Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Tariqabjotu 2/Questions

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

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

A: I realize that although there are over a thousand administrators on the English Wikipedia, there is still plenty of admin work to be done. For a couple months now I have been closing quite a few move requests as that has had a constant backlog (although it was much worse in July, August, and September), and they're not especially contentious. However, I would like to be able to fully work with the requested moves as I can currently only deal with nominations that either don't result in moves or result in are simple moves. I participate in articles for deletion discussions often enough to know how things work, and so I would love to assist in closing those debates as well. The copyright problems page now has a tremendous backlog, and so I would love to assist there. To be honest, my contributions to the page have been quite minimal, but much of the work there requires admin capabilities anyway. I did, however, create a proposal to restructure and merge the copyright assessment procedures underlined at Wikipedia:Copyright problems, Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images, and {{wrong license}} (the proposal never really picked up much steam, and thus I have let it fall dormant). If given admin capabilities, I would also help on the Main Page. I'm a frequent contributor to WP:ERRORS, and often times mistakes reported there go several hours unnoticed. Lastly, although this is quite cliché, I would assist in taking care of reports at WP:AIV. I wouldn't say I go on RC patrol everyday, but I have dealt with vandals with enough frequency to, in my opinion, have the experience to handle them. Nevertheless, with the plethora of semi-automatic vandal-fighting tools available today, this is not especially pressing. -- tariqabjotu 01:26, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

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

A: I would still have to say one of my proudest contributions to Wikipedia is the Mosque article, on which I did a significant amount of work in December 2005 and April 2006 to bring up to featured status. Since that time, I have assisted in fixing problems that arose in June 2006 regarding the article's neutrality and factuality. After twice being delisted from the Main Page queue, it succeeded in appearing on the Main Page on July 27, 2006.

Prior to assisting with bringing Mosque to featured status in April 2006, the greater portion of my articles were to Islam-related articles. Although I still contribute to Islam-related articles, especially upon request, I have since ventured into working with other types of articles. In July 2006, I began to do a great amount of work on the Moscow article. This one was a bigger challenge since I didn’t really have any prior knowledge of Moscow and because many of the best sources for the subject are in Russian only. However, great improvements, with the help of others who had begun to take interest in the article, have still been made. Also in July 2006, I worked on creating the new design (and the backend) for the new Portal:Current events (which replaced the Current events article on July 1, 2006). The design received a decent amount of support from the community and, since July 12, has been at Portal:Current events, where I am one of the portal's maintainers. To go along with that, I often contribute to the articles related to current events, such as the 11 July 2006 Mumbai bombings and Pope Benedict XVI Islam controversy articles. Lastly, most recently, I would have to say one of my favorite contributions is to the Capital Area Food Bank article. I was inspired to write the article after I visited the food bank on August 5; by the end of the evening, the article was completed. I had not really started an article from scratch before and I was quite pleased with the result (as well as quite surprised as to how much information was available on the food bank). It appeared on the Main Page under Did You Know on August 10.

You may notice given my work on Mosque during the (Northern Hemisphere) spring and Moscow during the summer that I aspire to significantly improve one article per season, preferably to featured status. As I noted previously, my work on Moscow did not produce a featured article, but I still feel it resulted in great positive changes. My article of interest for the (Northern Hemisphere) autumn is Babur, which I began working on this month, coming off my semi-wikibreak during late September and early October.

Outside of articles, and the current events portal, I would say I am quite pleased with my contributions to several templates. Mostly notably, I am happy with Template:Infobox Holiday (January 2006), Template:Prophets in the Qur'an (March 2006), Template:Infobox Airliner accident (June 2006), Template:Infobox terrorist attack (July 2006), and Template:Infobox Skyscraper (October 2006), which I worked with during the months provided. I have also contributed several images (mostly to Wikimedia Commons), of which some can be seen on my user page. -- tariqabjotu 01:26, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

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

A: I have, naturally, faced conflict throughout my time at Wikipedia, but I wouldn't really say I have been stressed out by it (after all, I'm still here). My two previous requests for adminship – in March 2006 and May 2006 – were quite interesting as both had a decent level of support, but failed. Most notably, in my second request for adminship, there were allegations from some that I had campaigned for adminship by thanking people for commenting on my first request for adminship, bringing Mosque up to featured status, and requesting comment on my user page, which had been a point of contention in my first request for adminship. Additionally, another editor, without my knowledge, had contacted several users about my ongoing RfA. I responded to these comments made by some, saying my actions were genuine attempts to improve Wikipedia and ensure I had adequately responded to complaints about my user page from my first RfA. There were a few comments regarding my user page in my second RfA, but I feel they have since been adequately rectified and felt little need to open another editor review regarding it. I have, however, put a notice at the top of my user page to indicate that I'm not trying to be divisive in using religious symbols on my page, and also created a page for comments on my user page, although I have yet to receive any.

However, if there is one thing that I especially regret from that last nomination, it was what happened close to the end of the RfA, when I noted where voting had stopped at the intended end time and contacted a few bureaucrats well after the close time. Although I never asked for votes to be discounted, several editors saw these actions as attempts to speedily get the nomination closed for a quick promotion. In 20/20 hindsight, it was clearly a terrible idea to even appear to be "gaming the system" considering there were already accusations of such. However, as I mentioned in my final statement, which I wrote after the conclusion of the RfA, I simply wanted the bureaucrats to be aware of the situation (particularly that on the talk page of the RfA) and hopefully have the unnecessarily heated discussion ended, whether that meant promotion or no promotion. I suppose I could have withdrawn at any time, but I didn't want to "throw in the towel" just because several oppose votes came my way. Nevertheless, as the RfA continued and accusations of gaming the system peaked, I felt the only option was indeed to withdraw as clearly no consensus was going to arise and there was no point in letting the heated discussion continue. Post-RfA, several people commented on the bureaucrat's noticeboard about the comments on my RfA regarding my contacting bureaucrats. You can, of course, read them, but there appeared to be some consensus that it was a legitimate thing to do considering it was so long after the nomination closed, although, like I said, giving off the appearance of "gaming the system" was not a wise idea. I apologize for giving that appearance and I sincerely hope you can recognize my intentions. Regardless, for this RfA, I honestly hope I have done nothing to give off the perception that I am campaigning or gaming the system, as those obviously are unethical tactics. Regardless, I'll file the end of RfA 2 under one of the mistakes from which I have learned.

Since then, I would have to say I encountered the most conflict when editing the Moscow article. One editor kept removing sources and {{fact}} templates from the article whenever I added them. After a bit, I entered a mediation cabal case and suggested a compromise for the situation. The other editor never responded to the case and appeared to lose interest in the Moscow article in general, and so since then I have not had any more problems with him on the Moscow article. As I implied earlier, in question one, there was a conflict at the Mosque article regarding the neutrality and factuality of two parts of the article. After much discussion, the neutrality and factuality issues have been resolved. I've run into a bit of frustration with a couple of editors there, but I believe I have worked out my differences with them to satisfaction.

Also of note may be a move request from September 2006 regarding moving Prime Minister to Prime minister (see Talk:Prime minister). There was one editor in particular who I felt was being incivil toward myself and others, describing the latter option as, among other things, illiterate bullshit. I and several other editors tried to talk to him and reason with him, so he could see the side of those supporting Prime minister over Prime Minister. Unfortunately, our entreaties were largely ignored, but in the end the debate came to a conclusion without causing me to lose my cool myself. -- tariqabjotu 01:26, 10 November 2006 (UTC)