Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/TruthbringerToronto

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

[edit] TruthbringerToronto

Final (9/32/11) ended 18:27, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

TruthbringerToronto (talk · contribs) – A fine Wikipedia editor, who contributes neutral edits Ladodgersss 00:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:

I accept. Thank you. TruthbringerToronto (Talk | contribs) 16:09, 19 August 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, 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: I am particularly interested in speedy deletion patrol and WP:AFD, with the goal of salvaging problem articles that can brought up to an acceptable level and of deleting those that cannot be salvaged. I would also leave warnings (which I already do) and use the block function when necessary.

I am also interested in Wikipedia:Speedy deletion patrol to retrieve articles that should not have been speedily deleted.

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

A: James Browning (Texas politician) It's a stub, but it has an interesting history. It started out as a hoax, and was sent to AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Browning (Texas politician). I thought that the title was too precise to have been created as a hoax (it had been a red link at James Browning, a disambiguation page), so I searched for the name on Texas state government web sites and found the details I needed to start an article. This is probably the best example of salvaging a problem article. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Boston, Ontario is another example of an article which at first seemed to be an instance of vandalism, but turned out to be encyclopedic after all.

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 discussion at AfD involves conflicting views, but it's not terribly stressful as long as everyone is civil and is acting in good faith. If I see deliberately uncivil edit comments [1] , I remain calm and avoid replying in kind. In general, when I see problem behavior, I respond with a "Please don't" message on the user's talk page, both to try to correct the unwanted behavior and to leave a record of the warning, so that the next editor to deal with the problem user can see that there has been previous discussion. And it helps to remember that disagreements at Wikipedia are in general less important than a lot of other problems the world faces.

4. (added by User:W.marsh) Sorry, your answer to Question 1 is a bit vague. Do you specifically intend to close AfDs or other deletion discussions? If so, do you have any thoughts on how you'll approach it?

A: Yes, but I would not close an AfD in which I had participated. The closer's job is to determine whether a consensus exists one way or the other after an appropriate amount of time has elapsed. The closing has to be fair, but it also has to be seen as fair. And if I felt strongly about an AfD, I would comment as a participant rather than closing the discussion.

Comments

• See TruthbringerToronto's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool.

Edit count using Interiot's tool2 (as of 16:26, 19 August 2006 (UTC))

1. AfD can sometimes demonstrate a blind "follow my leader" approach with opinions that do not seem to have looked further than reading the nom. On several occasions AfDs that have been heading for certain deletes have ended up as keeps, because I have researched further, rewritten the article etc. I therefore consider that TruthbringerToronto is performing a valuable function in having the courage and initiative to present a different angle, though I do agree that this needs to be adjusted in line with established protocols. His responses show unorthodox intelligence, not stupidity, but also at the moment a lack of appreciation of the wiles of wiki, such as his good faith in accepting a nom from an inappropriate editor. Tyrenius 19:55, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
2. While I'm not going to comment on TT's intelligence, in life I've found the "contrarianism shows unorthodox intelligence" to be 10% truth and 90% romanticism. Closer to the case at hand, the problem with this request is not so much that TT goes against the grain in deletion process and debates, but that his/her sole interest in admin tools is to further his/her position in that task. That boils down to a request to receive +4 bonus points to further the editor's agenda. Unless this changes and TT branches out into other spheres of Wikipedia (vandal fighting anyone?) I don't see how three months of editing will change my verdict. While I see a lot of good faith in the editor, I also see a rather astounding lack of introspection. (How can you possibly not check the user page of the editor that nominates you for RFA?) ~ trialsanderrors 19:15, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Current tally: (9/32/11)

Support

1. Support This user has saved a number of articles from Afd by virtue of good rewrites. This demonstrates to me a person who honors the integrity of wikipedia in a constructive way. --Xrblsnggt 01:20, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

   Comment-- TruthbringerToronto is doing a good job on rewriting articles. However, he does not need admin tools to do that. There are 16,000 articles in Wikipedia cleanup that need attention. That might be a better place for his efforts than CSD and AfD that bit the dust. His intentions seem to be good but misguided. He needs to better understand our policies and guidelines. Once he has done that, then he can use the tools constructively.

   We have already had too many admins who either did not understand or chose not to follow our policies and guidelines. The havoc they created and the turmoil of their de-sysopping was detrimental to Wikipedia. We do not need any more. With his zeal and lack of understanding, TruthbringerToronto will need to demonstrate that he will not become this sort of admin. His choice of nominator, who has demonstrated a clear lack of understanding, an absurd pushiness to the point of recreating the same unacceptable article more than once, and a willingness to make a point by disrupting RfA does not help in the least. :) Dlohcierekim 10:34, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

2. Strong support, has done much to actually add to this encyclopedia. We need more like him. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:17, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
3. Support TruthbringerToronto has been doing a nice job, AFAIK has always remained civil and I believe will use the admin tools appropriately. Brian 16:35, 19 August 2006 (UTC)btball
4. Support. A lot of people become familiar with the site in 3 months and there have been many cases of users getti ng promoted 3 months after joining. Mostly Rainy 21:24, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
5. Support. DarthVader 23:24, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
6. Support. Stilgar135 03:26, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
7. Support. OK too inclusionist, but there is civility, willingness to discuss and to accept consensus which is what is really needed in an admin. -- RHaworth 07:10, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
8. Support. Doing something worthwhile for wikipedia. ShortJason 02:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

   Well, hopefully we all are. Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 11:08, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

9. Strong Support. Shows a willingness to assist in bringing articles up to meet consensus of notability and non-stubbirooniness, etc. which I greatly appreciate in contrast to editors who are quick to AfD and speedy stubs. We need more editors like this one. His adminship will assist in combating the evil dark lords of deletiopilis. Wjhonson 17:02, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose Service time, microscopic engagement on article talk pages, and a sometimes baffling eagerness to keep the most spurious of articles, with "I've heard of it", "sounds notable" and deliberate misreadings of guidelines ("has three CDs on CDbaby") often taking precedence over policy. Not to mention lack of knowledge of policy ("If the info is true" is not grounds for a keep vote opinion, hoax is not a speedy criterion). (Edited to include: barest of vandalfighting activity, no follow-ups on user talk pages afaics.) ~ trialsanderrors 19:17, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
2. Oppose because I am extremely impressed with this candidate, and in order to make full use of his intelligence and independence of thought, he will need to have a thorough grounding in wikipedia's ways, which he should spend the next 3 months doing. Tyrenius 19:57, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
3. Oppose. Too early. Shows lack of knowledge on guidelines, and policies above (even on WP:CSD). Lack of experience, and only seems to want to work with AfD deletions, when there are many other areas an admin needs to be aware of. Will support in the future, maybe in 3 months. SynergeticMaggot 20:02, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
4. Oppose AfD participation shows an inclination to keep marginal-at-best articles based on marginal reasoning. This is worrisome given that he wants to do deletion-related work. Opabinia regalis 00:42, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
5. Oppose a bit more experience necessary. And there are some articles that just aren't worth saving! Dlyons493 Talk 01:25, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
6. Oppose My strongest oppose to date per Crazy Russian Don't need admin tools to save articles from the fiery pit. And most CSD's are just plain rubbish. That's why they are CSD's. :) Dlohcierekim 01:43, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

   Comment We have plenty of existing articles that need work. Why not try fixing them up? Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 01:45, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

   Comment As the nominator clearly lacks understanding of Wikipedia policies and guidlines this reflects on the nom. No thank you. :) Dlohcierekim 02:32, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

7. Absolutely not! per willingness to keep anything w/o regard to the dictates of policy and per choice of nominator. - CrazyRussian talk/email 02:06, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

   Wow I did not see the nominator. Let the edit warring and wheel warring begin--- NOT! :) Dlohcierekim 02:32, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

   Struck incivil remark w/ apologies to nom and nominator. :) Dlohcierekim 03:14, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

8. Strong Oppose TbT's contributions to AfD arguments have been disruptive at times to some discussions and shows no ability to be open to deletion. Every single encounter I've had with this editor has been baffling in how arguments are formed[2],. His opinions on AfDs are always something that I await to see if he actually looks into the article and realizes that you can't keep everything. Alot of administrative work deals with deletion, it appears that he takes everything he can just to stall it when deletion is fairly obvious. Yanksox 03:48, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
9. Oppose per CrazyRussian's first reason. Viridae^Talk 03:55, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
10. Oppose per above.Strong Oppose per AED and per this. Stubbleboy 12:30, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

    And Stubbleboy's diff here reminds me of something I didn't mention in in my comment, TruthbringerToronto often uses misleading edit summaries. Like the one in that diff says add the newspaper link but really the link is just one of maybe a dozen changes being made. I've also seen (and I'll try to pull up some diffs for this later) things like "adding categories and links" while also removing the CSD or PROD at the same time. Metros232 12:34, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

11. Oppose. As suggested by others, a review of TbT's recent contributions reveals that he/she has a weak understanding of Wiki policy and guidelines, particularly WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:EL. When an article is nominated for deletion on the grounds that is lacks reliable sources, TbT has consistently added items to the External links section presumably in an attempt to "save" the article. Examples over the past 48 hours: [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. -AED 04:45, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
12. Oppose for now, but suggest RfA from a different nominator next time -- Samir धर्म 05:22, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
13. Oppose per CrazyRussian, shows little understanding of process and policies. - Mailer Diablo 06:59, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
14. Oppose - Two months' experience makes me queasy. -→Buchanan-Hermit™/?! 07:18, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
15. Oppose per CrazyRussian, doesn't seem to have a strong enough knowledge of process. RandyWang (^{chat me up}/_{fix me up}) 08:05, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
16. Strong Oppose per Crzrussian, Dylons493 & Buchanan-Hermit. Jorcoga^ETC. 10:09, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
17. Oppose knowledge of policy seems shaky at best. And a nomination by a permabanned sockpuppet doesn't help matters much. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 10:25, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
18. Oppose per very shaky AfD voting (per my own background in AfD discussions, and per Trialsanderrors) and lack of knowledge of policy. -- Kicking222 11:53, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
19. Oppose user often expresses/demonstrates a lack of knowledge of policy. One such policy/guideline is userfication of articles, I've often seen the user copy and paste articles to people's user space, taking away the GFDL history on it. See [11] and [12] along with this discussion between myself and the user User talk:TruthbringerToronto#Userfying biographies. Metros232 12:12, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
20. Oppose, per Crazyrussian. --Terence Ong _{(T | C)} 14:08, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
21. Strong Oppose Editor has demonstrated difficulty in grasping basic Wikipedia policies, including WP:NOT and WP:NPOV. Xoloz 15:57, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
22. Strong Oppose

    User shows no template or html/wiki markup skills

    User has been here 3 months, and seems to new for me

    User was nominated by a sockpuppet account

    User has not participated in a wikiproject

    User does not seem active in the Article review process (GAN, PR, FAC)

    User participates in only one deleltion category

    Other editors seem to be raising concerns about policy knowledge

    User seems to have no vandal fighting experience

    User page suggests a narrow range of intersts.Wikipedia's False Prophet holla at me Improve Me 16:57, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

23. Oppose per trilasanderrors and several others here.--Crossmr 18:07, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
24. Stong Oppose -- only 3 months is enough for me to oppose anyhow --T-rex 18:51, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
25. Oppose: Lifespan here is too short (3½ months). Try again next year. --Slgr@ndson (page - messages - contribs) 19:40, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
26. Oppose per False Prophet. --CFIF ☎ 21:21, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
27. Oppose per above comments. User has a propensity to save just about everything; removing speedy tags from articles that are rather easily determined to be non-notable but not actually doing anything to indicate that notability in the article or any other comments is the wrong way to go about it. Start thinking about doing the research on articles before contesting, removing tags, etc., and consider that editors who have tagged them have probably not done it for fun. Also needs more experience and talk participation. Tony Fox (arf!) 22:18, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
28. Strong Oppose as per Yanksox. Dionyseus 23:03, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
29. Oppose: Per concerns above about keeping everything in spite of policy/guidelines. --AbsolutDan ^(talk) 01:13, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
30. Oppose as per trialsanderrors & Crazyrussian. Pete.Hurd 17:05, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
31. Oppose per above comments. Leibniz 18:06, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
32. Strong oppose per CrazyRussian and False Prophet. 1ne 18:25, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Weak Neutral - leaning on support, but to be honest just a little tentative due to TruthbringerToronto's fairly short time here (3 months). Also salvaging articles does not actually require any additional tools. May change vote upon further comments or answers to additional questions. Thanks - GIen 16:38, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
2. Neutral The answer given to question one reveals a limited interest in using the admin powers. An editor can be 95% as effective with the strategy-as-outlined without the admin powers. Are there other areas of Wikipedia to which you would consider contributing where the presence of an admin would be of benefit to the community?  (aeropagitica)   (talk)  17:05, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
3. Neutral - leaning towards support. His answers to the question above shows a small interest in using admin powers. On top of this, his experience to this project is relatively short (3 months). However, the user is a very good editor and I may support this candidate if more convincing reasons are being presented here in favour of this candidate. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 17:39, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
4. Neutral Great editor, but 3 months is too short for me. --WillMak050389 18:05, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
5. Neutral - great editor but responses don't seem to show need of the +sysop flag -- Tawker 19:57, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
6. Neutral Great editor, but lack of experience. --Nishkid64 00:02, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
7. Neutral First, the user who nominated Truthbringer is a suspected sockpuppet User:Ladodgersss. But that doesn't take TruthbringerToronto contribs which have saved quite a lot of articles. Even he makes mistakes, because he is quite over enthusiastic in saving every article. But he is a great editor, and I'll vote keep in a few months time. --Ageo020 01:13, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

   I think you might have meant "I'll vote support in a few months time" but your brain was stuck in keep/delete mode :) Metros232 12:12, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

8. Neutral The candidate seems to be a good editor, but I would feel better with a bit more experience and a more concise realisation of what he/she would do with the extra buttons. hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 02:14, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
9. Neutral. My experiences interacting with this editor have been generally positive, and although I don't share his inclusionism it doesn't bother me (if anything, I'm troubled by the assertions from trialsanderrors and Alexander about policy on AfD; guidelines like WP:MUSIC are explicitly not binding, Wikipedians can choose to ignore them if they choose, and this we're-not-binding-it's-just-a-suggestion is far stronger than even the usual "fuck process" Cluey view). However, I don't think he has the experience or wiki-fu necessary to be an administrator as yet. I would like to see him as an administrator at some point, however. fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 13:21, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

   For the record, I opposed because of votes "without regard to the dictates of policy" (emphasis added), not guidelines like WP:MUSIC. - CrazyRussian talk/email 20:33, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

   Also for the record, I'm talking about cases like this, where the issue is clearly verifiability, something TT completely ignores in his vote opinion. ~ trialsanderrors 00:34, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

10. Neutral as there's no need to pile on. If this does become close, however, I will switch to oppose per CrazyRussian, Yanksox, Andrew, and Kicking, to name four. Srose (talk) 15:20, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
11. Neutral candidate, while I admire his dedication to inclusionism, simply has not been around as long as I would like to see an candidate also could consider branching out.-- danntm ^T _C 01:18, 21 August 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.