Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:15, 15 March 2007

Yuser31415

Voice your opinion (3/1/0); Scheduled to end 21:49, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Yuser31415 (talk · contribs) - It is with great pleasure that I nominate User:Yuser31415 for adminship. This user previously nominated himself (see Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Yuser31415) but the nomination was closed early due to a lack of support. I am confident that in the past three months Yuser has garnered more experience, which was the main reason for opposal of his previous RfA.

Yuser is a helpful, kind and polite Wikipedian, and I believe the community as a whole can only benefit from granting him the admin tools. He is a model Wikipedian, always helping other and assuming good faith when it is sensible to do so. I have a few users who use me as a first point of call when requiring assistance, and he has helped me answer questions and deal with those users when I was unable to answer the questions myself. He frequently closes AfDs that are keeps, and very rarely has anyone disagreed with his closure. He has 3953 edits (according to this, which apparently is 34 days and 22 hours out of date).

In summary, please consider giving Yuser31415 adminship, as I believe he will not misuse the tools, and I think he is experienced enough to know how and when to use them appropriately. Deskana (talk) 21:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: With respect and gratitude, I accept the nomination. Yuser31415 21:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Since my last RfA, I feel I have improved in a number of areas (oh, bother, I hate showing off, so I'll try to make this short):

• Much more participation in admin-related backlogs and pages.
• More experience in dealing with conflict.
• More knowledge of policy, guidelines, et cetera.
• My writing style has improved (in my opinion, anyway - it's up to you to decide).
• My Misplaced Pages e-mail address is now enabled. Feel free to drop me a line.
• My signature is now a miniature 24 characters long; "'']''".

If anyone has got any questions, please feel free to ask them. I request one thing, however: Please don't argue too much with each other; this is a RfA, not a RfAr. If you have disagreements over a matter regarding this RfA unrelated to myself, please continue your discussion between your own talk pages or on the talk page for this RfA in a civil and calm way - that avoids unnecessarily messing up this page.

Oh, and one more thing I might as well note. If I pass (or fail) this RfA, I'll post one thank you message on my talk page. That way, I don't have to spam what hopefully will be above one hundred talk pages to get a single point across.

May the edit be with us all, Yuser31415 21:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Misplaced Pages 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:Administrative backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.

A: Due to my previous experience in the areas, WP:ANI, WP:AIV, and WP:AN would be the first on my watchlist. On the deletion side of things, I would help out at CAT:AFD, CAT:CSD, and WP:MFD; I already close unanimous 'keep' decisions in XfDs, but would like to extend to closing 'delete' and 'no consensus' results as well, helping clear the seeming rather large backlogs. The tools would also be especially useful when I recent changes patrol and new page patrol. I anticipate touching WP:AN3 and WP:RFPP in the future, but do not list them as my primary goals due to my current lack of participation in those areas. Yuser31415 21:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

2. Of your articles or contributions to Misplaced Pages, are there any with which you are particularly pleased, and why?

A: To be completely honest, I don't currently have any FAs or even GAs that could be attributed to my name. Occasionally I fix links to disambiguation pages, but that is fairly minor work, most of the time. I'd say the participation I enjoy the most is helping other contributors to the project, and making their job easier, by removing spam, reverting vandalism, , helping and helping more, and welcoming new users to the project. In my opinion these contributions are a small drip in a vast sea, but I believe they help Misplaced Pages in an (albeit minor) manner. Yuser31415 21:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

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: I can think of only one instance that made me really stressed. I believe it was regarding WeniWidiWiki's userpage - the content of which criticized IP editors, and I believed it violated all the guidelines and policies in the book including WP:ATK, WP:NPOV, WP:BOLD, WP:BITE, m:Non discrimination policy, et cetera. A minor edit war ensued, including myself, WeniWidiWiki, and a couple of administrators. The matter was brought up on ANI, and discussion quickly shifted to debate over my actions - I ended up archiving the incident listing, which was the wrong thing to do - I shouldn't have closed a discussion, even an off-topic one, regarding my own behavior. Quite a bit of stress followed after, but that is entirely gone by now and I've since apologized to WeniWidiWiki for acting in haste. I very much object to pages whose sole purpose is to disparage, and hence I've been in an edit war over both CroDome's userpage (in this case the userpage was attacking Serbs, and the issue was not particularly stressful, since I knew I was doing the correct thing) and another attack subpage, the name of which I cannot recall, although both it and CroDome's userpage were speedily deleted per CSD G10. Yuser31415 21:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Obligatory questions from Yuser31415 (talk · contribs)

This is a listing of questions I see asked most often on RfAs. I might as well answer them now and get them over and done with. Of course, I've probably forgotten a few - feel free to ask any you feel would be appropriate. Yuser31415 21:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Q: (ST47's question somewhat.) You've been here for nearly five months and have devoted much of your free time to the project. What motivates you to continue editing here in light of the fact you receive little or no reward for your work?

A: There would be, perhaps, two things that motivate me. The first is collaboration and the enjoyable side of working here with others; and the second would be that I, personally, believe Misplaced Pages is a great informational resource that I, myself, can help, even if in a small way. I think that's what draws many people to the project - they are enticed by the fact that practically anyone can edit practically any page, and they wish to try out and continue the process. Yuser31415 21:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Q: How do you interpret, use, and cite WP:IAR and WP:SNOW?

A: I have written a small essay on IAR here. Contrary to what many new contributors can appear to think, IAR is not a catch-all for all things done wrong, nor is it a reason to enforce a personal opinion, ie., citing IAR as an excuse for an edit war is inappropriate, since obviously two people's definitions of "improving the encyclopedia" differ.

An example of an inappropriate use of IAR could be expressed in this way: Say someone uploads a copyvio image and inserts it into an article, citing IAR. The image might seriously improve the article, but could have longer term effects on the Wikimedia Foundation as a whole, possibly including a formal lawsuit brought against the Foundation by the copyright holder of the picture. Anyone would be justified in removing, and furthermore deleting, the image.

SNOW is, I believe, a derivative of IAR. If the result of a discussion is clearly apparent after a reasonable length of time, for example 24 hours, there is usually no point in letting the debate continue longer without reason - in which case, the debate may be speedily closed legitimately. Yuser31415 21:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Q: Under which circumstances would you consider blocking a user indefinitely from editing Misplaced Pages?

A: I would consider blocking a user indefinitely if it became apparent they had no future intention of helping or improving Misplaced Pages, and instead only of causing disruption and ill feeling amongst the community. As I understand, IP addresses should generally not be blocked indefinitely due to their tendency to change and rotate often, possibly causing collateral damage and much "wikidrama", and due to the fact that occasionally IPs are shared by more than one user, for example if they are assigned to a school or university. Yuser31415 21:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Q: Under which circumstances would it not be appropriate to block a user for any length of time, regardless of whether their edits helped or did not help the encyclopedia?

A: Any editor who is intending to help, or, more specifically, who is saving their edits in good faith, without knowing their contributions are in some way inappropriate, should not be blocked, but instead welcomed (if they have not been already) and directed to the appropriate medium for guidance in regards to their edits. Furthermore, an administrator in a content dispute with a user should not block that editor themselves, because of a possible conflict of interest; they should instead raise the issue with another, neutral, administrator. Yuser31415 21:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Q: Who has the authority to ban a user?

A: Jimbo Wales or the Arbitration Committee, and administrators as decided via community consensus. Yuser31415 21:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Q: What is wheel warring, why is it bad, and what steps should be taken to avoid it?

A: Wheel warring is an occurrence when an administrator re-executes an administrative action, without discussion or compromise, when another administrator opposes it and has, therefore, undone the original action. It is highly counterproductive due to its disruptive nature and tendency to inflame an already heated situation, especially since less experienced editors tend to look up to administrators for help and advice. If someone executes an administrative action and another administrator undoes it, the matter should be discussed politely between the two administrators until an agreement is reached. Continued wheel warring may result in an Arbitration Committee ruling, potentially resulting in bans or desysopping. Yuser31415 21:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Q: Do you object to asking candidates their age?

A: Generally, I don't mind such questions, although I previously tended to strongly oppose them (I still feel they are highly irrelevant) - as long as editors are not discriminated or disadvantaged because of their age. Yuser31415 21:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Q: Why do you want to be an administrator?

A: Technically speaking: I believe Misplaced Pages needs more administrators - we have, as far as I recall, the third lowest ratio of administrators to editors with "standard" access of all the Misplaced Pages projects. While I think most of us would say we have enough admins to handle the current backlogs, the backlogs are going to grow as Misplaced Pages increases in popularity, and the number of admins needs to grow with them.

Philosophically speaking: I think the answer to my first question sums it up, but I wish to help the project more; I am, finally, reaching the limits of my current tools. Yuser31415 21:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

General comments

Please keep criticism constructive and polite.

Discussion

Support

1. Support without reservation, as nominator. It is time you got the tools. --Deskana (talk) 21:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
2. Suport - Really Good answers and if willing to work overtime then why not,,--Cometstyles 21:52, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
3. Support without hesitation or reservation. There's the start of a sing in there, me thinks. Ah well. -- Nick 21:53, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose. I have seen Yuser act aggressively to modify other's user pages on more than one occasion, and threaten the user when reverted. I have also seen him/her warn users who didn't archive their talk, in spite of the fact that no guidelines or policies exist requiring that. I was also concerned when s/he declined to unblock a user, thus giving the false impression that s/he was already an admin. I also wasn't happy to see him/her closing Afds which did not have clear consensus. This too, has happened more than once. I was also quite surprised that when mediating a dispute, Yuser didn't bother to read the article and take action to rectify the egregious violations of WP:BLP, where living people were actually accused of being serial killers with no sources given to support the assertions..Taken as a whole, I don't see someone who is ready to be trusted with admin tools. I don't think Yuser knows the difference between being bold and running riot. If this is what we see now, I am highly concerned at the possible problems that can ensue if Yuser were given actual power and authority. Jeffpw 23:06, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

   I don't want to sound argumentitive but I'd like to respond. Firstly, my failure to read the "zodiac killer" article was definitely my mistake, and I should have done better - I apologize. In the "do not edit other users' userpages" thread, I should not have acted so aggressively, and I need to apologize for that too, but I do think I was doing the correct thing as far as the issue over editing userpages was concerned. Thirdly, in the AfD matter, I was frustrated at the instruction creep surrounding the deletion process, regarding the fact non-administrators could only close absolutely non-animous debates. My apologies if I appeared to act rashly at that time. Yuser31415 22:03, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

   I hate doing this but I noticed Jeffpw had opposed this nomination seven days before I accepted it. No one but the nominator(s) may comment on an unaccepted RfA. Yuser31415 22:12, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Neutral

• Administrative backlog