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Revision as of 05:11, 6 November 2006

Georgewilliamherbert

Voice your opinion (45/10/1) Ending 00:37, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Georgewilliamherbert (talk · contribs) – Everyone's heard this one before, another user that we're suprised isn't an administrator yet. This user caught my eye because of his thoughtful contributions on the unblock-en-l and wiki-en-l Misplaced Pages mailing lists, and when I learned he wasn't an administrator, I started poking around his edit history and found, among other things, a valiant attempt to bring sanity to the school debate at Misplaced Pages talk:Schools and an impressive list of contributions, especially in the areas of modern weaponry, metallurgy, and other things I don't understand. So let's give him a mop and take up even more of his free time. Gamaliel 00:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept the nomination, as long as the mop isn't stuck in my face in the process. Georgewilliamherbert 01:55, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Candidate statement

This is the third time someone asked me if I wanted to be an admin; I demurred the first two times for two reasons: one, I wanted to wait until I passed 2,500 edits before seriously thinking about accepting a nomination, and two, I wanted to convince myself that I would have useful thing to do with the mop if granted one.

Having reached that point, I have come to the conclusion that yes, I have some useful things I can contribute to the project as an administrator, and I am going ahead and accepting this nomination.

If this RFA passes, I will wield the admin bit in the manner I've urged others to do over the last year - boldly where called for, conservatively where controversial, and avoiding its abuse in situations I am personally involved in. I will strive to talk first and shoot last, particularly with othe admins. WP:CIVIL is always important.

I believe that administrators have a strong role to play in making Misplaced Pages work as a project and stronger as an encyclopedia, but I think it's important to avoid dragging the admin bit into arguments or personal disagreements.

I often energetically promote a point or cause I believe in, but I try and keep in mind that we're here to make an encyclopedia and that ultimately we need to get along with everyone who isn't vandalising or abusive. I try hard not to WP:BITE newbies. And keeping a sense of humor is important.

I believe in being accountable, and beyond the normal community feedback mechanisms I support adopting one of the eventual forms of WP:RECALL. If I turn out to be a bad administrator then the bit should be taken away.

Georgewilliamherbert 01:55, 3 November 2006 (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 voters:

1. What sysop chores do you anticipate helping with? Please check out Category:Misplaced Pages backlog and Category:Administrative backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.

A: I don't have a huge amount of time to devote to some of the core administrator efforts, but I do vandal fighting when it wanders into areas I pay attention to, and other cleanup work, some of which I would use admin powers directly rather than having to bring to someone else's attention as I do now. I've had to ask for help on fixing some article move issues before.

Admin powers would help some with the unblock-en-l response work I do now. Though most of that is just communicating (with the complaintant, and with blocking admins), there are occasional cases requiring admin intervention, such as switching an IP block to Anon-Only, that would go more smoothly and quickly if I could do it directly.

I have watched AN and ANI for most of the last year, and I'd make myself available to respond to requests for help posted there. I have always appreciated the admins who are willing to step in and help there, and joining those ranks seems like a good contribution.

My guess is that there are many more prolific mop-wielders out there, but I think that the stuff I've got in front of me already would be a good use of the admin bit, and I think Misplaced Pages benefits in general from having more good admins.

Georgewilliamherbert 01:55, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

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

A: I don't have any featured articles, but a few of my favorite contributions are Washboarding, the steel and aluminum alloy articles linked from Structural steel and Aluminum alloy, Strength of ships and some related ship articles, and Alt.space related contributions. I added a lot of the content in List of nuclear weapons#United States section and the articles which are linked off that. I've lost count of how many other articles I created.

I've also tried to contribute "administratively" as an editor, cleaning up after vandals I come across, working to improve AFD when I have time, and watching ANI and other policy issues. Plus a lot of responses as a member of the unblock-en-l mailing list. I've participated in wikien-l, foundation-l, and other Wikimedia Foundation lists.

I helped in a small way catalyze the final rollout of the Anon-Only block level, which seems to have helped a lot with making vandal fighting more precise and less collateral-damage producing.

Georgewilliamherbert 01:55, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

A: Most of the conflicts I have been involved in were policy rather than editing, though there was the amusing Conch Republic WP:LAME disagreement not that long ago, and the ignonimous attacks on Societal attitudes towards homosexuality which ended eventually in a Arbcom ruling against the troublemaker.

In terms of dealing with a problem, I firmly believe in communicating about it. Talk and discussion pages are important - and remaining civil and continuing to assume that people are acting in good faith gets you a long ways, even if there's a major content or policy issue disagreement. Not editing when you're angry helps.

I think the most important thing ultimately is understanding that consensus means getting other people's opinions and listening to them. It's hard to both be strongly opinionated and listen, but it's important, so I try hard.

Georgewilliamherbert 01:55, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Optional questions from Malber (talk · contribs)

4. What do the policy of WP:IAR and the essay WP:SNOW mean to you and how would you apply them?

A: What they mean to me is that we need to remain flexible for people to use good judgement to help Misplaced Pages. I personally prefer to look at this from the perspective of WP:BOLD - In most cases, putting an idea out there or making a change isn't going to cause too much trouble, and if it does then it can be undone. As I stated above, boldness is good, but it has its limits. If I do something that causes significant controversy, then bold no longer applies; it should be talked out until people get a chance to respond and a consensus emerges. A lot of harm is done by pushing bold past the point of controversy, but a lot of opportunities are lost by not trying to be bold here and there.

I prefer to be careful about SNOW, because its one downfall is that it may cause a small majority extreme stress by cutting off their chance to be heard and have input into a consensus. This is part of the political game, as it were... people who are listened to tend to cooperate better in the long term. There are times it's useful, and one or two people objecting doesn't necessarily mean it's not a SNOW situation, but I prefer to be careful about it.

5. Is there ever a case where a punitive block should be applied?

A: The high level policy is that blocks are supposed to be preventive, not punitive; if someone is misbehaving, keep them from doing so for a little while, and hopefully the block will convince them to moderate their behavior.

It's a little complex, with blocks to try to defuse situations (which don't seem to work), blocks to get people's attention, etc. Blocks are necessary at times, but are sort of a blunt instrument.

Community punishments, and Arbcom rulings, may approach more punitive in nature, but even those are usually ultimately preventive due to ongoing problems.

As a personal policy, I would prefer to stay more clearly in the preventive range, and let process handle anything less clear than that. Georgewilliamherbert 03:17, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

6. What would your thought process be to determine that a business article should be deleted using CSD:G11?

A: I would start with notability of the business or product. Does it meet the business notability critieria? If not, is there another reason to think they're notable? Secondly, is the article descriptive, or is it advocating the item or business?

If the item or business is notable, and it's an advocacy article and not descriptive, then the fix normally should be to NPOV tag it and try to get someone to fix it to a more neutral and encyclopedic point of view.

If they aren't notable, and it's an advocacy article and not descriptive, then I would consider speedying it.

If it's ambiguous, I tend to think that PROD is better than Speedy.

Georgewilliamherbert 03:28, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Optional question from JzG (talk · contribs)

7. George, could you please clarify your meaning and what was behind the comments linked by MONGO below?

A: (I will address this, tomorrow or later tonight pacific time) (update Saturday 1420 pst: I was going to address this next but am getting a Migraine and need to stop editing WP. I think some of this has been addressed in other answers, but I will come back to this when I have a chance. my apologies)

Optional question from JBKramer (talk · contribs)

8. Review the edit history of User:81.117.200.37 and User:81.117.200.27, and any related article, document or other source. Should this IP/Range have been blocked at any point? When? Should this IP/Range be put under some sort of administrative probation? When, and of what type? Why or why not? Thank you. JBKramer 23:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

A: That's an ... interesting ... series of edits around Deflation there.

I see your ANI post from today Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Ruy Lopez. Also just found Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive141#Disruptive Editing on Deflation (economics)

Having looked at the initially available histories and about 20 of the diffs on Deflation, it's clear that there's a serial but probably single persistent editor behind the series of edits going back at least several weeks. whois (www.ripe.net/whois) says that it's a Telecom Italia IP block for those IP addresses.

I do not know of this "Ruy Lopez" you mention in a couple of places, so I don't know what the context is there.

I don't have enough familiarity with economics to know whether the anon's or other editors' versions are more representative of the field's neutral consensus.

That said, the appearance is of a disruptive serial editor who has continued this intermittently for some time. Talk:Deflation shows an extended attempt by you and others to discuss the situation with the anon editor in good faith, which they do not appear to have responded to in a reasonable manner. The attacks on your talk page and elsewhere are disruptive.

As an uninvolved not-yet-admin, my inclination would be that this is an ongoing abuse case with likely a single source, and that related IP addresses should be warned against incivility and disruption, and if it continues they should be indef blocked. I cannot rule out that they're attempting to make good contributions somewhere, but they are clearly failing to engage in reasonable discussions related to the controversies. I would like to know what this Ruy Lopez issue is about for better context as well, prior to taking any action. Is this related to  ?

If they kept it up, I'd want to be careful about how we did the block. I generally prefer the idea of using AO blocks for anon addresses, but in this case they seem to have created a couple of accounts along the way. I think I'd float the incident on ANI and ask for advice on how to block, but my inclination is a flat, complete IP block on them for a week if there are further abuses, escalating from there if it doesn't stop. That looks like a legitimate preventive block requirement. Georgewilliamherbert 04:32, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Optional question from Lar (talk · contribs)

9. I've been HUGELY impressed with your hard work and calm, reasoned explanations of our policies and ways on unblock-en-I. And you clearly would be able to do much more in that area if you were an admin. But some of the issues raised here concern me, so before I can wholeheartedly support, could you comment on what you think of meatball:DefendEachOther and how it compares and contrasts with WP:AGF, WP:BITE and our core principles? What I gather from MONGO's comments is that he felt less than well supported by you... where is the line, where is the balance? Do you think there is validity in the notion that long term users and admins should get more benefit of the doubt? Or that we should tend to take the word of long term users or admins over that of newcomers? Thanks! ++Lar: t/c 15:40, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

A: I think these questions point out an interesting set of problems with how we handle internal and external abuse right now. I had not seen the Meatball Wiki "Defend each other" policy before, but that seems to me to align well with what I think is approximately best theoretical practice.

How that applies to Misplaced Pages, with our local culture and policies, guidelines, unwritten rules, and all is less clear. We aren't "there", and we've had ongoing problems.

Part of the reason I got involved with the MONGO situation was that I believe that his reactions were feeding back into encouraging rather than discouraging the attackers. There was also a particularly worrying tendency for them to take peripheral players and suck them into opposition, from where they often either stepped or were pulled across the line into joining the abuse problem. That was sort of an extended indirect WP:BITE problem.

We need to find ways of dealing with abuse incidents which defend WP contributors, don't encourage the attackers, and end the abuse quickly and with little controversy. The "Defend each other" policy isn't as quick at defending a contributor as them responding directly, which is part of MONGO's complaint. But it is more effective at not encouraging attackers, since it's not the same person responding, and that probably ends large abuse incidents faster overall and with less controversy.

Current policy allows self-defense but encourages defend-each-other. If we had some way of determining when an incident had gone from minor to major, with self-defense aggrivating the situation, and strongly encouraging or engaging defend-each-other at that point it might be the best solution from where we stand today.

This can be implemented today without policy changes, just by admins communicating and working in solidarity. We don't have to have a policy mandating anything - defending each other is a good idea, and entirely OK. That's part of why I mentioned that I'd try to stay active in reading WP:AN and WP:ANI and engage to help situations that come up there as an admin, if my RFA passes.

Specifically regarding the MONGO abuse incident involving ED, I think MONGO properly deserved support and solidarity, and I think he was generally getting it. I understand that he didn't feel like I was supporting him, which I regret. I don't know that it's ever easy to try and balance "I support you" with "...but you're making it worse" smoothly. Once someone gets worked up defending themselves, then anything critical, even constructive criticism, can easily be taken wrong. It's hard enough to communicate that in person, and much harder online. Which is one reason "Defend each other" is a good idea...

Regarding the last two questions, benefit of the doubt and taking the word of long term users over newcomers, I don't actually see that sort of thing come up very often. I can't think of many situations I have seen where there's a factual dispute of some sort (abuse, whatever) with longstanding editors or admins on one side and newcomers on the other. There are a lot of cases where opinion or judgements are disagreeing. Even things like "This is a sockpuppet" are opinion judgements, unless there's a CU confirmation or some other rare external validation.

Admins and long-time editors who are well respected by the community, or who I have known personally for a while, have a track record and demonstrated good judgement. I trust that these people have Misplaced Pages's best interests in mind and that as a rule they don't make huge mistakes. There have been exceptions, so I keep an open mind, but in general longstanding editors / admins are "known good guys".

It's entirely possible for known good guys to make mistakes. I have certainly made mistakes... coming in from unblock-en-l, I gave User:Gerard Doyle the benefit of the doubt, and it turned out in the end that he was in fact a Tojo sock.

Knowing that people have the project's best interests in mind goes a long ways. Not as far as blind trust, but a long ways.

Georgewilliamherbert 20:42, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

10.Good stuff, thanks, that helps a lot. One short followup and I think I'm sorted. What do you think of the term "There are no free passes"? Irrelevant? True? False? Partly true and partly false? Compare and contrast this term (which conveys that we all still have to abide by the rules, even if we are long term contributors) with AGF, and with what I allude to above about giving long term contributors the benefit of the doubt... Do you think there are editors that act like they have free passes? ++Lar: t/c 21:15, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

A: I don't think that there should be free passes. I also don't think that there has been a significant problem with people thinking that they had free passes, in terms of a license for them to break the rules because of their standing. There's the WP:IAR issue but I take your question to not directly bear on that, more on knowing intentional bending or breaking rules which are agreed to apply.

There have been editors and admins who, I think, have been overly convinced that what they were doing must be right, despite significant criticism. I think that they had the project's best interests in mind, as intentions, but were going about things in a controversial or wrong manner by other's judgements. Those cases are the hard ones, because some very high profile overall positive contributors have gotten badly burned and/or left the project, which is always unfortunate.

WP:AGF is almost automatic with the long-term contributors; the question is, are their in good faith actions good or not. How you handle an apparently bad action does depend on how well you know the person, because even with AGF as policy and a fundamental underpinning of how we do the project, that has to be a rebuttable assumption with newcomers. We get vandals; we get trolls; we get abusers. We also get immature but not hostile new editors, and people who are fundamentally reasonable but are doing something not entirely aligned with WP policy or goals.

With newcomers, you always have to wonder, even if you start out by assuming good faith. Long-term contributors, you don't have to wonder, so the dynamic of how feedback happens works a bit differently.

It's a question of how the communications dynamic works. In some cases, that's not positive; AGF goes unsaid sometimes with long-term contributors, and sometimes that results in someone taking something the wrong way. We should all keep that in mind. I wonder if this may have been some of why MONGO reacted badly to my comments related to the ED incident, for example.

Good questions, Lar. Georgewilliamherbert 22:08, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Optional question from Ling.Nut (talk · contribs)

11.

George, given the extended dialog that has taken place here, the valid concerns raised by several contributors, and in particular the strength of MONGO's conviction that you handled his case inappropriately, can you give a brief encapsulation of your thoughts concerning how you might respond to an identical or similar situation in the future? Would your response be different in any way, large or small? Thank you.--Ling.Nut 01:19, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

A: Two things come to mind immediately. One, I wasn't in a position to use admin powers at the time to help defend him, and as I have stated in several places I intend to make myself available for that general purpose in AN and ANI for future incidents. I agree with the "Defend each other" credo from Meatball Wiki and will act to do that. Two, I need to work on communicating solidarity more effectively if I am trying to constructively criticise someone who's under attack of some sort. I think that MONGO and I have worked it out to the point that I understand a bit better how he felt about it at the time. We need to be able to constructively criticize, but I personally and WP in general should figure out better methods to do that without making people under attack feel worse for it. I welcome discussion and suggestions on how to do that. Georgewilliamherbert 02:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

General comments

• See Georgewilliamherbert's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool.

Discussion

Support

1. Of course. Gamaliel 00:38, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
2. Happy to support, since the user's contributions show no red flags that I can see. The tools won't be misused here, so I see no problem with handing them over. Daveydweeb (/_patch) 04:24, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
3. weak support - see no reason why not --T-rex 05:42, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
4. Support. Good grief, yes. A frequent and thoughtful contributor to AN and AN/I and a prolific editor. Choess 05:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
5. Is there any reason he isn't already one? – Chacor 06:15, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
6. Support. A great contributor. utcursch | talk 06:34, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
7. Support per above.  Doctor Bruno  07:41, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
8. Support. Georgewilliamherbert has been tremendously helpful on the unblock-en mailing list. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 07:43, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
9. Everyking 07:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
10. Support. - Mailer Diablo 08:32, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
11. Support --Terence Ong _{(T | C)} 10:12, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
12. SupportDolive21 11:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
13. Support. Turned down two suggestions to RFA, so respects the tools/doesn't have a god complex. Many sane contribs to important forums, as noted above. I trust Georgewilliamherbert with the mop. --Ling.Nut 13:10, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
14. Support thoughtful and mature editor, I think we will always need people like that reviewing blocks and available for more complicated problems on AN/ANI. --W.marsh 14:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
15. Support looks good. Rama's arrow 15:26, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
16. Support. Have been impressed by this user's calm good sense. JackyR | Talk 16:19, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
17. Weak support per Can't sleep, clown will eat me, although I would like to see a diversification of the admin-oriented tasks carried out by Georgewilliamherbert.--Húsönd 16:27, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
18. Support. Absolutely no reason to think he will cause problems with the admin tools. Fys. “Ta fys aym”. 17:20, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
19. Support. Ling.Nut nails it for me; the lack of a "god complex" and ability to stay WP:COOL and professional while things get hot are traits becoming of an admin. The issue cited by MONGO is twisted far out of proportion and I ask that he revisit his oppose with care -- the diffs provided have been grossly misrepresented, as anyone can plainly see. Silensor 17:26, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
20. Support mongo's completely blown out of proportion oppose has me voting support for this editor. His ability to calmly and rationally look at a situation makes me think this would be a good admin.  ALKIVAR™ ☢ 17:29, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
21. Support Well, I have no major concerns here. This user is also a very calm editor. Will be a very good admin. --Siva1979 18:00, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
22. Support Agree with Alkivar. He has addressed Mongo's concerns to my satisfaction. Mexcellent 18:08, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
23. Support Saw some people opposing this person because he assumed good faith too much. Anyone can be ban-crazy and lots of people are, but like this guy's work on the schools stuff, he's a mediator--a rarer and more valuable personality type. Anomo 18:10, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
24. Support. —Quarl 2006-11-03 19:55Z
25. Support with pleasure. SlimVirgin 20:17, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
26. Support. Michael 20:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
27. Support. --Conti|✉ 21:00, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
28. Support per nom, answers to questions, comments above, good edit history, contributions on WP:AN and ANI, lack of any reason to believe tools will be misused, and the principle that support on an RfA doesn't imply endorsement of every word the candidate ever wrote. Newyorkbrad 21:30, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
29. Support - good answers, contributions and article writing. Will not abuse the tools. feydey 22:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
30. Support, has shown excellent presence and thought in his actions. I actually thought he was an admin already. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:45, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
31. Support per above comments. RFerreira 03:37, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
32. Support meets my standards, and I'm glad he follows WP:AGF.-- danntm _C 04:22, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
33. Support per nom. Spark* 14:05, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
34. Support satisfy my standartsMustafa Akalp 14:58, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
35. Hrm, thought he was already an admin Support hoopydink 16:03, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
36. Support - Seems like a good editor who is willing to throw himself into a situation in an attempt to defuse it even though it is likely to cause negative reactions from some. We need more editors who are willing to give their opinion on a matter - regardless of the sometimes 'group thinking' response. I do not think he would misuse the tools.-Localzuk 17:37, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
37. Support; doesn't look like he'll abuse the tools. --Spangineer (háblame) 19:06, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
38. Support per Localzuk, and in direct opposition to those voting oppose below. WP:CIVIL is important and not everyone getting a rude response is a troll. SchmuckyTheCat 22:34, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
39. Support --Duk 02:45, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
40. The opposes seem to be of a few major themes; first, that he doesn't have enough edits, or enough time on project, or the mix is the wrong sort (these are standard reasons to oppose that we see in many RfAs and I'm tired of them... seriously!!!!)... I am not buying those, they're all flawed editcountitis if you actually look at George's contributions. Thoughtful commenters will already have discounted those. Second, that because he doesn't have scads of time to devote to adminning, we shouldn't give him the bit and get the benefit of what time he does have. I think that's flawed too as we should be glad of any volunteer where the cost of giving the bit is outweighed by the contributions, as it is in this case. Third, and most important, the MONGO incident... My questions above were getting at motivations and thinking around how to deal with the issues underlying this incident and others. The answers were impressive. I'm satisfied that George acted in good faith, that his response wasn't completely unreasonable, that he was seeking the best for the 'pedia, and that he's open to criticism and learning from it. While I feel MONGO's pain I think what happened isn't the end of the world for MONGO and I'd hope that admin candidates don't have to be perfect, just good enough and willing to work to get better. For these reasons, then, and because I've seen him in action on the mailing list and am mightily impressed... hearty SUPPORT. Questions or comments welcomed on the talk page. ++Lar: t/c 03:23, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

    I'll try to AGF and do respect your opinion here... but, sounds like you are painting me as an "unthoughtful commenter" with editcountis. I have actually never voted before on editcount, and am not voting on edit count here. I looked at the "quality" of his article contributions, and particularly at the article on washboarding, which he singled out as a "favorite contribution". Nominating it for good article, despite having zero references and other problems, signals not a good enough understanding of WP:V and other policies relating to sourcing and writing encyclopedia articles. I hope George is learning about these key policies and what makes a good (and featured) article. These policies are central to WP:5P, which has as #1, "Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia". --Aude (talk) 03:50, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

41. Support - user's answers were on the money, opposition to MONGO appeared to be legit (the kind of dispute that is bound to happen among editors), not cuase for concern in candidate. As long as candidate strives to enforce policy over his own opinions (which he appears to wish to do), he will certainly not misuse admin tools. -Patstuart 05:38, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
42. Support. But of course. Shimgray | talk | 21:08, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
43. Pepsidrinka supports. 21:25, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
44. Support. Quit complaining. —freak(talk) 04:03, Nov. 6, 2006 (UTC)
45. Support insofar as I am quite convinced that GWH is possessed, on the whole, of the deliberative temperament, cordial demeanor, and reasoned judgment the presence of which in a propsective admin are quite auspicious, and I am rather confident that, qua admin, he will neither abuse nor misuse (even avolitionally) the tools, such that it seems eminently clear that the net effect on the project of his becoming an admin will be positive (my principal RfA guideline). I do share in Newyorkbrad's reservation that one's supporting a candidate ought not to be understood as one's agreeing with every action previously undertaken by the candidate, but there is nothing so egregious here as to merit opposition, and, to that extent, and notwithstanding that RfA is not a vote, I suppose this is, in part, à la that of Carnildo at Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Sam Vimes2 (if perhaps more decorously), a "balance out opposes that I find particularly unpersuasive" !vote (I would, to be sure, have supported GWH's candidacy in the absence of those opposes but might not have happened to partake of the discussion here). Joe 05:11, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose My general impression of Georgewilliamherbert is that he fails to support fellow admins who have had to endure prolonged and repeated attacks by an almost never-ending stream of trolls and harassers. This includes a misrepresentation of a "finding" on an arbcom case I was involved in and his reponse that it's a "another sad day" seemingly in defense of the person who was repeatedly asking me about encyclopedia dramatica. full thread. But that's not all, of course, as he also seems to not understand that administrators are charged with enforcing arbitration decisions and he misinterpreted the difference between in indefinite block and a permanent banning when he commented here "A link to the ED homepage is not a link to material that harrasses others", which is not true since that website has used their homepage to post attacks on many people that edit here. His argument here seems to indicate that he doesn't understand editors right to not have their personal information posted. "Posting someone's real life id info online is not a real life attack. A real life attack is being punched or having someone pull a gun or knife on you, or at the very least someone having made a real world information attack such as harrassing phone calls to you, your friends or relatives or employers"...I got news for you...I have had several death threats via email, so yeah, pretty close to real life.--MONGO 10:40, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

   I'm an adminstrator who has been the victim of stalking and harassment from angry trolls, and if I thought that your interpretation of his comments was accurate, I'd withdraw my support. But I feel that you've totally misrepresented his comments. He isn't saying that victimized users should not be supported, but is cautioning us against overreacting to these trolls and tossing WP rules out the window while doing so. This seems quite sensible advice to me. Gamaliel 15:51, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

   The previous paragraph to that picked out by Mongo reads: "What is happening to MONGO is a bad case of online harrassment. Anyone who thinks I don't have sympathy for him is sorely mistaken. I have been through this myself, the first online case nearly 20 years ago now and a couple of times since then. One of those escalated from online into real life, a couple of physical altercations and an arrest. I can completely understand being worked up about it." (Whole thread) So I'd have to agree about the misrepresentation. JackyR | Talk 16:19, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

   When I accepted this nomination I was afraid that the latest round of disagreements with MONGO being relatively recent would stir up some controversy. I have never disagreed that he was abused and stalked online by some ED members, nor disagreed with Misplaced Pages or him taking necessary protective action. That should never have happened to him. I have been trying and apparently still failing get two points across about the incident.

   One, I think that it's not as bad as MONGO has said he believes it is; as noted above, I have had prior incidents of online stalking myself, one of which led to real life physical attacks and an arrest of the stalker. Perhaps I'm just old and blase, but harrassment activities which stay purely online don't provoke a fight-or-flight reaction in me anymore, and I see people reacting so strongly to them as ultimately counterproductive. That is not to say that he shouldn't be upset or that WP shouldn't act to defend him - His being upset is reasonable and understandable, and WP should have acted.

   Two, some of the during and after responses have been escalated by MONGO personally acting in response to some provocation, where another administrator who wasn't involved taking the same action would have simply ended things rather than escalating them. I think that MONGO unwittingly made the overall set of incidents last longer and involve more pain and suffering for all by acting personally rather than reporting some of the things to ANI and letting someone else be the bad cop. This unwittingly played into the bad guys hands and ends up being bad for the project. The admin guidelines to let someone else block if you're personally involved in an incident are a good idea.

   I respect MONGO and his contributions to WP. I regret having come in conflict with him, especially at a time that he was clearly under attack, but I saw his reaction at the time as making things worse rather than better. I hope that eventually he'll understand that. Until then, I respect but regret his Oppose. Georgewilliamherbert 17:16, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

   I recognize that you see my efforts to defeat harassment against me as being overly reactionary and to have escalated the conflicts. The admin guidelines regarding having someone else perfom a block are primarily due to potential abuse of WP:OWN in article space. As far as my efforts to defeat harassment, I long have tried to do all I can for all editors to ensure that "Any user, including an administrator using administrative powers, may remove or otherwise defeat attempts at harassment of a user. This includes harassment directed at the user themselves." (Pass 6-0), long before the arbitration committee made this a principle. Comments you made in this thread "Posting someone's real life id info online is not a real life attack" is also troublesome to me as is the comment "This is not a case of real life self-defense. Nobody is going to die or be raped if a WP editor or admin remains slandered for briefly much longer". I see you qualified real life attack as essentially one of a physical nature which results in bodily harm, correct me if I am wrong. I know that you are in solidarity with me that I should not have had to deal with this harassment, but demanding that I ask for assistance at AN/I or elsewhere and await other editors to handle this kind of situation does not equate with what should be common sense and the recent principle determined by ArbCom.--MONGO 08:30, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

   I responded to some of these points in Larry's question above, but to follow up directly - The Meatball Wiki "Defend each other" policy Larry pointed out above is a really good idea. My common sense is that if a response to a situation aggrivates it rather than calming it down or ending it, it wasn't a "common sense" response. My opinion and judgement are that several times, your reactions had that effect, and that had you let someone else handle the provocation it wouldn't have had that effect. Had I been an admin at the time, I would have done some warnings or blocks on your behalf, as others were doing. You clearly deserved defending, as the community stepped up to generally do. The "combatting harrassment" finding was not a decision that victims of harrassment have a carte blanche to respond in any manner ("excessive zeal" ). I understand that you still dislike my differentiating online harrassment from real life harrassment or attacks, but I think it's an important distinction, both in how victims respond and how communities should respond. Most online harrassment never amounts to any real-life threat, even if someone's name or address are posted. That does not mean that it's not disturbing to a victim or not disruptive to a community. You had every reason to be upset at ED's collective attacks on you, and WP has every reason as a community to defend you from that. I just wish our collective response and your personal response had ended rather than aggrivated the initial situation. Georgewilliamherbert 21:25, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

   Lastly, this is yet another example where you seemed to assume good faith where you shouldn't haved. I was well aware long before Karwynn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was indefinitely blocked by User:Cyde that the former was nothing but a trouble maker. I recognize that you feel that I should have taken the matter to AN/I, but his reposting of personal attacks made by another troll/disruptive sock account was simply done to be disruptive. The comments you made on my talk page demonstrate what I feel is an overly sypathetic nature for those who are here for no good. You need to try to work on assuming better faith of admins and respect that if they tell you that the person is here simply to disrupt, then more likely than not, the admin is being honest with you.--MONGO 10:57, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

   I agree that the Karwynn incident turned out badly, as did Gerard Doyle. But we've been getting one to several complaints of similar nature to those to unblock-en-l most weeks, and for the most part the ones that looked sufficiently grey-area that someone bothered to put effort in to see if we can give them another chance have turned out ok. Others on the list can give their impression, but I think we're generally having a pretty high success rate with them. I haven't once seen a case of an admin having blocked in what I can see is bad faith; we've seen a lot where the situation was poorly documented or less clear cut than initially asserted, and in general admins are open to giving people in such situations another chance. Working on unblock-en-l shows us that admins aren't perfect; it also shows us that, from time to time, the unblock-en-l process lets a black hat through, which isn't that suprising. I think we mostly get it right. It's not a case of us-vs-them; unblock-en-l is another facet of the feedback / checks and balances mechanisms which are available via the unblock request on talk page, ANI request, etc. It's the same pool of mostly admins and some editors who are looking at the issues. I think the unblock-en-l archives are open; you are free to go look through them and see if you think I'm giving too many of the wrong people too many passes. But I certainly have responded to a lot of trolls and abusers with "We can't help you, you're abusive". If you find something in those archives which worries you, feel free to bring it up. Karwynn was just one of those cases where it crossed your path. gmail says I've gotten 780 unblock-en-l requests/threads received since I joined the list; 120 of those I responded to personally. Of the last 10... Shared IP school which wasn't AO blocked (asked admin, got that changed to AO), Commercial spammer who I told was a commercial spammer and we couldn't help, commercial spammer I told was a commercial spammer and we couldn't help, an insane guy who we're considering blocking from the list, random requester who didn't supply his account or IP and didn't reply to request for more info, someone who thought wikipedia blocking was blocking his email who we politely set straight, insane christian racist who we told to go away, someone going through a WP:USERNAME policy driven name change who had a hiccup in the process, and a troll who we responded politely to once but then ignored. I had previously helped more out with the AOL user complaints but that's got a FAQ and anyone convenient responds to those nowadays. I don't think I'm being too easy on people complaining, on the whole. Georgewilliamherbert 23:43, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

   Mongo, above you quote GWH: "A real life attack is being punched or having someone pull a gun or knife on you, or at the very least someone having made a real world information attack such as harrassing phone calls to you, your friends or relatives or employers." So apparently you are indeed wrong. JackyR | Talk 15:13, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

   The actual finding of the case that GWH was referring to was "No action is taken against MONGO for any excessive zeal he has displayed.". GWH legitimately criticized MONGO taking action into his own hands following the ArbCom ruling, as I don't think anyone here would want to silence anyone else regarding opinions - all GWH was saying was that he felt MONGO was acting out of turn in enforcing a decision involving him, and that MONGO's responses to people questioning him were unnecessarily harsh. Same with GWH's criticism of an indefinite block for someone restoring a link in defiance of the ArbCom ruling, an indefinite block that was later lifted. It can be argued that MONGO's understanding of these statements in the context of the Arbcom case are worthy of questioning, judging by past misunderstandings of it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:15, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

   Jacky and Jeff; I appreciate that you support me here, but I don't think it's helping here to push back that hard on MONGO for his oppose. This isn't another venue to re-argue that whole case from everyone's viewpoint. Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert 21:29, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

   No further problems here, don't worry about that. I'm more concerned about the actual story being presented than one side of it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:50, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

   Yup, sorry. Same as Jeff. JackyR | Talk

2. Oppose, per MONGO, also answer to Q1 says - "I don't have a huge amount of time to devote to some of the core administrator efforts" then goes on about fighting vandalism where I don't see huge amounts of vandal fighting (2 edits to AIV) which is what he wants to watch, and also says he wants to carryon taking part at WP:AN. User seems more like an editor than a mopper. More vandal fighting experience would tempt me to support.--Andeh 15:24, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
3. Oppose; my concern is that Georgewilliamherbert seems to be somewhat too willing to take the side of disruptive editors. He is an eloquent and effective advocate in this role, but I think an administrator needs to have the judgement not to be quite so willing to give problem editors the benefit of the doubt. In addition to opposing MONGO's arbcom sanctioned actions, he objected to Tony Sidaways blocking of Template:User satanist deletion review, and took the part of an editor that many thought disruptive. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 20:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
4. Oppose per MONGO. Sorry, but I just don't see where anyone responsible for a personal attack on that scale should be given cover and comfort in any way. I can't support a candidate for admin who can't see the black and white when it is so obvious. —Doug Bell  22:09, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
5. Oppose, sadly, for two reasons. First, I think it's quite presumptuous to say that MONGO's harassment wasn't "as bad as MONGO says he believes it is." While it's great that Georgewilliamherbert can separate "real life" from emailed attacks or threats, it's _all_ "real life" to many people. If MONGO was afraid for his life, then he was afraid for his life. Stress like this affects one's health, work, and relationships with family and friends. On top of that, we all know that the amount and quality of information available is far superior to what was widely available 20 years ago, and some people are just insane enough to act impulsively. Georgewilliamherbert's comments trouble me a great deal, and I don't think I could go to him for help if a similar problem happened to me or other editors. That's really my RfA bottom line – trust. The second and less important reason (to me, anyway) is that in practical terms someone who admittedly doesn't have a lot of time to devote to admin efforts probably doesn't need admin tools. Regretfully, I must oppose. KrakatoaKatie 07:14, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

   I'm sorry that you don't get the impression that I'd be there to help if you were harrassed or attacked on WP. Whether you believe that I'd help or not, I urge anyone who is harrassed or attacked to ask for help on WP:ANI. There are many admins and editors there who will assist in serious situations. Georgewilliamherbert 21:38, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

6. Oppose I'm sorry, but Krakatoa Katie really hit the nail on the head for me. If you have had a similar experience of online stalking (which then lead to real life stalking), you should have more understanding when it happens to others, not less. If I couldn't come to you, as an admin, becuase I was being stalked and attacked online, without you being blasé about it, then I don't think that you're ready for the responsability of Adminship. Sorry. Thε Halo 11:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
7. Oppose for a number of reasons, not the least being those cited by MONGO, and KrakatoaKatie. And Wsiegmund also hits the nail on the head... I've seen this tendency too. Those reasons aside, GWH only has ~1000 mainspace edits. His "favorite contribution" is Washboarding, which he recently nominated as a WP:GA which failed. The article is lacking, with no references. His answer to the IAR and SNOW question also bothers me somewhat, as he doesn't mention anything about Misplaced Pages project goals which are the ultimate reason for us working here. In some uncontroversial situations, rules may get in the way of working towards those goals, and IAR and SNOW can be used. And, GWH's answer to question #1 mentions "don't have a huge amount of time to devote to some of the core administrator efforts". All of those reasons combined, I'm not comfortable giving him the admin tools at this time. --Aude (talk) 15:38, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

   These are good points, but I'd like to respond. Washboarding has references; they're listed as "external links" right now, though. the GA discussion called that but didn't propose a good solution (I could just turn them into <ref> citations... ). I couldn't find a civil engineering print text with good coverage of the issue. Regarding the ultimate project goals; I consider it a poor month if half my edits aren't article space. The point is to be writing an encyclopedia; the rest of this is all about how we write the encyclopedia. Which has turned out to be pretty darn important, but doesn't mean that the writing part is less important by any means. I have created many dozens, perhaps as many as a hundred articles, though I don't know of any way to look that up easily in contributions or any of the tools. I agree that if there's no controversy, IAR or SNOW are appropriate. I'm more worried about how people respond if there are controversies, personally, but both aspects are important. The "huge amount of time" refers mostly to the various vandal-fighting efforts which seem to absorb people's whole days - I have a full time job and a family. I'll do what I can do but I don't have many hours a day to dedicate to looking at potential vandal diffs.

   Thanks for your constructive comments. Georgewilliamherbert 00:38, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

   Also, if you're concerned about references and verifyability, see one of the other articles I mentioned, Strength of ships. It had five paper references with ISBN from the first edit as a new article. I do understand why we want references, the importance of verifyability, and when possible I will reference the heck out of stuff I'm doing. It's not always possible. Washboarding was a requested article, and I found enough info online to document what it is and how it works, and wrote the article up with that. I still haven't found good print/paper references to add. Georgewilliamherbert 03:20, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

8. Oppose - per all above oppose comments. Zaxem 01:31, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
9. Oppose I completely agree with KrakatoaKatie. riana_dzasta 17:21, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
10. Oppose per MONGO, KrakatoaKatie, and Riana. Unsuited. Moreschi 21:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Neutral

Neutral No major cons, but only 500 edits in more than two months and only sporadic vandal-fight/participation in XfD make be believe that you might not have great need for the admin tools.--Húsönd 04:13, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Changed to weak support.--Húsönd 16:27, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

1. Neutral. Needs more experience in main space to understand how the project works. --Ghirla 09:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Neutral until MONGO's concerns have been answered. Thε Halo 13:10, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Changed to oppose. Thε Halo 11:38, 4 November 2006 (UTC)