Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Leotolstoy

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User:Leotolstoy
Category:       3
Image talk:     10
Image:  4
Mainspace       212
Talk:   55
User talk:      5
User:   26
Wikipedia talk: 1
Wikipedia:      9
avg edits per article   3.42
earliest        17:25, 17 July 2006
number of unique articles       95
total   325

Leotolstoy's editcount summary stats as of 17:57, November 6th 2006, using Interiot's wannabe Kate's tool. (aeropagitica) 18:08, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WTF

It is not surprising to see that this request did not make it. But I am seriously concerned about the way things went.

  • Please dont discourage people from applying for adminships. Within hours of my post I got a bunch of posts asking me to withdraw. I dont know why people did that.
  • I dont know why number of posts should be taken as a measure of contribution. 300+ posts are good enough to test if a person can perform well/badly as a admin.
  • If for some reason (maybe too many applications) you want to give adminship to only people > n votes make it a rule. Dont reject people after applying.
  • For some reason voting was closed within 2 days (actually little more than a day) of application. I dont know why that happened!!


I am a great fan of wikipedia. I will continue contribute to it in my own way. But such behavior raises questions about effectiveness of this whole idea. I know you people have contributed heavily to this project. But if you really care about making this a complete success then abstain from making such mistakes. Leotolstoy 01:10, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello Leo. I'm sorry that you you feel unhappy with the RfA process in your case. I guess I can understand why. However, if you can, try and think of the suggestions you withdraw in the way (i'm sure) they were meant: to stop the RfA turning into a very disheartening large "oppose" tally. I'm sure that the closing 'crat considered very carefully whether there was any reasonable chance of success before closing early. Nevertheless, I completely understand that it is disheartening but would really encourage you to please don't let it stop you from contributing and trying again. If you take the comments on board and adress them, i'm sure a future RfA will be much more rewarding. Good luck! Rockpocket 02:29, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Hi Rock. Give me valid arguments against the points I have made. Leotolstoy 02:57, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Hi Leo. I'm not sure I can other than to say that the theory behind it is a kind of "mercy rule" and thus is done with the best intentions (though onely being an interested bystander here, I should say I had no input in closing your AfD at all). Certainly your points 1, 3 and 4 would seem to suggest the process we use to close early may offend some nominees - which surely is not something we would like to happen. Perhaps I could turn the question around an inquire what you would have preferred to happen when it was pretty clear a RfA left open would turn into a large oppose consensus? Would you prefer to leave it open just to accumulate more opposes? Anyway, see here for an explanation of the reasoning behind early closing. The closing editor was User:Steel359. Do feel free to contact him directly if you would like to enquire further.
As for your point 2, well some editors agree with you, some don't. Wikipedia works on consensus, thus individuals are allowed to have their own opinion. My personal opinion is that the number of posts are clearly a measure of quantity (though not quality), and it seems reasonable to assume that editing quantity plays a significant role in accumulating experience (which is seen as a good thing for an admin - "lack of experience" was the basis for many of the opposes). Thus I see edit count as a factor, though not an over-riding one. As you can see here, rightly or wrongly, the consensus clearly favours edit count as a positive factor. Here is a sample of individual editor's feelings on the subject.
These are not arguments, of course, simply an attempt at justifications. I hope its helped. Rockpocket 08:40, 8 November 2006 (UTC)