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Revision as of 12:57, 23 February 2007

Georgewilliamherbert

Voice your opinion (49/4/5); Scheduled to end 17:03, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Georgewilliamherbert (talk · contribs) - George. A fine editor, a thoughtful contributor to the project, a long-standing contributor on the unblock list, patiently explaining to blocked users what they have done wrong. An independent person with no trace of groupthink, a useful "critical friend" and a useful friend friend as well. Does all the things we like (fixing vandalism, using edit summaries, being civil, not biting) and as far as I can tell none of the things we don't like, with the sole exception of reserving judgement on a case which is probably better forgotten, which is why his first nomination failed. These events were not one of our stellar moments. Time, I think, to put that behind us and hand George a mop and bucket to help him better do the good things he already does for the project. Guy (Help!) 17:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Co-nomination: I am pleased to join in nominating Georgewilliamherbert for administrator status. In his prior RfA, my !vote was "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." Three months later, all still true (even the last part), and I have also come to know of his good work on the mailing list. I hope soon to welcome GWH to the ranks of administrators. Newyorkbrad 17:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:

To quote the bowl of petunias: "Oh no, not again." 8-)

I gratefully accept this re-nomination. Georgewilliamherbert 18:30, 21 February 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:Misplaced Pages backlog and Category:Administrative backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.

A: Things I spend time on now include WP:AIV (mostly reporting now, would handle requests if adminned), WP:AN and WP:ANI (discussions now, admin-bit issue handling comes up from time to time), a bit easier cleanup for vandal fighting I do by hand now (though I much appreciate the "Undo" feature). Some appeals issues from the unblock-en-l mailing list would get a little easier to handle, though my usual approach of talking to blocking admins would remain my normal way of starting things. Georgewilliamherbert 01:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

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

A: I got in a little trouble last RFA for not having a FA or GA yet. It's not that I don't believe in Misplaced Pages being about the content - I don't know how many new articles I've started, I stopped counting a while ago, but it's in the many dozens and I have a list somewhere offline of more I want to do or know need improvement, particularly in some engineering topics (alloys, composite materials, etc), aerospace, and a few naval/ship topics. I don't personally have the energy and interest in driving an article through FA status - I'll put in the content, context, references, categorize and wikilink, and so on, but there are too many hoops to FA.

Ones I am happy about now 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.

I've added a moderate number of images as well, mostly illustrating technical articles.

I also am proud of what I've done with encouraging the final policy approval for deployment of AO blocks as a MediaWiki and Misplaced Pages feature.

Off-wiki, I'm also happy to be involved in unblock-en-l, and participate in discussions on wikien-l, foundation-l, among others.

I hope that the essay User:Georgewilliamherbert/DefendEachOther will grow to be sufficiently fleshed out to be a project space essay, but it's not there yet. Georgewilliamherbert 01:58, 22 February 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've been in some conflicts before, when I thought editors or admins were causing problems, and also been involved in attempting to defuse others.

Prior to my first RFA I'd gotten into a couple of arguments with User:MONGO. Though I didn't intend it that way, he took some of my comments as not being in solidarity or support of him at a time when he was being pretty badly attacked by external abusers, and I regret that. We had what I think was a really good and productive discussion about it during my last RFA, which I appreciated for the feedback. It was the most constructive and positively engaged oppose I've seen anyone do in a RFA.

There had been a series of abuses on Societal attitudes towards homosexuality which led to an Arbcom ruling against the abuser; I spent months trying to work with them before it got that far.

Not as a party, but as a conflict-handler, I've been involved in a number of areas.

A lot of various issues have come up from unblock-en-l discussions, incuding a current Arbcom case about someone unblock-en-l communally recommended unblock on (see Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Free Republic ). I spent a couple of weeks trying to defuse the arguments there, both on talk pages and emails with the three principals to the Arbcom case.

I've been (on and off as time allows) active on WP:ANI trying to be a useful neutral party. I've also attempted to keep defending admins and editors who come under attack there and elsewhere - putting time into the User:Georgewilliamherbert/DefendEachOther credo.

I guess my approach is to assume good faith if it's internal disputes and try to if there's an external party, and work to resolve problems and address abuses without making it personal. It can be hard to not snap at people (I know I've done it), but recognizing that and trying not to is important. Knowing that sometimes I want someone else to "take over" if I get too upset, so I can go calm down, helps motivate me to be that neutral person to come help out for others. Georgewilliamherbert 02:17, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Optional questions from Lar

4. I asked you some essay questions on your last RfA, which, unfortunately did not succeed. Have any of your thoughts about defending each other, free passes and assuming good faith changed in any way? If so, how and why? ++Lar: t/c 18:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

A: I still think that defending each other is very important - there are WP users who aren't "community members" who seek to abuse the project's goals and members, and we all need to stand together against that. We also need to offer solidarity to editors and admins when they get into scraps with each other, even if we have to defuse a problem or deal with a problem user. The worst thing in the world is for a dispute between good contributors to blow up and one or more parties walk away over it. The essay on this remains woefully thin so far, but it is something I want to work on (and see others work on) over time.

I still object to giving anyone free passes; as I said earlier, to me good faith is pretty much automatic with long established editors of good standing, but even good people do bad things sometimes. We need to hold experienced users accountable for mistakes, without berating or abusing them. Solidarity doesn't mean we can't say "I appreciate your work here, but please knock this thing over here off." Georgewilliamherbert 00:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

5. Also, you've continued to be quite active on the unblock mailing list, to very great positive effect... (quoting Sarah Ewart: George has been one of our most consistently hard-working members of the list) ... do you think your experiences there have influenced your outlook? If so, how? ++Lar: t/c 18:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

A: Over time, I've observed that the unblock-en-L admins are getting better at communicating with people they block. I think all of us on that list appreciate that sometimes, people just don't understand, and the more info we put in warning messages and block messages the better off things will be. I've made it a habit to leave warnings and comments on vandal talk pages where someone vandalized a page on my watchlist and another editor or admin cleaned it up without warning the offender. Going the extra mile to communicate is important. Putting something useful in the edit summary, and comments on the talk pages, etc. are important.

It's also important to listen to even the screaming angry people, because sometimes they do have a good point, and often they're perfectly nice people who just got pushed too far and are venting on us. We get a lot of annoying people and vandals complaining to unblock-en-L too, and nobody's patience can be infinite, but it is important for us to spend effort on it. I think we've helped talk some now-productive contributors through issues they were blocked over. Georgewilliamherbert 00:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Optional question from Garion96

6. Could you elaborate on the statement you made here Garion96 (talk) 12:01, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

General comments

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

Please keep criticism constructive and polite.

Discussion

Support

1. Beat-the-noms support. Great candidate who was unlucky to fail last time around. – Chacor 02:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
2. Support per my co-nomination above. Newyorkbrad 02:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
3. Support Of course. Is there an echo in here? :) Sorry for the premature transclusion, please don't hold it against George, it was my bobble. ++Lar: t/c 04:01, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
4. Support, overwhelmingly, and I hope my support vote isn't a kiss of death. SchmuckyTheCat 04:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
5. Support, cannot imagine that he'll misuse the tools. Seraphimblade 04:54, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
6. Support Excellent candidate -- past problems were, I think, a mere difference of opinion largely incidental to adminship. Xoloz 05:32, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
7. - NYC JD make a motion 05:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
8. Support Great looking contribs., sure to be a great admin. John Reaves (talk) 05:48, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
9. Ability to understand opposing perspectives serves him well as an editor and speaks well of his usefulness as an administrator. --Michael Snow 06:06, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
10. Support. I think enough time has elapsed since the last RfA for the previous issue to be put to rest. Your contributions are still stellar, and two people I respect a lot had enough faith in you to nominate you for adminship personally. My pleasure to support. – Lantoka (talk) 06:18, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
11. Support on the strength of your quote :D. Viridae 06:42, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
12. Support oer nominator. BuickCenturyDriver (Honk, odometer) 08:08, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
13. Sure. Kusma (討論) 08:52, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
14. Strongly support. Everyking 10:42, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
15. Terence Ong 恭喜发财 10:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
16. Support. Let's see. Do I trust George William Herbert to use the tools wisely? Of course I do. Angus McLellan (Talk) 11:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
17. Support George has a demonstrable need for the tools and I feel confident that he can be trusted with them. Sarah 12:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
18. Support. Trustworthy. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:30, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
19. Support Per two nominators I have a lot of respect for and for a better appreciation by Georgewilliamherbert in regards to the idea of community solidarity against harassment, as evidenced partly in his userspace essay. I want to take this opportunity to remind George to be careful when doing any unblockings, and make sure that such unblocks won't result in a wheel war (see well written summary in Block wars paragraph).--MONGO 13:05, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

    Noted and agreed. That's what people's talk pages and WP:ANI are for. Talk first, particularly in controversies. Georgewilliamherbert 02:03, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

20. Support —Quarl 2007-02-22 13:22Z
21. Support, absolutely. Deiz talk 13:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
22. Support good user, good answers, good activity. Give him a mop. - Anas 14:48, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
23. Support Enough time has passed since the issues I had last time, concerning his support in the past for disruptive users. I think I can trust him now with the tools, and have been impressed with what I seen of him in dealing with unblock requests, in the enwiki-l mailing list, and here on the wiki. Please be careful in unblocking anyone, and make sure to discuss it with the blocking admin, etc. --Aude (talk) 15:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
24. Support. --Conti|✉ 16:21, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
25. Support. A trustworthy editor.--ragesoss 17:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
26. Strong Support - seems like a good editor, evidently has a good knowledge of policy, impressive editcount. Walton monarchist89 19:03, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
27. Support Looks like a good user.--Natl1 (Talk Page) (Contribs) 19:32, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
28. Pepsidrinka supports. 20:17, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
29. Strong support - thoughtful, experienced editor with good judgment. --MCB 20:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
30. Support. Angerafte, 20:36 22 February 2007
31. Support, absolutely. Proto ► 20:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
32. Plenty of experience and judgment, concerns below are trivial. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:55, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
33. Support. Axiomm 22:42, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
34. Support from what I have seen of George, he is a great editor whom I would, and do, trust. I have seen George's polite and accurate respsonses and discussion on unblock-en-l and see his contributions to other admin tasks. Although he could definitely use the tools greatly for unblocking reasons, I am sure that he can be trusted with the others as well and can find a use for them. Cbrown1023 talk 23:18, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
35. Support. It's a pleasant surprise to see this user up for adminship again. I nominated him last time and he was rejected for what I thought were pretty frivolous reasons, and I hope that this time, without the kiss of death of my nomination ;), he sails through this process. Gamaliel 23:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
36. Support, George is the type of user we want as an admin. Prodego 00:03, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
37. Support Will make a good admin. Garion96 (talk) 00:09, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
38. Support I opposed in the last RFA. And I second Mongo's advice regarding unblocking and wheel warring. I, like Aude, had concerns in the past about his support for disruptive users. I hope that this does not return to be a problem in the future, but from what I can see of the user's most recent actions on AN/I I feel compelled to support.--Jersey Devil 00:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
39. Support. See him around a lot, sharp contributor. - Merzbow 01:11, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
40. Support. Why in God's name isn't he? --Calton | Talk 01:55, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
41. Support Sounds like a good guy to me. Captain panda In vino veritas 03:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
42. Support Has the experience, has made a positive contribution over a long period, knows his way around and no reason to suspect he'll misuse the tools. Jeendan 06:09, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
43. Support; everything is good here. Likely to be an excellent admin. Superb contributions to the unblock list, among other things. Antandrus (talk) 06:18, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
44. I haven't seen copious amounts of George on-wiki to make a fully-fledged decision based totally on that, but his unblock-en-l responses - to which I subscribe, so every response of his ends up in my inbox and subsequently read - gives me great confidence. Daniel.Bryant 07:55, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
45. Support, had previous good interaction with this user, seems to be very level headed, hard working, and knowledgeable on Misplaced Pages policies. I am confident he will be a good admin -- Chris 73 | Talk 09:55, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
46. Weak support - just a little dubious, BLP is policy, AGF is not, but everything else looks good. And we need more admins. Moreschi 10:08, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
47. I opposed last time, for reasons separate from the MONGO affair, and, reading back, am quite unimpressed by the candidate's response to my concerns... but that was November, and I've seen nothing but good from GWH since. Support per MONGO. Bishonen | talk 11:09, 23 February 2007 (UTC).
48. I am grateful to him for establishing the rule that talk page comments should not be deleted. --Ideogram 11:36, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
49. Of course he should be an admin. Shimgray | talk | 12:11, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose per his reasoning on this AfD – Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Orca (supercar) (without producing an inkling of evidence to prove notability) and a subsequent note here – (alleging improper close of the AfD) which implies failure to understand – WP:CSD#A7. Although the article was recreated after George produced evidence of notability on a DRV, I am not satisfied with his understanding of deletion guidelines. A recent incident of biting a newbie user – , who only tested the page once – ; I cannot support at this time. Sorry. — Nearly Headless Nick 15:32, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

   The first issue is a routine disagreement on a deletion. The second, far from newbie-biting, seems to reflect that the candidate noted on AIV that vandalizing IP's appeared to be related to an editor who had been indef-blocked three weeks earlier. This is an ill-reasoned oppose. Newyorkbrad 15:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

   Yeah, I was tying the prior blocked account (blocked by Can't Sleep, Clowns will Eat Me some weeks prior) to the IP vandals I was reporting for a long term problem. If User:Anthony Scott Mitchell was improperly blocked or bitten based on the one edit then that's a separate issue to take up with Clowns or the unblock-en-l list; I didn't touch ASM's account. On review, I think I may have been wrong to tie him to the IP vandals, the actual edits made were different nature. He hasn't appealed to unblock-en-L or elsewhere that I know of.

   Regarding the deletion guidelines, yes, I object to deleting articles on subjects which a reasonable person can research and identify sources for, even if we haven't found reliable sources by WP definition at a given time. There is an important difference between "we can't encyclopedically cite this right now" and "it's a fraud or not real, delete it". I know others object to such inclusionism, but I make no apologies for it. I do practice different criteria for what I will advocate (!vote on) and what I'd do if say I get into AFD closing - if I have a personal strong opinion on it, it would best be left to an uninvolved admin to close rather than me doing it. Georgewilliamherbert 01:20, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

2. Oppose • I do not feel that he has taken the points from previous RFAs to heart and I do not feel that these lessons have yet been learned. ✎ Peter M Dodge (Talk to Me) 18:05, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
3. Oppose seems to think that we should AGF rather then enforce BLP. Whilst I'm happy to AGF, BLP is non-negotiable. Not what I want in an admin.--Doc 09:23, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
4. Oppose per Doc. Blocking someone is not necessarily a failure to AGF. Even the best meaning user can still violate WP:BLP with consequences for the subject(s) of the article and Misplaced Pages. If after warnings they continue to do so, blocks may regrettably be required however sincere those users are. WjBscribe 09:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
5. I tend to agree with the above. On his last nomination, similar concerns showed up, leading me to doubt his judgement with respect to 3RR, cooldown blocks and dealing with socks. His statement about BLP seems to indicate improvement is lacking. >Radiant< 11:49, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Neutral

• Um... Why aren't the questions answered? -Amarkov moo! 18:36, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • that may have been my fault, I saw the accept from GWH while editing in my optional Qs and took it live. But you can see his previous answers by following the link to the previous RfA. I'm sure he's editing in his answers as we speak. ++Lar: t/c 18:42, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Unless you have an objection, this page really ought to be removed from WP:RFA until the questions are answered. Please see Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/nominate#What to do if you are nominated by someone else:. The candidate is supposed to accept, then answer the questions, then transclude the nomination. He shouldn't be faulted because someone else transcluded the nomination prematurely. I'm going to go ahead and remove it if someone else hasn't already done so. --BigDT 18:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
      • No objection, I removed it for now. Processes change over time. ++Lar: t/c 19:24, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

1. Neutral until questions answered - can't fault the nom's though! The Rambling Man 18:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

   My apologies on timing, all; the nom was made as I was walking in to interview someone, which took 4 hrs. I now need to eat lunch, and catch up on email, and will respond as soon as possible afterwards. Georgewilliamherbert 23:36, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

2. Neutral I don't want to hold this over George's head forever, but I'm still not comfortable with supporting his nomination due to his comments when MONGO was under attack from the ED folks. I won't oppose this time, but I cannot support. —Doug Bell  02:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
3. Neutral - my only interaction with George was in an IFD discussion over a drawing of the Starship Enterprise that we unquestionably cannot use as a derivative work of a non-free image. I won't oppose, though, based on reading all of the above, because he obviously does a heckuva lot for Misplaced Pages. --BigDT 04:18, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
4. Still neutral. I'm sorry, but I find it really hard to support someone who thinks that solidarity of the community is so important. I really don't like the concept of "solidarity", for various reasons. -Amarkov moo! 06:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

   Obviously some irony here, given that the candidate seems to have been responding in part to concerns on his prior RfA that he wasn't valuing solidarity of the community enough. Newyorkbrad 15:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

5. Neutral. The concerns brought up in his last RfA were prominent enough and serious enough that I'm not comfortable supporting. I've also not had enough interaction with him to verify to my satisfaction that he's learned enough for it not to be an issue anymore. I do grant it's clear Georgewilliamherbert has made substantial positive contributions. Due to those reasons, I'm not ready to oppose either; I need a chance to look more closely into it. George perhaps you could offer a way to demonstrate you've learned from the experience. - Taxman 17:06, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
6. Neutral per Taxman (no relation). Shouldn't the headline stress that this is a second nomination, and shouldn't there be a link to the first one?--Taxwoman 12:57, 23 February 2007 (UTC)