Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Thames

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

[edit] thames

Vote here (26/3/1) ending 15:30 20 October 2005 (UTC)

thames (talk · contribs) – I've found Thames to be a very level-headed editor, I don't think he's ever been in a serious conflict despite the fact that he specializes in political philosophy articles that attract a lot of dispute. Take a look at his contribs, and you will find plenty of "rvv"s- articles on his watchlist apparently attract a lot of POV-pushing vandals and I think Thames will find it easier to deal with them once he has the tools. Those suffering from editcountitis will be glad to hear that he has passed the 3000 edit mark recently. While most of his edits are in article space, a quick look at his user page will show that he has a firm grasp of wikipedia policies and philosophy (note the essay at the bottom). Borisblue 15:30, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept Borisblue's nomination.

Support

  1. Borisblue 15:33, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
  2. Support plenty of edits, and satisfactory answers. freestylefrappe 16:56, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
  3. Support. KHM03 17:02, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
  4. Support. Good user. --Bjarki 20:23, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
  5. Merovingian (t) (c) (e) 21:16, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
  6. Support. El_C 22:13, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
  7. Support. If he doesn't have time to use his powers, will it really do any harm? The candidate's amount of time available to spend on Wikipedia in the future shouldn't be a primary consideration in granting or withholding admin powers.--Scimitar parley 22:31, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
  8. Support CambridgeBayWeather 22:41, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
  9. Support Private Butcher 00:00, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
  10. Support, good user, reasons for opposition so far are weak at best. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:29, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
  11. Support I simply had to oppose those who oppose on grounds of the user's lack of time. This is, in my opinion, one of the very worst reasons I see for opposing adminship. It does not mean that the project would not benefit from a user having sysop access nor does it imply that one is at all untrustworthy, uncivil, or not knowledegble about policy (although it may mean that these things take longer to show.) Y0u (Y0ur talk page) (Y0ur contributions) 00:53, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
  12. Support A part time, trustworthy admin is worth having --Rogerd 02:36, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
  13. I actually like the honesty of admitting not having much time. Why is it that worse than people claiming that will fix everytihng on wikipedia even if they won't? -- (drini's page|☎) 05:34, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
  14. Support - Lot of dedication in vandal fighting -- Obradović Goran (talk 09:30, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
  15. Support - Harmless. And many an intention to concentrate on school in favor of Wikipedia has gone awry ;) Haukur Þorgeirsson 00:03, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
  16. Support user's on statements regarding lack of time show levelheadedness and honesty... passes my bar.  ALKIVAR™ 10:51, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
  17. Support deserves the recognition. Dlyons493 Talk 16:29, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
  18. Support - I don't see how not having a lot of time to do stuff means that you should not get admin tools - having lots of people fixing stuff now and again is surely healthier than having a few obsessives working flat out. A solid editor by all accounts. Lupin|talk|popups 03:09, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
  19. I think it's refreshing when a potential admin admits that he won't be on the Wikipedia 24/7. People who use that against him trouble me. Hot support. Mike H (Talking is hot) 08:51, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
  20. Andre (talk) 20:49, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  21. Support good admins are always useful, even if they don't edit all that often.  Grue  21:15, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
  22. Support He can have the mop, even if he doesn't use it much. -DDerby-(talk) 04:39, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
  23. Support. Opposing due to warning that he won't be an active admin is new to me. There are several very good contributors here who have admin tools but don't use them much, Camembert is one I can think of off the top of my head. The good work and experience is enough for me to support, even though I haven't interacted with Thames much, just reviewed his contributions. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:48, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
  24. Support per Scimitar. the wub "?!" 16:29, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
  25. Support --MONGO 03:00, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
  26. Support. Inactivity shouldn't be a problem. Ral315 WS 07:26, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
  27. Support. I don't understand the insufficient activity concerns. If an editor is suitable for the tools, give them the tools. Another admin doing janitorial work once in a while is better than none at all, right? Friday (talk) 02:29, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
  28. Support The Minister of War 10:02, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
  29. Support, with full trust that the admin tools would be in good hands. Hall Monitor 17:36, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Oppose (reluctantly): The answer to question 1 below is curious. You want to be an admin (you accepted the nom), but doubt you'll have time to do admin things? Why do you need the tools then? The things you say you'd like to spend time on do not need admin tools. Use of edit summaries is a touch lower than I like to see (59% overall, 76% over last 500 edits), and activity level is a bit lower than I like to see (7 edits a day over last 90 days, and that average has been slowly but steadily dropping for the last six months). Your intention of beginning a PhD program means this average will drop further. Also, I am a bit concerned about possible overuse on your part of the {{fairuse}} tag on various images that you have uploaded. About 1/4 of the images you've uploaded have been tagged with this tag, which really shouldn't be used if possible. Lastly, 352 of your last 500 edits have been marked as minor. Are you perhaps over-using the minor edit box? This edit and this edit, for example, do not seem minor to me (but I readily admit this is subjective). Convince me as to why you need/want admin tools when you won't be using them, and I'll probably change my vote. All the best, --Durin 18:02, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
    I nommed him because I noticed he does deal with a lot of vandalism despite not being an active rc-patroller- this is due to the nature of the articles he is interested in. And stuff about being busy- well, I would think that it's more important to be sure our admins don't abuse their powers rather than be sure that they do use them. There was an interesting discussion pertaining this in here. Note in particular that last comment by dab.Borisblue 18:26, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
    I appreciate your comments, as nominator, but I'm hoping for an answer from the nominee. In particular, he says "If I had the time, I would likely involve myself in this project: Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles". So he doesn't have time, but wants the admin tools? This doesn't make sense, to me anyways. --Durin 18:57, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
    Durin, you raise several relevant points. I wanted to make very clear that I was nominated—I didn't request the nomination myself, the reason being that I did not feel that I could find the time to perform regular maintenance tasks. That's something that everyone considering this nomination should weigh. As for your other concerns, a good portion of my edits without summaries are done to my own user page, which is the only page I edit without summarizing (perhaps I should start, but I never thought my own user page was a big deal). I also did make clear that my ability to contribute is limited by my real world activities (job, PhD), although one cannot go simply by number of edits alone—some are quite minor, like reverts, others are rather larger, like some of my recent edits to Isaac Newton, wherein I used the preview button in order to limit the number of edits I made. I only upload images when an article I'm editing needs one, and in many cases a public domain image does not exist. I am conscientious about tagging all of my images, and have been from day one. I am not indifferent, however, to the free nature of wikipedia, and my use of fair use images is not indiscriminate. Finally, you are correct that some of my edits are tagged as minor when they shouldn't be—I have the "This is a minor edit" box checked automatically in my preferences, and sometimes, when editing in haste, I forget to uncheck it. I don't mark edits as minor in some sort of attempt to obfuscate my changes from other wikipedians. Finally, I certainly don't need admin tools, but if approved to have them, I believe I could use them prudently when needed. Yours, —thames 20:32, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
  2. Oppose. User admits to not having the time to do admin chores. Also, with the projects that he/she wants to be involved in, no admin powers are needed. User is a good editor, though. I will support when he/she is "ready". Oran e (t) (c) (@) 22:09, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
  3. Oppose WHats the point of having admin powers if you don't have the time. And if you did't want to be nominated you could have just declined. JobE6 Image:Peru flag large.png 23:39, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Neutral

  1. Remaining neutral - this is a good user who could benefit from having admin abilities, however openly admits to not having the time to actually do admin things. -- Francs2000 22:40, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Comments

  1. I would like to quote dab in a recent wikipedia talk comment, since he has wise advice that deals with admins that can't commit that much time to Wikipedia. Context is found here: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_29#Do_we_need_more_admins.3F Borisblue 18:35, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
    I notice there are a lot of nominations lately. Having enough admins is good, because it lets us be picky about candidates. If there is some doubt, or if they do not clearly have enough experience, vote oppose. However, if the candidate is obviously good, there is no reason not to vote for them. Note that not all admins spend all day fixing things. I'm one, and I don't feel obliged to clean up after WoW when I prefer to spend my time adding content (I'm not paid for this after all) So, while I make occasional good use of my admin powers, blocking the odd vandal here or deleting some nonsense there, I am not a dedicated member of the mopping-up squad. Now, 5,000 good editors doing the occasional admin work are at least as good as 50 full-time admins. Bottom line, be picky, but keep nominating trusted users! dab (ᛏ) 21:25, 6 September 2005 (UTC) (quote by Borisblue)
    The number of pages and articles per admin has been steady over the last month, as has the # of edits per day per admin. I don't see any reason to be less picky about who we select. I personally like to see active admins. I always have. That does not cast any judgement on the worthiness of an editor. --Durin 18:57, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
  2. Since I'm not familiar with the candidate, no vote, just a comment: what does it matter if he won't have much time to do admin chores? It's not as though promoting him takes up a place someone who has more time might get; there's no limit. If he also does a little, that a little less work everyone else has to do. I don't believe there's any reason to deny a trustworthy editor admin rights. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 04:10, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
  3. Getting somewhat ahead of yourself, aren't you? jguk 16:52, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
    Hehe, I like to think positive. If it doesn't work out, it can easily be changed. —thames 22:52, 16 October 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 read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.)
A. Unfortunately, this is an area where I may not be able to shine as an administrator. My real world job, and the fact that I'm going to be applying to PhD programs in the next month or two, will mean that I will have very little time to perform regular maintenance, or assist in various projects. My own watchlist is rather small (about 500 articles), and I'm mostly concerned with defending article quality there. If I had the time, I would likely involve myself in this project: Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles. (In real life, I was able to go to the DC Wikipedian's meetup, which I very much enjoyed, and was able to advise on the founding of the U.S. Chapter of Wikimedia.) But as far as chores, I just don't have the time right now, and that's worth considering as you vote on my nomination.
2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
A. I've been a regular participant in the Wikipedia Collaborations of the Week, which I think is a very important community institution. I also helped to create the Wikipedia:Collaborations overview page, in order to assist others in setting up more collaborations. In the real world, I'm a research assistant in a think tank, so a large number of my contributions come out of my reading: either news stories on current events, or history books. Some of my most contentitious editing has been in various templates (Template:Christianity, Template:Islam, Template:Communism) where I've consistently tried to fight bloat and enforce talk page consensus. I've also worked on NPOV issues, such as the Rendition page, which I created, and on Neoconservatism (Japan), which I also created. Some of my larger and longer contributions are Geopolitik, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Oswald Spengler, and Decline of the West—all of which are still works in progress.
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've had one instance of copyvio, which I disputed because I didn't think that corporate bios were copyrighted (see my talk page). Outside of that, I've not had any particular transgressions. As I said above, most of my editing conflicts were in trying to enforce talk page consensus and anti-bloat measures on templates. I had a bit of a tiff over whether the dissolution of the Soviet Union counted as Decolonization, where, again, I relented. I defended Neoconservatism (Japan) from VFD, where I cited enough sources that those opposed to my article relented. I defended Chickenhawk (politics) from User:Walabio's very POV assertions. Other than those relatively minor incidents, I've not really had any full-out conflicts with other users, something I'm particularly proud of. Generally, if you approach others with respect, cite your sources calmly, and let other Wikipedians know that you enjoy editing with them, most conflicts can be avoided before they have a chance to begin.


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.