Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Stephen

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

Contents

[edit] Stephen

Final (49/1/1); Ended Thu, 3 May 2007 16:30:56 UTC

Stephen (talk · contribs) - After recently passing 6000 edits I would like to nominate myself for admin, appreciating that this is unacceptable to some. I'm an active participant in the Australian and Sydney Wikiprojects, and have a whole load of articles under my watch. I have a clean block record, and a talk page that I hope will testify to my constructive activities. I'm a fairly active new page patroller, always taking time to warn if there are issues with new articles and content, and helping upset users with advice on their edits. However, I'd see the mop in addition to my building of an encyclopaedia; creating content, and most recently, assessment and categorisation of (mainly) Australian articles. I used to edit as User:Slf67, but hooray for usurpation! --Steve (Stephen) talk 06:00, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. What admin work, if any, do you intend to take part in?
A: WP:CSD is nearly always given as an answer here and I'm not going to shy away from this area. My edit count would be about 1000 higher if the articles I regularly tag for speedy deletion didn't take that edit with them when they're deleted. I've been a fairly active participant at WP:AFD but less so lately as I'm trying my hand in other areas, but I'd still like to get involved with closing debates, obviously starting with the uncontentious keeps, for which sysop isn't needed (and of which I've performed a couple) and moving deeper from there. I'd also look to clearing old Prod's. From my watchlist I regularly revert trivial vandalism, and occasionally discoverer deeper, more malicious swathes for which I'd like to assert quicker blocks after warnings. However, my recent WP:AIV reports have been acted on very quickly so I don't perceive a great problem there, but it would be good to help the others acting off this list. Other areas that I've had to use and would be willing to assist are requested moves and page protection, and I'm pretty good at spotting copyright violations, and the quicker they can be deleted before they proliferate to mirrors, the better. I'm a lurker and infrequent poster on WP:AN and WP:ANI so I'd also see that as a guide to what needs doing. Basically, in my early days I'd like to clear some of the routine admin tasks, and let experienced admins take on the more complex issues and grow from there, in just the same way that I've grown as an editor.
2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
A: I was one of the core of editors responsible for getting Palm Island, Queensland to Good Article status, but my efforts are second to WikiTownsvillian who has been driving the content. I'm looking forward to the next push to WP:FA. I'm also quite proud of my addition to Australia and the United Nations which added a fully referenced table of Australia's involvement in the UN in a single edit [1] (after several tens of edits in a sandbox!). I'd also like to mention my most humbling moment which was when the father of Fleur Lombard (Britain's first female firefighter to be killed in the line of duty since the War) emailed me to thank me for creating the article and to correct me on a few details. That sort of experience is worth the hassles that we all face in our editing here.
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: We've recently been dealing with a disruptive user at Top Gear (current format) and associated templates. I was named in a an ArbCom case that he filed, but which was quickly dismissed (The last version before it was deleted is here). I've never come close to a WP:3RR violation, but seen him blocked twice for such and a further week for disruption. I get the occasional angry message from an editor who's lost an article or some content, but that actually encourages me most times to engage in discussion and discuss the policies that have been broken, and to help them going forward. I'm rather unstressed by it all to be honest, and can't see myself getting stressed in the future by anything here!
A question from bainer (talk)
4. Under what circumstances should one ignore a rule?
I've only ignored rules in two areas: Firstly in not letting every process run it's full course; Is it really necessary to get another keep on an AfD that's already unanimously a keep? WP:SNOW is in essence a way of ignoring the rule that a process should remain open for its allotted time. The other area is in adding non-biographical content that is not meticulously verifiable from its first creation, to let an article develop and then be referenced at a later stage. Ignoring rules should never be used to work against consensus, as the community will come down on you if you try that one. --Steve (Stephen) talk 09:45, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
A question from Wpktsfs (talk)
5. What bothers you the most about Wikipedia management, and, what do you think you could do to help fix that problem?
A question from User:Shirahadasha (talk)
6. In this diff on Talk:Virginia Tech massacre, you wrote over a previous comment with a different comment of your own, leaving replies to the previous comment dangling and appearing to be a non-sequitur reply to yours. Why did you do this?
That's a strange one, and certainly not intentional. I recall adding two comments on that particular tragedy, but didn't make any edits to discussions further up the page. All I can think is that it was edited underneath me and my earlier version was saved, and edit conflict didn't kick in? It was one of the highest trafficked and sited pages recently, so I'll take the normal IT Support response, and tag as unreproducible error! --Steve (Stephen) talk 01:41, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
A question from User:Black Falcon (talk)
7. What would you do if you ran across an article like this one (I ask that everyone allow the candidate to respond before editing the article). Please be as detailed as possible (i.e., step-by-step, what would you do?).
I had previously posed two questions, but have removed one as unnecessary. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 20:33, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
A search for "Andrea Finney" poet -wikipedia throws up little (and MedLib.com is a WP mirror, even if it doesn't say so.) "Finney" "Where's mi Dad" gives even less, only the registry in a copyright vault. Amazon gives no published works. Nothing but Andrea links to the article. So all in all a non-notable poet, to be tagged as A7, with a message on the creator's talk page. Even is she was somehow remarkable the article doesn't provide any sources to back up. And if I saw that second mangled sentence in another article, I'd rewrite it as it can be read that she wrote her poem in 1910! --Steve (Stephen) talk 01:41, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
8. "Editors should remove any contentious material about living persons that is unsourced [or poorly sourced]... Editors who re-insert the material may be warned and blocked" (from WP:BLP). How rigorously would you enforce this?--Docg 02:28, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
I'll remove unsourced personal details, such as relationships, addresses, children's details, and criticism, from a biography with an edit summary pointing to WP:BLP. A couple of times it has been added back but in the majority of cases it stays out. When it has been added back, I've reverted again with another reference to policy and it has not been re-added. Maybe I'm editing low traffic articles, but I think the WP community has become aware of the need for meticulous referencing for biographies. I intend to be very rigorous in my enforcement of this, applying the uw-biog* series of warnings specifically, culminating in a block if necessary. Really we should be removing every sourced statement from biographies, however this would reduce most of our biographical articles to single sentence stubs, as Jimbo did to Ron Jeremy in this edit! --Steve (Stephen) talk 09:45, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] General comments

Please keep criticism constructive and polite. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review Special:Contributions/Stephen before commenting.

[edit] Discussion

  • Other then the comment about userpage use below I cannot find anything about this user that makes me nervous. The current contributions of this user do not indicate that they plan to go nuts with the tools and put "WIKIPEDIA IS COMMUNISM" on the main page or anything silly like that ;). —— Eagle101 Need help? 04:24, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Support

  1. Looks fine. John Reaves (talk) 07:11, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  2. A perfectly boring and very qualified vandal fighter, BLP activist, etc. I don't see anything of concern in your last 500 contibutions. This is interesting; an experienced editor unwittingly inserted modified copyvio material from another article in there. How did you guess it was a copyvio? Grandmasterka 07:47, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  3. Appears qualified from the look of his contributions, and is bold enough to self-nominate. Kusma (talk) 08:40, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  4. Support everything looks very fine here. Why not? —Anas talk? 09:10, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  5. Support - A perfect candidate..--Cometstyles 11:04, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  6. Support - Richard Cavell 11:11, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  7. I'm Mailer Diablo and I approve this candidate! - 11:42, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  8. Support A good person to be an administrator. Captain panda 12:21, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  9. Support A dedicated editor who clearly understands policies and whom I trust to apply them well. Did a good job with the DaveSmit33/TopGear issue which I was also involved with. Good luck, Gwernol 12:28, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  10. Support He needs the tools and knows how to use them. YechielMan 13:44, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  11. Terence 13:47, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  12. Remember him from the Slf67 days, recall being impressed. No reason to suspect he would abuse the tools. – Riana ऋ 13:50, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  13. Support - I've seen this person around, and I don't see any conduct issues. Sean William 14:07, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  14. Support. I've checked his edits in several namespaces and they all look good. I vote support without hesitation. We need more admins active in containing vandalism. Haukur 15:56, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  15. Troppus per Riana, looks great. Good luck! Majorly (hot!) 16:07, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  16. Support. I am especially pleased to see the commitment to article building. -- Pastordavid 16:21, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  17. Michael Snow 17:05, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  18. Support. Looks good! -Mschel 17:13, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  19. Support okay for me.-- danntm T C 17:30, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  20. Support per all above. It's good to see a self-nomination that seems to be succeeding (often they face an uphill struggle). Walton Need some help? 18:28, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  21. Support. Sounds good to me. ^demon[omg plz] 18:28, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  22. Support It looks good to me. Jmlk17 22:35, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  23. Support John254 23:31, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  24. Support. I see no evidence that would lead me to believe Stephen would abuse the tools, and his contributions lead me to believe he would accomplish a lot of good with them. I believe he is trustworthy, and therefore I have no qualms supporting his RfA. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:56, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
  25. Support. Candidate dones good work from what I've seen of them. Appears to have good experience in the relevant areas. No problem. By the way, re:[2], G12 speedy requests are only really appropriate when there are no copyright free versions of the page to revert to. Reverting would have been a better approach. WjBscribe 14:26, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
  26. Support No good reason not to. *** Crotalus *** 21:13, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
  27. Support: Has plenty of experience and seems to have done plenty of work. Seems civil and should make a good administrator.  Orfen User Talk | Contribs 21:59, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
  28. Support - seems experienced and trustworthy. Metamagician3000 05:36, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
  29. Support A.Z. 06:38, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
  30. Support Ãll that there has to be saidBooksworm Talk to me! 11:18, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
  31. Support - I am confident this candidate would make a good admin. Seems well experienced, civil, and not short of contributions. Camaron1 | Chris 11:24, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
  32. Support per an excellent contributions record and great answer to the questions. Essentially, there is No Reason Not ToTM promote. Best of luck, Black Falcon (Talk) 17:54, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
  33. Sound on BLP. --Docg 15:00, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
  34. Support great contributor. The Rambling Man 16:42, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
  35. Support'''Shindo9Hikaru 01:30, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
  36. Support. I accept your answer to my optional question, you've been an excellent contributor overall. --Shirahadasha 02:33, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
  37. --dario vet (talk) 09:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
  38. Yep. Daniel Bryant 10:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
  39. Support. I first met Stephen through the Top Gear/Davesmith33 incident. He was level-headed throughout the entire situation. I was actually thinking about nominating him one of these days. --PS2pcGAMER (talk) 10:25, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
  40. Support: --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ walkie-talkie 18:26, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
  41. Naconkantari 21:17, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
  42. Support --Agεθ020 (ΔT • ФC) 22:30, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
  43. Support --A solid editor. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 22:54, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
  44. Support. Solid editor, every encounter I've had with him has been positive. Rockstar (T/C) 03:03, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  45. VirtualSteve supports Real Steve in his candidacy. Adminship is deserved.--VS talk 08:29, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  46. Support - a very dedicated user, from his contribs it looks like he's around everywhere! Certainly needs, and wouldn't abuse the admin bit. Ryan Postlethwaite 00:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
  47. Support Will be an asset.--Simul8 11:43, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
  48. Support: Doesn't seem like a Robdurbar part II. ~ Magnus animum ∵ ∫ φ γ 23:13, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
  49. Support will be ok. cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 02:21, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Presence of the requests for adminship scoreboard on the candidate's user page suggests that the candidate is an "RFA junkie". Kelly Martin (talk) 04:27, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
    I think it would be more appropriate to call the likes of us ... who comment on nearly every candidacy ... "RfA junkies". Please don't misconstrue my statement as a challenge of any sort. I have no intention of trying to convince you to change your position, but would just like to point to the irony in your comment. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 04:31, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
    I am not a candidate for adminship. You are attempting to shoot the messenger. Please refrain from such incivility. Kelly Martin (talk) 05:04, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
    Uhh ... incivility? I would like to point you to the following parts of my comment: "likes of us" (i.e., myself included ... I would not insult myself), "please don't misconstrue my statement as a challenge of any sort", and "I have no intention of trying to convince you to change your position" (i.e., I respect your opinion even if I don't agree with it and am not going to hassle you in an attempt to get you to change it). I'm really confused ... -- Black Falcon (Talk) 05:14, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
    I would like to express my strong support for everything Black Falcon has said above me. His comments were not incivil; indeed, Ms. Martin's reference to the candidate as an "RfA junkie", and her frequent habit of setting unreasonable and arbitrary standards for admin candidates, is far less civil. Walton Need some help? 11:37, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
    You both hit the nail on the head. Her approval is somewhat unorthodox; however, she is entitled to her oppinion as a member of the community, and I respect that. --wpktsfs 18:06, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
    We can't forget that RfAs are not a vote tally. The outcome is decided by the b'crats, and let's be serious: there a very likely chance that the b'crats will throw out an oppose vote solely based on userboxes. No need to get upset. Rockstar (T/C) 03:03, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
    Its happened before... --Iamunknown 02:23, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
    Just to throw in my two cents, Kelly Martin — on Bibliomaniac15's recent RfA — made a violation of WP:CANVASS and mandated that "Bibliomaniac must have endorsement from a WikiProject." Her standards, as Walton has said, are very arbitrary and unreasonably high; perhaps I should open a RFC on her? ~ Magnus animum ∵ ∫ φ γ 23:11, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Neutral

Until Q4 is answered. Naconkantari 15:33, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
So answered. :-) --Iamunknown 10:04, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
  1. Seems to me that the candidate lacks common sense , see his comments [3]--Shyamsunder 21:10, 30 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.