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Revision as of 22:36, 8 December 2006

Pmanderson

Voice your opinion (23/21/6); Scheduled to end 09:14, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Pmanderson (talk · contribs) – Also known as Septentrionalis, Pmanderson is a long-term editor of articles on mathematics, history, and a variety of other topics, while also working on naming conventions and participating in the Good Articles process. He had a prior RFA about four months ago which failed mainly because of civility issues, but Pmanderson has taken the advice to heart (as attested by one of the earlier opposers) and deserves a second chance. Mop away! (Radiant) 10:19, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:

I would be honored.Septentrionalis 17:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not intend to use the mop with great sweeping strokes; I originally asked for it to help with WP:RM, which is usually backlogged. I believe that admin powers should be used to empower consensus; I would only use admin powers in a dispute I was involved in in an emergency, and then I would tell WP:ANI I had done so. (I would have asked for another admin there first.)

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: As I said above, largely backlogged administrative chores, like closing WP:RM. I would consult the backlog list, and do what needed work, from there to WP:AIV I do tag vandals and report them to WP:AIV; as an admin, I would block them directly.

I would let others change the culture of Misplaced Pages by administrative action; that's not what I'm interested in doing. Septentrionalis 17:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

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

A: ::*This edit to Joseph Conrad, which immediately settled the controversy then at Talk:Joseph Conrad#Racism: neither silence about Achebe's criticism of Conrad, nor a long paragraph, but a couple sentences.

• Resolving banausos from one of User:WHEELER's personal essays, which was on the verge of deletion, to a generally accepted article by adding context, while saving his language.
• Cleaning up this version of Feynman diagram#Mathematical details into substantially the present text of Feynman graph.
• Being thanked for work on American Civil War#Abolition.
• Being part of the polishing and neutralization of Macedonia (terminology), now on the front page. Septentrionalis 22:36, 8 December 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: I have spoken uncivilly with perhaps half-a-dozen editors in 16,000 edits. Three of them are now banned for their behavior (two of them were socks when I met them); one of them engages in an often-repeated personal attack on me (this editor has now endorsed me, so that may be settled); another is Ultramarine, who endorses me below. In the course of a six-month controversy with him, which rose to the level of arbitration, I did say some regrettable things; I should have engaged in dispute resolution sooner, rather than letting myself become so frustrated. I know more about dispute resolution now, largely because of this controversy.

• And Skyemoor is one of the half-dozen: this single-purpose account has done hardly anything for his last hundred edits but push the PoV that Jefferson and Madison founded the Republican Party. I would never block him; but if I must, I will start an RfC. Septentrionalis 04:06, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• I have blocked Skyemoor (talk · contribs) for negative vote canvassing (i.e. systematically contacting people who previously opposed Pmanderson in order to attempt to destroy this RFA). Dragons flight 08:18, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

General comments

• See Pmanderson's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool. For the edit count, see the talk page.
• I choose my user-name and my sig when I first began WP; they differ because it was my first wiki, and I thought that the username would be invisible. I've usually had too many edits to change my user-name, and I see no reason to change now. Septentrionalis 17:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• The concern about my sig is surprising; I've been asked about it only twice in all my career. My sig has always been this; changing now would mean disavowing my former edits and be perhaps more confusing. Some editors think of me by sig, some by username; changing either will puzzle somebody. If I must choose one, I would prefer the sig, which I intended as my wikipedia identity; but I have usually had, and may have now, too many edits to change my username; nor do I wish to put that quite considerable burden on WP:USERNAME. Septentrionalis 18:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• On administrative discretion, I agree with WP:PRO, both for process and against it. Septentrionalis 19:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• The 3RR was an accident; I was dealing with persistent version, and lost count, rather than switch to an alternate text, as I had intended, or report the other user to AN3. Septentrionalis 19:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Support

1. Naturally. (Radiant) 10:20, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
2. I supported the previous RfA, and am happy to support this one. I feel certain he will be a responsible mopper and avoid sloshing the bucket. Robert A.West (Talk) 10:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
3. Support - looks like a pretty good candidate, and meets my standards, so support. Jayden54 10:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
4. Support Does a valuable work and can achieve even more as administrator.Ultramarine 10:45, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
5. Strong support per Ultramarine. 172 | Talk 12:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
6. Support I've never voted in an Rfa before. Are non-admins allowed to vote? Anyway, I've had my differences with Pmanderson, and he has certainly expressed frustration with many of my arguments about the U.S. city naming convention, but always in a civil and productive manner. Misplaced Pages can only improve with this adminship. --Serge 18:19, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

   Yes, any registered user may vote. Newyorkbrad 15:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

7. Support I opposed him first time around because he picked fights and was a negative influence; he has reformed and I can now support him. Rjensen 05:08, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
8. Support. Looks good to me. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
9. Support. I also supported in the previous RfA due to the candidate's good contributions, and see no reason why not to do so again. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 10:17, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
10. Support absolutely Dragomiloff 10:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
11. Support He is the best guy for the job. {Happy Holidays | Cocoaguy (Talk) (edits) 14:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
12. Support Looks like a deserving administrator to me -- Pure_Oxygen
13. Support: he's a great editor and would be an asset as an admin. Jonathunder 14:58, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
14. Support. Frankly, the 3RR should've been trashed some time ago and I regret supporting the policy change that made it directly enforceable. Reverting in defence of factual, correct encyclopaedic information is no vice. Mackensen (talk) 15:57, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
15. Support per Radiant and Mackenson. Bastiq▼e 16:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
16. Support. Pmanderson is a good, dedicated editor, and I have found him to be levelheaded and willing to change his mind in discussion, the latter of which in particular is all too rare of a trait. --Robth 16:37, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
17. Support, I hope people are actually reading the diffs provided. A single 3RR block is unfortunate, yes, but I believe Septentrionalis will be deliberate in usage of the tools. Reconciliation with Ultramarine is encouraging. Neutral on the username change thing (see JzG). -- nae'blis 17:12, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
18. Support. I'm confident he'll use the tools judiciously. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:03, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
19. 'Tentative support I'm doing this partly because users I respect believe we should give him a chance, and also out of sheer amazement at some of the oppose reasons. A sig? Who cares! A procedural failure to list on time? If that makes a blind bit of difference, I'm sure the 'crats will consider it. But I can't see it.--Doc 18:37, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

    How about we just call you fickle. :-) —Doug Bell  19:35, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

    You could, but I prefer thoughtful, flexible, reflective and open to reason :) --Doc 20:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

20. Support. Solid contributor and appears to be amenable to reasoned discourse. I really don't understand how people can oppose solely because of a sig -- that's just bizarre. older ≠ wiser 18:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
21. Support after having voted neutral and getting an explanation on my talkpage. Good luck. -- Szvest 19:17, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
22. Support. I thought about this for a long while and decided the 3RR is not a concern for me (Mackensen's comment above sums it up nicely), nor is the sig. What it boils down to is whether we trust this editor with the mop, and they have demonstrated a firm knowledge that the mop is not to be wielded to win disputes. --Ars Scriptor 20:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

    I disagree with that, it is different if he has knowledge that the mop is not to be wielded to win disputes and another if he is actually proven himself that he will not. --Turbinator 21:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

23. Support based on strong content contributions in several areas, reasonable knowledge of policy, and ability to wield the mop productively, including stated desire and intent to do admin work in a backlogged area. In a recent (albeit trivial) content dispute to which I was a party, he was able to marshal persuasive evidence from reliable sources that assisted in resolving the dispute, an important and not ever-present skill. The signature is not optimal but is not a major concern; the putative 3RR violations seem borderline and do not reflect a larger problem. Some other comments below are more substantive and the candidate should bear them in mind moving forward whether this RfA succeeds or not, but they are outweighed by the positives of the overall record. Newyorkbrad 22:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Strongly Oppose Pmanderson|Septentrionalis, having a recent 3RR, has been highly confrontational in pursuing positions that he provides little evidence for, preferring to resort to personal attacks to sway new readers/editors to his position. I have supplied many dozens of secondary and primary references, though he continues his argument from "authority", though he does not have the qualifications. See an example of how he responds to people who provide several supporting references. Some of his comments violate the spirit, if not the letter, of No personal attacks. see talk page for detailed evidence Skyemoor 06:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
   • Whilst, due to its length, removing Skyemooor's comment to talk is reasonable, the evidence he presents is pertinent and worthy of consideration.--Doc 11:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
2. Oppose I took a bit to look at this as a nom. from Radiant carries some weight with me. Regardless however, I can't support a candidate a mere two weeks after being blocked for 24 hours for 3RR. I'm also rather underwhelmed by the responses to the questions above. I'm not convinced the past civility concerns have been completely addressed. I have a strong aversion to sigs that have no relationship to the user name. And finally, I am concerned that this RfA was allowed to accumulate votes for almost 24 hours, and then was listed after having the timestamp reset, effectively giving the RfA a "running start". There's just too many things here that concern me, so no. —Doug Bell  09:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
   • Just a brief note - the page User:Septentrionalis directs users to Pmanderson's real name; and note that User:Jtdirl, a long-standing admin, also was in the habit of signing with a different name (FearEIRANN) and this never really became a problem. (Radiant) 10:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

     It is an issue for me. See discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Sign your posts on talk pages#Signatures that display an entirely different name than the username. Just because one admin is doing it doesn't mean it's OK. I understand this isn't forbidden by policy, but I think it should be strongly discouraged, and combined with the other concerns I have makes this a clear oppose for me. Sorry. —Doug Bell  11:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

3. Oppose until username issues are resolved. Per WP:USERNAME: A signature should not be misleading; and WP:SIG: Users should choose a signature name that is either identical or closely related to their account name. Signatures that obscure an account name to the casual reader are disruptive. I suggest using Misplaced Pages:Changing username if needed. I will retract this oppose if this issue is dealt with to comply with policies. feydey 09:59, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
4. Oppose for the 3RR, an admin should know better. I'm not so concerned by the username issue. James086 10:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
5. Oppose 3RR. - crz crztalk 13:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
6. Oppose couldn't care less about the sig (though if they have created the user account which redirects, I'm not sure why they didn't just rename). The recent 3RR is troubling, the answers to the questions not the best I've seen and (propbably unfairly on the candiate) the nominator removing all of the lengthy first oppose to the talk page seems "wrong". (I'm all for keeping the discussions to the point, but leaving at least a stub or summary of the oppose would have seemed sensible and getting someone other than the nominator to do so equally sensible) --pgk 14:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

   And the issue of the listing which, although it could be a genuine mistake on the part of the candidate, just adds to the other concerns. --pgk 14:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

7. Oppose for his 3RR vio and pushy, condescending attitude. He has not really put forth any convincing reason why wikipedia will be improved by making him an admin. NeoFreak 14:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
8. Oppose per the recent block and edit warring. Sarah Ewart 15:12, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
9. 3RR. - Mailer Diablo 15:17, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
10. Oppose - 3RR. Edit/revert warring is very, very evil and pointless. The thought of this candidate being able to wheel war does not appeal. Moreschi 15:19, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
11. Oppose per recent block and history of edit warring. Sorry. Nishkid64 15:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
12. Oppose. This is not acceptable. Sentences of the form "In reality, X, so person Y is wrong" are blatantly POV, and you can't just restore them saying "POV!" It's not a magic word that makes you right. As an admin, you would have the power to block people making these "POV" edits, which is not good. Repeated edit warring is also not good, as wheel warring is incredibly disruptive. -Amarkov _edits 15:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

    Yes, sentences that say "In reality, X, so person Y is wrong" are indeed blatantly POV. The edit you have linked to, however, was of the form "Person Z claims that X is the case and that Person Y is therefore wrong". I hope you are not arguing against the restoration of significant and sourced criticism of this sort. --Robth 16:37, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

    The sentence was neither phrased that way, nor even given a source. It's not the only concern, anyway. -Amarkov _edits 22:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

13. Oppose per all the above serious concerns. --Siva1979 15:51, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
14. Oppose per above and concerns discussed at my talk page. — CRAZY`(lN)`SANE 16:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
15. Oppose, same reasons as Doug Bell. Votes should have been disallowed by the nominator/nominee before the page was transcluded. -- Renesis (talk) 17:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
16. No way. For a month or two there Pmanderson was wikistalking me, always conveniently "showing up" in situations I was involved in, and inevitably taking the opposite viewpoint. I don't even remember what I originally did to Pmanderson to make him hate me so much, but he needs to learn better how to simply let things go, rather than unnecessarily carrying on arguments. --Cyde Weys 19:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
17. Strong Oppose well if the 3 RR was a couple of months ago I would let it past but it isn't. And your sig is somewhat disguising your account/username. Please change if you havn't already. — Seadog 19:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
18. Weak oppose uninspiring answers to questions and 3RR. That said overall fairly impressive. Suggest you wait a couple of months, give better answers, sort out the sig, don't go over 3RR and list your RfA properly and I'll strongly support. Addhoc 20:02, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
19. Weak Oppose I have interacted with Pmanderson|Septentrionalis on two requested moves and one article citations needed. We have generally had a contentious relationship. I generally create rough pages in need of editing. I currently have one (Paul Cornell (Chicago) that is still tagged as in need of work. It was his cleanup tag. The article truly still needs some work. However, debates on this page were very odd. Instead of correcting a misspelling he tagged the misspelled word "Plaissance" specifically as dubious. We went back and forth on this topic. Oddly, he has been against two of my requested moves. His opposition to the Paul Cornell move
20. Strong Oppose The recent 3RR is troubling, the candidate seems pushy and opinionated. The nominator removed all of the lengthy first oppose vote to the talk page is not in favor with me. We need admins that are neutral in their views, this candidate is not. --Turbinator 21:38, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
21. Strong Oppose per all of the above concerns. Dionyseus 22:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
22. Oppose -- I'm afraid that the WP:3RR vio is too recent for me to be comfortable supporting this user's request for admin tools. Jkelly 22:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Neutral

1. A question: Why was this RFA not properly listed when the candidate accepted and answered the questions? In effect, there has been an additional 23 hours during which people voted while this wasn't on WP:RFA. No opinion either way otherwise. – Chacor 09:24, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
2. Hmm, neutral, but will support if username is changed to match signature, or vice versa. — CharlotteWebb 11:15, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

   Ummm! The problem is that the policy doesn't rule that. it says that one can choose a nickname used in signatures, independent of the actual user name (connected to a User: page). It is confusing since the guideline states that Users should choose a signature name that is either identical or closely related to their account name. Something should be fixed i believe. I was promoted admin though being in the same ship as Pmanderson. -- Szvest 13:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

3. Neutral - Blocked twice for the same reason. -- Szvest 13:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)changed to support
4. NeutralI would have been thrilled to support. Strong contributor. I see no recent incivility on user's talk page. The timing of the 3RR incident is unfortunate. Also, please, make the signature less confusing. Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 14:18, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

   Also, the lengthy comment moved to talk page suggests Pmanderson should not let emotions get out of hand. Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 14:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

5. Neutral. I here vote neutral on Pmanderson's RfA to make it clear that I feel that my previous objections to his adminship were based on what is now year-old information which may no longer be appropriate in light of more recent events of which I am not aware. I have not paid attention to his conduct in the past year, and have no reason to either believe or disbelieve that he may have changed his practices. Receiving both Radiant's and Ultramarine's endorsements is a positive development; however, the recent 3RR violation is a negative development. For the record, I have no objection to the signature issue; it was briefly confusing to me but only for a short time. Kelly Martin (talk) 15:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
6. Oppose a 3RR just two weeks ago , and the evidence on the talk page, although it makes Skyemoor look worse, looks very bad for the candidate. Immoderate, intemperate, uncivil language is no way for an admin to conduct himself, even when faced with a troublesome user. I salute the candidate's dedication, but I don't think he has what it takes.--Doc 10:00, 8 December 2006 (UTC) Switching to neutral - he was dealing with a troll, so I'm going to cut him some slack. Plus, I've quarrelled with this user before - so I may be biased here.--Doc 16:25, 8 December 2006 (UTC) Now supporting, call me contrary!--Doc 18:37, 8 December 2006 (UTC)