Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/R

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Edit count and usage etc. of R, run at Wed Jul 4 04:14:17 2007 GMT

Edit count

[edit] A bot request

Hi. Can somebody please add the link below to the RfA? I can't do it, presumably since this RfA was speedy deleted in the past and I can't handle that. Thanks!

  • See R's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool. For the edit count, see the talk page.


Mathbot 03:30, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


[edit] To all the "article writing" opposes

One of the most common opposes in my RFA’s has been my lack of article writing. And obviously, it’s still an oppose reason. Hoping that some of the opposers will understand, I’m going to tell you why I have a lack of article writing. First of all, I didn’t have the time to write articles. Now it's summer, though, and I more time. Like everyone else, I have other things to do. Secondly, though I could definitely find someone to copyedit it, my writing ability is probably not up to par with that of an encyclopedia. I’m an above average writer for ‘’my age,’’ but I doubt that’s close to an adult’s writing skill. And thirdly, and most importantly, ‘’I just don’t like writing for fun’’. My English teachers make me do it enough, and I’m pretty sure a lot of you didn’t like to either when you were a teen. Do I like helping Wikipedia? Yes. Do I feel like writing articles? No. Wikipedia is something you and I volunteer for. I don’t have to write articles if I don’t want to. In fact, I don’t even have to contribute. I decided that I wanted to contribute here, and I don’t think I should be opposed simply because I don’t like writing in my free time. You may contribute by writing, I may contribute by reverting the vandals. There’s no reason related to article writing that I shouldn’t be also blocking the vandals. Think what would happen if we only had writers. Vandalism would be everywhere, and it would stay. There’s a lot more to do here than just write. There are plenty of amazing admins who don’t do any writing. I hope this will change your mind, because my lack of article writing will probably not change for a long time. R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 01:48, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

To R, I say that "never" is a long time over which to make promises. Don't be so sure that as you develop your skills and interests as you grow older, you'll never want to write for Wikipedia or find a topic you'd enjoy writing about. I didn't enjoy writing when I was "your age," either, but it later became something I did enjoy and still do. One should never say "never."
In the meantime, though, I agree that there is a place for editors whose focus is on vandal-fighting or on technical aspects to volunteer their efforts and in due course to become admins. If I decide to spend an hour of my wikilife dealing with a complicated situation on ANI, or opening an arbitration case, or writing a page, it is reassuring to me to know that there is a group of other admins whose focus is on fighting off the vandals so that I might have one less chore to deal with in the course of the hour.
We need admins with a variety of talents and backgrounds and interests and intended uses for the tools, and we need admins who recognize what administrator tasks they are most qualified to perform, and who know when to act on their own and when to consult. By twice nominating him for adminship, I've stated that I trust R in these regards. I hope he gets the change to show that my trust was well-placed. Newyorkbrad 02:05, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks R for your honesty and openness. RfA is mainly about trust, and it's the worst thing in the world to feel the need to oppose a good person (for I know you are certainly that) who wishes adminship; nevertheless my (probably very conservative, and not previously written down anywhere) criteria for support in RfA include experience in writing articles. This is because writing is our core activity here, or should be, and I feel it might be hard for you in the absence of that to properly evaluate the complex passions that arise in disputes here when they are often mainly about what different people have written. Nevertheless I promise to re-review your contributions and answers with a view to supporting if I can. Thanks again for contacting me. --John 02:51, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
For the most part I echo John's sentiment. I'd like to add the following: one important thing to keep in mind is that most contributors to Wikipedia are article writers and deal only superficially with the underlying administration of the project. I believe that it's crucially important for an admin to have experience in article writing so that they can understand the motivations, frustrations, conflicts, ambitions, etc, of these editors. Without it, I doubt that one can efficiently manage the interaction with other users. By the same token, your self-admitted limited writing skills will turn into a severe handicap once you are faced with editors questioning your actions. Pascal.Tesson 05:42, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Pascal, what do you mean. If someone questions me, how is my writing going to be a handicap? R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 05:58, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Your writing skills will be a handicap because you cannot communicate your rationale efficiently. It will be important for you to be able to explain a block or a deletion in clear, concise, convincing fashion. While people on talk pages or people from the SLG might show patience and will forgive the occasional poorly phrased sentence, I'm afraid many of the users you'll be dealing with as an admin will not. Without proper communication skills you'll run into a heap of problems. Pascal.Tesson 10:02, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
R, I understand what you are talking about completely. I only just turned 12 3 months back, but I enjoy article writing, so much so that I have written 70. Article writing is fun R. It gives satisfaction, that of which is of a much higher degree than fighting vandalism. Perhaps you should give it a try, just once. It doesnt have to be a long article, just maybe try and attain start class and see how you like it. It may be something that you enjoy. Then this problem would be cleared up, and you would probably get a sense of satisfaction about your writting of an article. I urge you to consider actually combatting the problem, instead of explaining it. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 06:47, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Why did you come to Wikipedia then? Matthew 07:36, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Thats directed at R right? -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 07:48, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. Matthew 08:11, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
I came to help Wikipedia because its mission is a good one, and I'd like to help out with it. Once again, writing is not the only thing you can do here. R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 15:05, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
We have thousands of good contributors who appreciate what Wikipedia is and donate their efforts in their own way but don't actively participate in the writing. We all appreciate the article contributors who create the encyclopedia: they are the essence of the encyclopedia and are entitled to a certain pride of place; my own fondest contributions to Wikipedia are found in the pages I've created, and I have plans for many more. But not everyone has the same talents and interests, and it's a good thing, too. I happen to agree with Anonymous Dissident that writing is an enjoyable way to spend one's wikitime; often when I see an administrator or technical-side editor showing signs of burnout, I will say to him or her, why don't you take some time away from that stuff and rediscover the essence of wiki by writing a page. But not everyone is going to thrive on doing that, and I deprecate the view that the editors who work to maintain the site but don't themselves draft the articles have no reason to be here. Newyorkbrad 15:58, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I've been following this RfA, even though I haven't participated and probably won't put any formal support/oppose/neutral on it. I just wanted to mention that even if you (R, not Brad) don't feel comfortable writing articles from scratch, you might consider adding a sentence here, a paragraph there. Even small additions of content help the project, and learning more about the article creation and development process will make you a better editor and administrator. Furthermore, it may give you a better understanding of how more subtle problems (i.e. not obvious vandalism) can affect articles: problems with not maintaining a neutral point of view, or the addition of unsourced, suspicious or downright false information, for example. Some more involvement in articles would also help your writing skills, both here in Wikipedia and in real life. Regardless of how this RfA turns out, I hope that you will consider broadening your participation in the article space, even just a little bit. --Kyoko 16:06, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
I concur that it takes many things to make Wikipedia run. Obviously, first and foremost is writing articles. However, I'm not much of a writer, so, like many others, I help out in whatever ways I can. For me (and many others) I primarily do damage control: looking at new pages, trimming out the stuff we can't use, etc. We should not expect every editor to be good at every thing or contribute in every area. I've done almost nothing with images at all, for example, but that's OK because I know there are other people who do. So basically I'm just agreeing that being a good writer doesn't mean one will or won't be a good admin, and being a good admin doesn't imply that one is or isn't good at writing articles. Friday (talk) 16:13, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I don't mean to offend, but I must admit that I find this entire debate somewhat ridiculous - article writing is not so critical. To summarize my long argument:
  1. It is reasonable to say that Wikipedia always accepts and appreciates contributors who carry out useful tasks for the encyclopedia.
  2. It is reasonable to say that R is carrying out useful tasks for the encyclopedia.
  3. It is reasonable to say that useful tasks for the encyclopedia are not only article writing.
  4. It is reasonable to say that the mop is not specifically useful for article writing.
  5. It is reasonable to assume that R has the trust of the community to use the admin tools responsibly and productively.
Given the above, it should be reasonable to say that R should be given a fair shot at the mop. It seems ridiculous that one might support a less qualified candidate for adminship because they have written articles, while R's extensive expertise is ignored because he is not a good writer. If he is trusted to be sane, I don't see what the problem is. Lack of article writing in and of itself doesn't seem to be a very strong argument for opposing a candidate, especially one who notes that their primary use for the tools will be in areas in which they have already demonstrated appreciable competence. I also leave an open offer to help or otherwise be of service to R if he has any doubts about any use of an admin tool - not that there aren't many other admins who can be consulted to confirm the validity of an action given certain reasons on IRC and on WP:AN. I, having only become an administrator recently (later May) have used these resources to help me if I was at all unsure of an administrative action which I was about to perform. I'm sincerely hoping that this RfA succeeds - I'm confident that R will do a good job. Nihiltres(t.l) 16:30, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Nihiltres, you've said it perfectly, and the list of reasonable things are exactly right. R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 16:59, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
I beg to differ to your comment about who people tend to support. Mostly, people who have shown administrative capabiloities are supported. R's case is unique, because he what one might call a "pure" administrative type, something that is both, paradoxically, something that is very good and very bad in an administrator. Once again R, I ask you to consider what we are actually here for: to build an encylopedia. Sure mantenience is a noble task, but it is emphemeral, because a vandal can just come along and ruin it. Article writing, writin a truly good article - thats forever. Thats actually building the construction site, instead of repairing what is already there. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 05:51, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
This isn't addressed to anyone in particular, but please remember:
1. People are free to support, oppose, or remain neutral based on whatever they deem important.
2. I feel that it is specious reasoning to assume that vandal fighters cannot write articles, or that article writers never combat vandalism. Many people, maybe even most, do a mix of both.
Both article writing and maintenance tasks are necessary for the well-being of Wikipedia. I think that RfA participants choose their position based on the relative priority they put on content creation vs. maintenance, but I doubt that there are many who don't see the value of both. --Kyoko 06:10, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
R - to reiterate - you need to more mainspace work, whether it is starting new articles or improving old ones. Excuses wont help, you need to fix the problem —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anonymous Dissident (talk • contribs)

<RI>R came to my page to "plead his case" not necessarily to change my vote, but to explain himself. I thought about it for a bit and wrote my response. Ignoring my thoughts about his being a Yankees fan, and after re-reading what has been subsequently written in his RfA, I wanted to make a few comments.

  1. Not having time to edit is a bad excuse. There are editors on here who find an hour here or there to edit articles. I'm very busy in life, but in between phone calls, emails, synagogue, children, girlfriend, parties, antique-shopping, eating, sleeping, biological activities, I have written and edited lots of articles. I guess I'm at the level in life where excuses sort of just pass through some neurons and are eliminated.
  2. But, I've never thought of admins as janitors--the mop metaphor just never made sense to me, because editors carry the mops (reverting vandalism, etc.) I've thought of admins as mediators, policemen, fountains of wisdom, and, most importantly, an editor. Admins are not the janitors of Wikipedia, they are the policing glue that keeps us from a random anarchy.
  3. Until I returned to this RfA, I wasn't sure of R's age. I just thought he was a bit immature because of making an excuse about time. Too many people on here have full lives, and I've never once heard that excuse. But knowing his age and his response to certain questions, I now wonder about judgment. Being an admin requires a lot of judgment--whether it's dealing with uncivil commentary, who's a sockpuppet, and how to resolve a dispute in an article. I've seen a lot of good editors and admins who pull together consensus in articles. You learn that from building articles and from widom.

I think R is a good person who can contribute to this project in many good ways. But we need admins who understand what the project is in many ways. Orangemarlin 21:19, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Please dont take offence R, and I know this is going to sound hypocritical because chances are I am actually a few months younger than you, but going to Orangemarlin's talk page and actually posting this section on your RFA page sort of... further proves his point. I'm sticking with my support, but it is weak. I still support you though, and wish you the best of luck. If this doesnt pass, then I advise you to take action on the oppose votes. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 23:40, 9 July 2007 (UTC)