Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Yandman

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

[edit] Yandman

Final (62/8/1); Ended Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:49:13 UTC

Yandman (talk · contribs) - In the half year that Yandman has been with us, he has quickly established himself as an excellent Wikipedian. He is a good article editor, firmly committed to article quality and NPOV. He has amassed an impressive 4000 edits, well balanced across all namespaces. He has participated in a lot of admin-related areas recently, on the admin noticeboards, in dealing with vandalism, and on AfD and similar discussions. Whenever I've seen him around, his contributions have struck me as exemplary of what we need in an admin: sound of judgment, mature in interaction, precise in argumentation, always strongly anchored in Wikipedia policies and principles. I have seen him in controversial AfDs and other hot debates, and every time (even when one might not always have agreed with his opinions) I've found the things he said well reasoned, rational, and beneficiary to a resolution. This guy seems responsible and trustworthy.

Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:49, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I do. yandman 13:22, 23 January 2007 (UTC)


Optional Statement
I've tried to be as honest as I can, if you don't think I (deserve/need/can be trusted with) the mop, please feel free to be verbose in letting me know why (or just tell me which of the errors I mention below is too serious). If you want me to answer your oppositions, be sure to tell me. Oh, and I'd like to thank Fut.Perf for his deeply flattering nomination. yandman 13:22, 23 January 2007 (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 participants:

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: The backlog at CSD can be rather horrendous when our friends from across the Atlantic are still asleep, and I'd like to be able to avoid having to keep re-tagging playground ("Bob Jones smells, cos he has no life", "Ollie is simply the coolest guy at St. James") and blatant spam pages until an admin comes along. The same applies for AIV: reverting linkspammers and serial vandals is a tedious business, so the quicker they're offline, the easier it is for everyone. I participate a lot in AfD's, and think I've got what it takes to close most of the cases slowly fermenting in the backlogs. I also do quite a bit of welcoming and congratulating (if you're a new editor, there's nothing nicer than a "jolly good work, old chap", it helps to know that someone out there has noticed your work), sifting through the red links at RC and seeing if they're "doing good", so I often get requests for uncontroversial things that I then have to pass on to admins. I'm a regular contributor to AN and ANI, and I often see requests for administrative help that go unheeded for too long which I can't do anything about. Basically, I want to save my, and others', time.


2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any with which you are particularly pleased, and why?
A: Well, I have no problem admitting I've been more of a handyman than a builder, my mainspace edits being mainly popup-based, but I've written a few stubs here and there (a film, a dead Hamas leader and a numerical analysis method), I've cleaned many articles up, GA reviewed a few, and I'm quite chuffed over my total rewrite of Day trading. I've helped save more than a few articles from deletion, especially since I discovered how hard it is to write a decent article... I'd like to think I've played a part in bringing quite a few controversial articles up to standard, mainly by acting as a buffer between the various factions involved. This type of contribution is where I spend most of my time: I'm sure you've noticed that my article/user talk page edits are disproportionately high. In my opinion, the only way we can get these types (Religions, Wars, Countries etc) of articles up to the standard is by making sure everyone is in the same team, however long it takes. If a new user finds people from his own "clan" (country, faith, whatever) agreeing with the others, he's much less likely to start brawling.
My main pride and joy is helping keep this project free from advertisers, spammers and the like. I created the "advert" series of templates (for cases that aren't covered by the "spam"s), and I do quite a bit of linktrimming and advert-paragraphs removal.


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: Of course. As long as you stay neutral and civil, avoiding controversial subjects for fear of being disliked by some is a very bad idea. I recently nominated an ex-esperanza page after this discussion at ANI, hoping that the users of the page in question wouldn't see it as an attack on their conception of the wikipedia community (an MfD which stayed remarkably civil, I must say). I've been present in quite a few of the rumpuses between Turks/Armenians/Greeks/Kurds, trying to calm things down, and I've also been watching the GWOT/Israel related articles (a good troll-spawning zone) for quite a while, as well as the Scientology pages. Apart from that, there's the usual death threats and other assorted sillyness from various socktrolls, as well as a fair number of unethical SMB marketing directors that would like to see me hang (my watchlist has far too much red in it). However, I've stayed away from edit warring, and as an admin, I'll have to be even more careful when debating so as not to give the impression that I'm arguing from wiki-authority. If you're looking for skeletons, here's my closet:
  • The first time I came across Wikipedia (before that, I thought h2g2 was the ultimate online reference) was when a good friend told me to look up "Xenu". I was interested, and read through every page on the template, and then started looking at the histories, which is when I came across Terryeo. Fascinated, I looked through the various talk pages, and not being a regular internet user, I thought that sternly telling him what I thought of his way of acting would help things. How innocent of me... I quickly came to realise the best thing was to not feed the troll, and I've stayed civil with other scientologists (and anyone I disagree with).
  • In a dispute I had with a user over some inflammatory userboxes on his userpage (which I originally wanted to blank completely), some editors said they didn't agree with wiki-censorship, so I was bold and pushed a solution wherein he could keep the userboxes as long as he put the "not an article" disclaimer up. An admin came across, and the user in question told him I'd given "permission" to have the userboxes, which put me in a rather awkward position.
  • I sometimes bite promotional article writers, especially when they've recreated their article for the third time, because I think it's hard to assume good faith from someone who is, basically, being paid to break the rules. I've calmed down since I realised that there's a (very slim) chance even they could be coaxed into editing.
  • Being blissfully unaware of "The History", I got slightly annoyed with MONGO at one point, and told him so, because I felt he was being very uncivil with administrators who were less trigger happy than him, but then I saw the ED page, and softened my tone somewhat.
  • This edit was a slight mistake, I thought the policy was slightly more lenient than it is. Images aren't my speciality, and I doubt I'll do much administrative work concerning them, but I've carefully read through the relevant pages so as not to be caught out again. However, I still don't think putting hidden tags into articles is the right way to do things.

Optional question from Diez2 (talk · contribs)

4.Having seen your history with Special:Recent Changes, do you have a history with Special:New Pages?
A.I always considered Special:Newpages to be part of the RC patroller's beat, and I spend a fair bit of time there. However, it's not as overwhelming as the torrent that is RC, and I've noticed that most of the blatantly unacceptable pages I tag are deleted before anyone could possibly have come across them through CSD, which leads me to surmise that it's not the most efficient place for a non-admin to spend his time, at least for the obvious adverts. Now I try to focus more on the borderline cases that an admin in a hurry would overlook.
Where would these borderline cases be? In Special:Recentchanges?
I mean borderline as in the cases where a bit of googling is necessary to find out whether the "assertions of notability" presented are valid or not.

Optional Question(s) from: S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 20:35, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

5.Do you believe it is proper to ask a candidate for RFA their age? Would the age of an RFA candidate affect your decision to vote for them? Should age be at all taken into account when voting for a prospective admin or should the user be judged solely on the quality of their contributions to Wikipedia?
A. No. No. The latter. <cliché> I mean, this guy's a bureaucrat </cliché>.
General comments


Discussion

Support

  1. Beat the nom support. Have seen this candidate around a lot and have no doubts that he is knowleable of policy and sufficiently trustworthy for the mop. WJBscribe -WJB talk- 13:41, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  2. Beat the nom? No, please don't beat me! ... Ah, okay, I'm supposed to list my support here too, am I? Okay, so: support as per my nomination, obviously. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:44, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  3. Support --Majorly (talk) 13:54, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  4. Support - very good responses, especially Q3. Has good experience in the project. Insanephantom (my Editor Review) 14:13, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  5. Support I've seen nothing but good work from this user.--Húsönd 14:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  6. Strong support Smart, civil, with a firm grasp of both policy and community standards. An ideal admin candidate in my opinion. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 14:56, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  7. Support Charming answers, especially the skeletons in cupboard section. This user fills me with confidence that when he makes mistakes, he'll clear 'em up with humility and not repeat them. --Dweller 15:13, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  8. Support for many, many reasons. A shoo-in. Guy (Help!) 15:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  9. Support Admire the openness of the candidate. Seems, above all, approachable. Bubba hotep 15:21, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  10. Support Looks good with constructive edits in all of the main areas. (aeropagitica) 15:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  11. Support. Seems reasonable, don't see why not. Coemgenus 15:49, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  12. Support - Comes across as a reasonable person — Lost(talk) 16:01, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  13. Support good contribution and good answers to the questions. PeaceNT 16:08, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  14. Support definitely trustworthy. I like the answers. ← ANAS Talk? 16:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  15. Support. Has my trust. - Tragic Baboon (banana receptacle) 16:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  16. Support as a very constructive editor, and seems very trustworthy. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  17. Support - an excellent candidate for the mop... Addhoc 17:06, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  18. Support. Good answers, the right attitude, and a solid track record. No worries at all. Angus McLellan (Talk) 17:09, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  19. Support Solid contributor. --A.Garnet 19:01, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  20. Support per above :). Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 20:17, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  21. I'm Mailer Diablo and I approve this message! - 20:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  22. Sure. Kusma (討論) 21:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  23. Support per above --HIZKIAH (User • Talk) 22:04, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  24. Support. Michael 22:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  25. I looked at some of the AfDs were a part of or nominated. If you can keep a cool head in THOSE crazy ones (The kurdish one looked insane from the third I read), then there's no way you'll be a problem. Support. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wizardman (talk • contribs) ([1])
  26. Heh, I loved the honesty in your answers --Veesicle (Talk) (Contribs) 23:29, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  27. Yandman's not an admin? S.D. ¿п? § 00:21, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  28. Support Well balanced edits, nice answers...best of luck. Ganfon 00:28, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  29. Support Mature and trustworthy attitude; willing to admit it when he makes mistakes. Raymond Arritt 04:16, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  30. Support - Solid set of contributions to contentious articles and AFDs, great de-spammer, and of course the recent de-assification of Day trading Kuru talk 04:53, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  31. Support - Fine user--SUIT42 05:53, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  32. Support. Proto::► 10:54, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  33. Support. A solid contributor. Shimeru 11:05, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  34. Terence Ong 16:13, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  35. Support - decent user, adminship not a huge deal, will not abuse or misuse the tools. Slightly unreasonable opposes:) Moreschi Deletion! 16:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  36. Support good editor. Anger22 (Talk 2 22) 17:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  37. Support: Yeah, Good contributor.--♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ Walkie-talkie 18:02, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  38. Support this well balanced and trustworthy contributor. Yamaguchi先生 23:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  39. Support based on who's doing the opposition, I cant help but support.  ALKIVAR™ ☢ 00:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  40. Support per above. Alex43223 Talk | Contribs | E-mail | C 01:47, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  41. Support. RyanGerbil10(Упражнение В!) 03:59, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  42. Support looks like a good user.-- danntm T C 04:42, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  43. Weak support Good editor, cool head. Would have liked to see a bit more experience but he should do fine and is unlikely to abuse the tools imho. Pascal.Tesson 15:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  44. Support fairly weak based on the userbox mistake and Sir Nick's concern, but I like what I've seen myself. Eluchil404 16:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  45. Support Actually thought he was an admin. Has comported himself whenever we've crossed paths. | Mr. Darcy talk 04:36, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
  46. Support: He may be a bit unexperienced in some fields (and I ask him to hold back on that ones until there's enough experience) but more than 300 deleted edits and over 1100 edits on user talk pages (in the first 5.5 months on wikipedia) are a clear sign he'll be a good admin when it comes to cleaning up vandalism. --32X 13:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
  47. Weak Support because of your answers to question three, especially the userbox problem you had. However, this wasn't yesterday, so I won't oppose. | AndonicO Talk · Sign Here 13:49, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
  48. Support This guy is a big fan of neutrality. -- Szvest - Wiki me up ® 13:51, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
  49. Support per nom. --Siva1979Talk to me 04:07, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
  50. Strong Support per watching him in action. We have been through hell and back together, and I know that he will be a good admin. He is a great editor, vandal fighter, and stays cool when things get hot. He keeps everything he does grounded in policy, and never Wikilawyers policies; meaning that he never goes against the spirit of a policy when there isn't a good reason to. I was also involved in the Cerebral Warrior dispute, and though he did make some mistakes with it, which is understandable because we were defining where to draw the line between what is suppression of freedom of speech and what is necessary censorship, which is a very fine line to walk, but he obviously recognizes those mistakes and has learned from them. He is a great, mature Wikipedian, he could really use the tools, and he will use them well. -- The Hybrid 02:36, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
  51. Support --mikedk9109SIGN 04:34, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
  52. Support. I have an overwhelming feeling of not caring, which inclines me to support, and seeing the "quality" of the opposition inclines me to support him quite strongly. I like admins that interpret policy fairly narrowly. It's the ones who "interpret" it exactly as they please that are the problem round here. Grace Note 05:36, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
  53. Support. Those who have opposed thus far have failed to provide any substantial reason for doing so, and I would not be surprised if they were discounted as a result. Silensor 05:43, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
  54. Support - good interactions with user. MER-C 08:02, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
  55. Strong Support. Level-headed and conscientious. Always has a good grasp of the spirt of a policy, and in all my interactions with him has seemed to make the wisest possible decision. Hell yes. --Tractorkingsfan 10:12, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
  56. Support. Nice, civil contributor with a good knowledge of policy.--Yannismarou 18:03, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
  57. Support a good candidate --Steve (Slf67) talk 03:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
  58. Support. My first hand experience with Yandman leads me to believe there is little to no chance for abuse. Definitely a candidate who will be beneficial to the project if given the tools of adminship. auburnpilot talk 03:18, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
  59. Support. The candidate has shown experience in dealing with admin-type problems. YechielMan 03:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
  60. Support. -- DS1953 talk 03:30, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
  61. Support as unlikely to abuse or misuse (even avolitionally) the tools, such that one can conclude with a high degree of confidence that the net effect on the project of his be(com)ing an admin should be positive. Joe 07:47, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
  62. Nick of time support --Newport 13:35, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Strong Oppose - Disagree with too many of his opinions that I feel are narrow interpretations of policy. --ElaragirlTalk|Count 10:14, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  2. Elaragirl stole the words from my mouth; I have been a witness to some comments that might look like "policy-wonking". However, I like this user very much. — Nearly Headless Nick 11:55, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
    Diffs? - Tragic Baboon (banana receptacle) 14:48, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  3. Oppose - On the grounds of one of the answers to question 3. After wanting "to blank completely" someone's userboxes, on their userpage, simply because he didn't like them, he "pushed a solution wherein he could keep the userboxes as long as he put the "not an article" disclaimer up" ........ Too patronising. No no no. - Gardener of Geda | Message Me.... 16:37, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  4. Weak Oppose per Nearly Headless Nick, Gardener of Geda, and Elaragirl. S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 20:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  5. Strong Oppose per Nick Geo. 21:39, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
    Diffs? Anybody? What's going on? - Tragic Baboon (banana receptacle) 22:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
    Not sure I'd oppose for this, but this edit raised my eyebrows a bit. I thought Osama bin Laden was a self-proclaimed jihadist. S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 00:25, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
    I believe "jihadist" has certain "freedom fighter" connotations, so in the same way that I (and others) have strived to remove the T word from the intro, I thought this was inappropriate. "Militant islamist" is the most beautifully neutral expression I've ever seen, and I don't think it needs more precisions, at least in the intro. yandman 08:02, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  6. Weak Oppose per the userbox issue and Alkavar's comment. Just H 01:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
    I think there's been a misunderstanding concerning the userboxes. My error was in not requesting their removal. Being, at the time, a bit wet behind the ears, I should have taken the matter to ANI immediately, and asked for the opinion of the "the community". I let my love for free speech overrule wikipedia policy, which is that userpages stating "muslims kill people" are unacceptable. That, as I see it, was my mistake. Several admins later removed the offensive material from the page. Apologies if I didn't make this clear in the original answer. yandman 08:02, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
    Just H: That is pretty unfair. Alkivar's comment is in no way connected with yandman. — Nearly Headless Nick 11:03, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
    Unfair or not,Alkivar is also completely out of line. Votes like that have moved me to strong oppose.--ElaragirlTalk|Count 11:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
    This is an RfA and is not supposed to be a vote. If I "voted" on the lines of ILIKETHISUSERSOYAY! I would have definitely supported him. He is here for fair criticism as well, and has shown a great willingness to improve upon himself. Give him a chance. — Nearly Headless Nick 11:59, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
    Elara, please forgive me if you feel pestered, but I can guarantee I have had no contact with Alkivar (or any other editor) regarding this RfA, be it on or off wiki, so I don't see why their comments would change your assessment of my capabilities regarding administrative duties. yandman 14:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
    Yes, Alkivar is way out of line but Elaragirl's move to strong oppose is even more spectacularly lame. How does Alkivar's personal attack affect Yandman's capacities as a potential admin? Pascal.Tesson 14:59, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
    Nick and Pascal, you're right. Yandman, I apologize, two wrongs don't make a right and this rfa is about you, not Elaragirl or Alkivar. I'll cross out that part, but i'm still on a weak oppose due to the userbox answer to the question. Just H 15:09, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
    Okay, let me address this whole userbox issue. Apparently it involves this user Cerebral Warrior who was in conflict with several other users including yandman himself. It seems that Cerebral Warrior has made disparaging comments about Muslims off userspace, and has made various personal attacks toward other users. Hateful userboxes/messages were contained within Cerebral Warrior's userpage, which resulted a heated debate on weather CW could or could not have them. This whole issue has gone straight to the administrator’s notice board found here, and eventually resulted in a admin removing the content and protecting the page. You can find his old userpage here. You can compare it to the new version here. Take a minute to review the history of that page. Should hateful speech be deleted off of userpages? Well maybe it would be best to discuss that issue on WP:USER. Did Yandman and others do the right thing, asking CW polietly to remove it, or put up a disclaimer after CW made poignant attacks againts Muslims and other users? I beleive they did. From my perspective, the issue was settled constructively RiseRobotRise 08:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
  7. Oppose per the answer to Question 3. I have a good feeling about this candidate, generally, and I admire a willingness to admit one's errors. However, some of those issues of contention/mistakes were quite recent. I think the candidate would benefit greatly from another two months learning prior to mophood. Xoloz 10:57, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  8. Oppose. Still possibly a bit inexperienced. Maybe later. --- RockMFR 07:24, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Neutral

  1. Not a bad user, but I'm concerned about length of time he's been on the project and the lack of a user page. I've come accross him before (though I don't recall where) and all I recall is that my opinon was that he seemed good but inexpereinced. I'm sure if and when he becomes an admin he'll be a good one. I wouldn't promote him yet, but I wouldn't stand against it either. --Robdurbar 14:26, 25 January 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.