a fact, and it is due due to his political "skill" that he did it. That's all I said. It is disengenious of you to quote back to me what I cited as words I did not use, as if they were examples of something I did do. This is what we call chutzpa in Yiddish! Why do you want to be an admin in any case? You seem to be busy enough writing up all your POV's without needing to be an admin here. IZAK 12:28, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
  1. He built the Likud, that is a fact. He built many governing coalitions, that is a fact, and it is due due to his political "skill" - two of those are facts, one is an opinion. As per "why do I want to be an admin in any case?", I'd suggest in the future you at least read RfAs before voting on them based on personal grudges. I actually made it really clear why I wanted it in the very first sentence on the page Sherurcij 12:54, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    No, it is not an "opinion" it is a DESCRIPTION and perhaps also an EXPLANATION...and, we are talking about one little word: "skill", which gets you all hysterical, as if that was some sort of "wondrous" POV. Beats me Bob! Wikipedia is not just an army-type boring mind-numbing execise in torture "roll-call" of reading "inventories". NPOV words can be used to describe and explain the facts, and that is perfectly legitimate. P.S. I read what you wrote in your intro to the RfA, but all I could see was that you could not resist putting in crummy and insulting edit summaries, so why should anyone vote for you? IZAK 13:02, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I can easily resist, I choose not to - but I do mention it in my RfA, yes. I'm not asking you to list inventories, I'm asking you not to discuss Sharon's "skills" as this is not a Résumé, just as I would tell somebody not to discuss George Bush's "failures". You may think that Sharon is a great political mind who has managed to do what decades of Israeli leaders were not...that's fine, keep it to your blog, not an article on him. "Bob has blue eyes" is an NPOV description. "Bob is very skilled, and better than other people" is not Sherurcij 13:18, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I do not write or edit articles to "discuss" anything, maybe you do, I don't, I leave that for discussion pages or worse...like here. I have been writing academic articles for a long time now, and I was taught that description/s and explanation/s are always needed, especially if the reader is not that familiar (i.e. he is an ignoramus) about the subject-matter (in this case Israeli politics) in the first place. If Bob was the prime minister of Israel and he had managed to build several powerful political alliances in spite of great odds against such a thing happening (he succeeded where others had failed) then I would perforce have to describe him as having "skills" in that regard (an much more as needed), and that would be a perfectly legitimate NPOV. If Bob was a just some unknown student pontificating about life, yes indeed, I would tell Bob to blog away, and have fun because what he does makes no difference to the world right now, but what a prime minister of an important country does or does not do and achieves must be part of an article about him, and no it's not like a resume, because only Bob the student would think in those terms. IZAK 13:34, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
    Whether or not somebody is famous does not affect whether a statement about their skills is POV or not. Again, discuss this on Sharon's talk page if you want, it's really not related to my RfA, which you've already said you didn't even read before opposing :) Sherurcij 13:36, 24 November 2005 (UTC)


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page. No further edits should be made to this page.