Misplaced Pages

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Questions for the candidate
A few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:

1. What sysop chores, if any, would you anticipate helping with? (Please read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.)

A. With stub sorting being probably my main current fixation, I'd first of all like to help out with 'closing' on WP:SFD. For a long time, this really only had one 'duty admin', and even now with a recent admin appointee working there too, it could probably do with another. (Firstly just as a matter of expedition, and secondly to avoid any appearance of too small a "clique" running any aspect of wikipedia operations (as fair-minded as the two doing the job currently are, I hasten to add), especially as there's otherwise the situation of an admin having to end up closing their own nominations.) Likewise, I'd be willing to help out on similar pages that seem to be apt to develop backlogs, such as WP:RFM. Certainly I'd make occasional use of the rollback function, though I currently rv/v only as it comes up on my watchlist, rather than doing any significant amount of RCing. (Though I think I have to trim my watchlist, as I'm apt to check it less often than I'd ideally like, as it's starting to increasing resemble RC...)

My philosophy about the best way to use the admin functions would be, "circumspectly". I'm especially wary about the use of page protection in anything other than the most clear-cut of cases, and for the briefest feasible period.

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

A. I'm a little unimpressed at my own contributions to the article space, having started out with fairly modest plans, and not made much of an impact in them. Must do better. I do take some satisfaction from my "gnomish" accomplishments, like having helped to bash some especially unruly categories of unsorted and undersorted stubs into shape, though these can seem a little Sisyphean at times. ("Repeatable" edits indeed, in every sense.) I'd also like to think I'd rowed in on the side of reasoned compromise in some disputes, and argued for consistency between policy, convention and guidelines on the one hand, and practice on the other.

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've certainly been involved in a few editing conflicts, some of which in hindsight seem to be bordering on the lame. The main moral I'd draw from such experiences is that it's best to take something of an "eventualist" approach to most editing disputes: if one is on the wrong end of a consensus about something, it's fruitless to simply argue (much less, to revert, etc) more and more feverishly; equally, if a consensus is going to emerge in favour, one might as well state one's point, go edit something else for while (or gasp, do something non-wikipedian -- as if), and wait and see if anyone else is inclined to agree.