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Revision as of 03:47, 30 September 2008

Gladys_j_cortez

Voice your opinion (talk page) (9/0/0); Scheduled to end 01:39, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Gladys_j_cortez (talk · contribs) - This, despite the stigma attached to them, is a self-nomination. (My original first sentence has been refactored, because Giggy makes a good point and it's not nice to poke people who can't poke back.) I've been considering this move for several months now, and mentioned it to one of my trusted Wikipedians--Keeper76. He said I was ready, and he's a good enough admin that I trust his judgement on such things.

As for me...First off, let's get the name thing taken care of. As you'll see at my userpage I have tried to be transparent and make sure everyone knows I'm editing under a pseudonym. The reasons for this are detailed there as well; I have no intent of concealing myself from anyone outside my immediate RL world. My online identity is consistent and established; but I feel it's important to make it clear that no, this is not my real government name.

Having settled that: I've been editing here for nearly a year now. I haven't got any FA's or GA's or DYK's, but I've created/substantially worked on several articles--Dooley and Pals and Dr Wonder's Workshop being my two biggest contributions. My article work, on the face of it, shows a narrow-ish focus on childrens' television, but my watchlist is much more diverse and random. My choice of what to edit is based largely on my areas of interest, but I find quite a lot of things interesting and have been known to fall into the Black Hole of Misplaced Pages for hours at a time--looking up one thing, then progressing through links to another and another, often doing gnome-work at each stop. I do spend a fair amount of time in AN and AN/I--but certainly not for any great love of Wikidrama. To me, those boards are like the morning paper; I read them to find out what the current issues are, what needs doing, what might be going wrong--and seeing if I can improve things in any way. Every so often, I try to throw a bit of levity into the discussion. That's not because I don't take things seriously; it's just because sometimes meta-discussions get so heavy and serious that a note of humor eases the tension a bit.

I do a fair amount of vandal-fighting, and I hope that's not held against me. As you'll see from my editcounter, one of my most-edited pages is in my userspace, where for some months I kept track of the actions of a particular IP-hopper who disrupted a subset of articles I edit. I'm not trying to create a super-secret sleuthing club, but when I'm faced with a pattern clearly coming from one individual, I like to apply my analytical skills (such as they are) to ferreting out the root of the problem. I just try to keep my watchlist clean, is all, and if I'm given the mop I will continue this trend; the tools, however, will make me a little more efficient at it, and give me more abilities to assist in rooting out long-term nuisances.

My weaknesses--for they will surely be mentioned--include an overreliance on automated edit-summaries, my lack of experience in XfD (though I haven't spoken much in XfDs, I do lurk there and I am familiar with the issues) and the occasional bit of uncontrolled snarkiness. That last, however, is well within my ability to moderate; there's a difference in my mind between what Average Wikipedian Gladys says, and what Admin Gladys would say. The Admin hat would weigh heavily enough upon my head to activate my inner critic--the one who says "hey, are you SURE you want to say it like that???"

Before I take this self-nom into the dreaded realm of TL;DR, I would be remiss if I did not mention my reasons for seeking adminship. Most of what I do now, I can do without the tools. I can write articles, fight vandals, do Wiki-gnomish things. However, I think the most important quality I would bring to my adminship has to do with my ability to see both sides of most disputes. I can be a moderating influence in disputes, and I would generally much prefer to engineer a win-win situation wherever that is possible. There are some situations where no one wins; in such cases, I will--perhaps regretfully, at times--take the needed actions, but as a general rule I would prefer to engineer outcomes where everyone benefits, especially the Misplaced Pages itself. Gladys J Cortez 01:39, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Misplaced Pages as an administrator. It is recommended that you answer these optional questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?

A: I intend to work, as I always have, on improving articles and reducing the ranks of vandals who trouble the Misplaced Pages. However, I would also very much like to expand my focus into areas such as investigating sockpuppetry, working to make the XfD process better and (hopefully!) less-contentious; and, by smoothing the path as much as possible, to help Misplaced Pages keep one of its most valuable assets--its content contributors.

2. What are your best contributions to Misplaced Pages, and why?

A: I have created, in the main, two articles--Dooley and Pals and Dr Wonder's Workshop--as mentioned above. I have also been instrumental, however, in keeping my area of interest free of misinformation--for example, Caillou is a common target of vandals and (strangely!) even POV-pushers. I realize, in the grand scheme of things, that my contributions are fairly narrow. They are, however, illustrative of my abilities, and I think that those abilities would translate well into the larger arena of adminship.

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: Oh, yes indeed. In fact, the above-mentioned Caillou has been the focus of much conflict. There was a user who was quite insistent that the article should contain reference to an online petition, asserting that the main character was a "bad influence" on viewers. They pointed to evidence of his "whininess" and "misbehavior" and tried to claim that this online petition was a "verifiable source" because the people posting there were "verifiable" people who "verifiably" held this opinion. It took a chorus of myself and several other editors, including an AN/I thread, to convince the individual in question that there was a difference between his/her definition of "verifiability" and the official policy of WP:V; that while, yes, those were "verifiable" people, neither their opinions, nor any expressed on a non-content-edited site, can be used to satisfy the notion of WP:V. Needless to say, this is a core policy, and as such needs to be observed diligently. I have done so in the past, and I plan to continue to do so in the future.

Additional questions from miranda:

1. What does BLP mean and when should one ignore the policy?

Second bit first: Absolutely never!!!! BLP is critical; as l'affaire Seigenthaler taught us, there are actual, live individuals out there whose names and reputations can be damaged simply by the appearance of impropriety or the faintest of rumors in their WP entries, and it's incumbent upon us as content-authors and -maintainers to keep that fact in mind. Misplaced Pages is not a game; in the case of real-life people, there are reputations at stake and it's best to err on the side of caution.

2. What does WP:V mean?

It means that any information included in a Misplaced Pages article on a given topic must have appeared elsewhere, in an independent, content-verified publication. Average people's blogs, since they have no independent content verification, are not verifiable. Online petitions, the same. Newspaper-columnists blogs, however, given that their content is vetted by the newspapers' editorial staff, may or may not be verifiable. Essentially, any content that can be randomly added by any user, regardless of their background or knowledge, and with no one to verify the information that they add, cannot be considered verifiable under Misplaced Pages policy.

3. When you are in a dispute with a user, and you revert war with the user concerning a page. Should you block the user if you and him both brink 3RR? Why or why not?

Well, first, I would hope I'd never be THAT intense about something to break 3RR. If, however, it did come to that--no, I would not block the user. I would bring the situation to WP:AN/I or WP:3RR, explain my own breach of the policy, and ask for an uninvolved admin to do the needful work. I would expect, under that circumstance, to be blocked myself; again, though, since I've yet to breach that line as a "plain ol' user", I don't believe it would be something I'd likely do as an admin. At least, I HOPE not...

4. In your articles that you created, you don't have any sources. Why is that?

You know what? That's my fault. They exist; I just didn't add them at the time I moved the articles in question from userspace. Thank you for drawing my attention to that oversight--I'm actually embarrassed, since I didn't think to check. I've remedied that issue, and again--thanks for bringing it up.

5. How well do you handle disputes? Do you act uncivil when you are in the wrong (i.e. curse, say bad things, etc.)?

I like to think I handle disputes fairly well. (I could be wrong, of course.) Yes, I've let the odd four-letter word escape from my typing-fingers; I can't in all good conscience say differently. However, that's mostly been in the context of playful frustration. In a SERIOUS dispute, I strive to be as civil as humanly possible, and to keep whatever frustration I'm feeling on THIS side of the keyboard. Mostly I'm successful in that regard.

General comments

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

• Requests for adminship/Gladys j cortez
• Requests for adminship/Gladys j cortez/Q 10 Answers

• Links for Gladys_j_cortez: Gladys_j_cortez (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)

Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review Special:Contributions/Gladys_j_cortez before commenting.

Discussion

• If Keeper trusts you, why didn't he nominate you for adminship? miranda 03:04, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I'll let him speak his piece here, but essentially, Keeper has declared that he will no longer be a party to throwing anyone under the great big painful bus that RfA has become. However, I give you this link. Quoth the Keeper: .Gladys J Cortez 03:13, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Support

1. Support - I've only had limited interaction with this editor, consisting mostly of a threat on her part to sue me (it was a joke, in case anybody's considering blocking per WP:NLT), but I've seen her comments at WP:ANI. Reasonable, cool-headed, and experienced. Have a mop. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 02:24, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
2. I don't know who you are, but I like your style. Keegan 02:29, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
3. Support for now. I must admit I've never heard of you, though some respected editors seem to like you. At first glance, your edits seem fine, and so far, I see nothing that concerns me. I'm going to watch this for a while. –Juliancolton 02:33, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
4. Support - I think you would benefit from the tools.   jj137 (talk) 02:34, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
5. Support Per Keeper. MBisanz 02:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
6. Support Per Keeper as well. —the_ed17— 02:55, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
7. Support - Keegan states it best. CL — 03:02, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
8. Support. Keeper hasn't even edited this page yet. Either you're confusing Keegan with Keeper, Keeper said something about this candidate somewhere else, or you guys have some sort of telepathy/IRC going on. bibliomaniac15 03:03, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
9. Support I thought about asking if you wanted me to nom you, but 1) I suck at writing noms and 2) I suck at writing noms. Either way, you should have run a long time ago. J.delanoy_adds 03:14, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
10. Giggy (talk) 03:21, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

    Very weakly considering the abysmal first sentence of the nom. Giggy (talk) 03:22, 30 September 2008 (UTC) Yes, that is a serious comment. Please change it.