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Revision as of 18:39, 22 January 2010 editBooksworm (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Rollbackers4,557 edits added support← Previous edit Revision as of 19:01, 22 January 2010 edit undoThemfromspace (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers29,409 edits →Oppose: canvassingNext edit →
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#:This is misrepresenting the context of that statement. In fact cherrypicking a sentence from a long rational explanation and making the candidate look bad for using it. ] (]) 09:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC) #:This is misrepresenting the context of that statement. In fact cherrypicking a sentence from a long rational explanation and making the candidate look bad for using it. ] (]) 09:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
#'''Oppose''' for the canvassing issue, and replying to all the Opposers is a bit odd. ] (]) 14:36, 22 January 2010 (UTC) #'''Oppose''' for the canvassing issue, and replying to all the Opposers is a bit odd. ] (]) 14:36, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
#'''Oppose''' sorry, but this isn't a fair RfA with the way its been advertised. ''']]]''' 19:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)


=====Neutral===== =====Neutral=====

Revision as of 19:01, 22 January 2010

SMcCandlish

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (19/22/2); Scheduled to end 23:34, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Nomination

  • Ladies and gentlemen, I present SMcCandlish. SM is an intelligent, mature and dedicated editor with over 48,000 live edits over 4½ years, well distributed across the project, as well as over 500 edits to Commons and a number to Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Meta. Based on my review of edits, he (yes, he) has significant experience with categorization, stub sorting, templates, vandalism reversion and warning, article writing and maintenance, requested moves and, with almost 8,000 edits to the Misplaced Pages namespace, process and policy in general. Though I gather deletion is not much of a focus for him, SM has a few hundred XfD edits with the most at CfD. SM has also created 63 articles, is the creator and maintainer of WikiProject Cue sports, and basically, single-handedly, has orchestrated the maintenance of pool and billiards-related articles across Misplaced Pages.

    SM and I have collaborated on a number of matters such as the billiards glossary used as a resource in numerous articles. Because of our intersecting interests, we have also had a number of disagreements. I can happily report that they have always been in the nature of debate, rather than argument. SM had a previous nomination almost 3 years ago which he withdrew and the chief opposition basis raised there is 46,000 edits in the past. SM is a thinker and a believer in process and I have trouble picturing him abusing the tools. I think he will make a fine addition to the administrator corps. What say you?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 10:57, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

  • Co-nomination by Tim Vickers, very experienced and will be a particularly useful addition to our set of admins due to his experience of working with complex templates. I first offered to nominate SMcCandlish at the end of 2007, but he refused at the time as he thought he wouldn't have time to give the job much attention. Now his real-life workload has lightened a little, we can take a bit more of his time on Wiki by giving him the mop. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:51, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:
I humbly accept. Finally! I have answered many common RfA questions in the process of completing a bunch of admin homework, at User:SMcCandlish/Coaching. Disclaimer: I have also pre-notified a handful of editors about this RfA for specific reasons outlined at User talk:SMcCandlish#RFA notifications. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 23:11, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

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

1. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?
A: Several areas are of keen interest to me: XfD closure (especially WP:Categories for discussion), fulfilling {{Editprotected}} requests, investigating sockpuppetry, speedy deletion, and Page protection, among others.
Details...
  • Fulfilling {{editprotected}} requests that clearly have consensus or are unlikely to be controversial (I have a good eye for attempts to "resolve" an editing dispute by changing the page to "the Right Version"). There is often a long delay, especially with templates that are {{intricate}}. I am an accomplished MediaWiki template coder, so I think I can be particularly helpful here, without demanding that editprotected requesters provide the code themselves, a common burden that is not very WP:BOLD-friendly.
  • Page protection/unprotection and other evenhanded administrative action in response to editwarring and POV pushing. While I have probably lower than average tolerance for vandalism, I have higher than average tolerance for noob blunders, and very little interest in WP:ANI, blocking users for anything other than blatant vandalism, and other "heavy" use of admin authority.
I have done quite well without admin tools for years, but certain limitations have become directly hampering, especially the inability to continue maintaining templates I have been chiefly responsible for, after they become popular enough to require protection; lack of the ability to speedily clean up typos in category names; time wasted waiting on requested moves or (speedy delete-for-moves) to finish article cleanup; and other routine, non-controversial maintenance. Temporary page protection is also something I would like to be able to insert into the middle of flaming editwars to shunt them into talk page discussion toward resolution and consensus. I also note that a lot of admin processes have backlogs, and I could help with those, but do no presently have the tools to do so.
2. What are your best contributions to Misplaced Pages, and why?
A: Several, in different areas, including Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Cue sports, Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Inline templates, William A. Spinks, Albinism, Albinism in popular culture, Darius I of Persia, Template:CompactTOC8, Template:Rp, Template:Whisperback, Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (icons), significant long-term contributions to Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style and subpages more generally, overhaul of Category:Cue sports and Category:Pinball.
Details...
  • Templates: I co-founded WikiProject Inline templates to bring some order to the inline, usually-superscripted template "family" ({{fact}}, {{who}}, etc.). I have created a large number of templates of various sorts, many quite complex. Some of the more useful and used ones are {{CompactTOC8}}, which subsumes the functionality of the most of rest of the horizontal table of contents templates, and {{Rp}}, which is a solution to the problem of how to source a single work a large number of times in the same article. I make new ones all the time, like {{Whisperback}} a few days ago.
  • Policy/Guidelines: I am the principal author of Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (icons). I am a long-term watcher of the Manual of Style and its subpages for changes that would affect literally hundreds of thousands of articles. I do, however, take long "perspective breaks" from MoS periodically. I was also heavily involved in 2007 debates over objectivity in the proposal that became our now-stable Misplaced Pages:Notability.
  • Categories: While categories are not like articles and harder to discern the history of, the current neat and tidy but comprehensive and well-linked structure of Category:Cue sports and Category:Pinball are my doing, and I have done a great deal of category cleanup in other areas as well. (I am not even a pinball editor; I just don't like messy categorization.)
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: Sure; it's unavoidable. I try to resolve such disputes though communication, reliance on policy and mediation, and through simply taking a step back when necessary. Some specific examples include criticizing an editor I had been arguing with, only to have the criticisms turned back on me in detail, justifiably (we now get along very well); being a major participant in the WP:ATT debates of several years ago, and engaging in formal mediation; learning the hard way how not to use a topical RfC; sticking to policy-based rationales in XfD; mediating disputes by request or when just running into editwarring at random. In general, I have had to learn increased patience and ability to see an issue through others' eyes even when I disagree, and to treat WP talk pages in a much more collegial manner than Usenet or other forums I had been more familiar with when I first arrived. All disputes are learning opportunities.
I have never been blocked, nor legitimately warned/threatened with a block, nor a party on any side in a user-behavior RfC or any ArbCom case. I do not go to WP:ANI with an issue unless I believe it is serious and discussion with the problem editor has already failed.
Details...
  • Individual dispute: User:Noetica and I were at loggerheads for a while at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style, and the dispute was growing increasingly personal and personality-based. I took my concerns to User talk:Noetica in cranky detail, and while arguably within the bounds of civility I was quite honest and grumpy in the criticism. Noetica responded with remarkably similar complaints about myself, and we both took some time to absorb each other's criticisms. We now get along famously. I consider the episode one of the most instructive of my entire editing "career". Lessons: Look in the mirror before criticizing; look for the ally in the "enemy".
  • Group dispute, mediation: During the Misplaced Pages:Attribution debate of 2008, some participants on the other side of the issue labeled me "disruptive" (an accusation of bad faith that should not be made lightly) for insisting on basic process, such as {{Mergeto}} tags on the pages proposed for merging into WP:ATT, neither side of the debate WP:OWNing the ATT-related consensus poll, etc. I attempted mediation via the Mediation Cabal (declined by most of the other parties), and did eventually engage in mediation with one party (Kim Bruning can confirm this, as he facilitated the transcontinental mediation, via Skype). I was upset with the others and briefly felt tempted to file a user-behavior RfC about the attacks, but decided not to take it personally, and just moved on. I have since then had no problems of any kind with any of the involved editors. Lesson: It is easy to get upset at people when one is entrenched in an argument, and my own irritation can lead me to assume questionable faith about those assuming, because of their own irritation, questionable faith about me. This inspired me to come up with the little mantra "tea pot", which I've mentioned on my userpage for several years now.
  • Group dispute, RfC: I attempted at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (people) (WP:NCP) and elsewhere to resolve a disambiguation conventions issue in favor of consistency, but came to loggerheads with members of some WikiProjects that preferred topic-specific variants from the common format. I left the issue alone for many months (because the argument had become circular and heated), then attempted to settle the matter with a Request for comments at WT:NCP in December 2009. This was met with hostility despite being a perfectly normal thing to do – RFC is one of WP's most basic dispute resolution mechanisms. In defense of the other side, it was complained that my RFC was not worded neutrally enough (I changed it to rectify this). I was surprised that a counter-proposal snowballed in favor of the opposition. But it clearly did and I conceded the issue gracefully, requesting early closure of the RfC myself, without rancor. There has been no further disputation on the matter from any party. Lesson: Be very, very evenhanded in RFC or it will backfire and turn into a fight instead of a de-escalation mechanism. More recently, at Talk:Phil Taylor#Peacocks & weasels I have endeavored to be very even-handed and to ensure that the other side understands that the disagreement is over WP:NPOV policy interpretation, not the value of the article or of any editor.
  • XfD: I occasionally nominate something for deletion that ends up generating a lot of "I like it!" and related "keep" !votes that are covered at Misplaced Pages:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions. I will either simply point out that they are in WP:AADD, and let the closing admin sort it out, or try to re-explain why the item should be deleted if it seems that the nomination has been unclearly understood (which is often the case). If the nominated page is firmly kept, I shrug and move on; either it will improve, or someone else will renominate it for deletion later and be able to more eloquently explain why it should not be kept. If it lingers only because of a "no consensus" closure, I will bring it back myself for further discussion after a reasonable period of time so that it closes clearly one way or the other (cf. RfC, above – same idea). Lesson: Keep my skin thick. I will not refrain from XfDing things that need to go, even if I get attacked for it. People get very emotive about things they don't want deleted sometimes, but that's not a reason to keep them, just a reason to stick to policy-based rationales for deletion and to de-personalize the XfD as much as possible. I have been literally hounded from a WP:CATGRS-related CfD onto my talk page; after concluding that it was not possible to reconcile with the other editor, I declined any further discussion of the matter with that person. Several years later, we regularly interact at CfD without incident. Side lesson: There's no point in trying to win an argument that is not likely to ever actually resolve and the end result of which is not important.
  • Mediating others' disputes: I have been asked to mediate and comment upon various disputes (and have also done so without being asked). I do this in a neutral and constructive manner, and do it because I find that extreme disputation makes it difficult to improve an article or even to enjoy being an editor for most people, so resolving the dispute is the most constructive thing to do, when the dispute is legitimate and not a matter of trolling or other genuinely disruptive editing. Lessons: Editors are usually amenable to an even hand and a voice of reason. If they are not, it is not a safe assumption that one side or the other is disruptive or otherwise acting in bad faith; they may simply be stressed and upset. Temporary page protection exists for a reason.
  • Other: I have never filed a Request for Arbitration about anyone or anything, nor a Request for Comment on an editor, and have not been the subject of either, nor even a third party to one on any side. I have only resorted to WP:ANI reports or requests for page protection in what I consider truly extreme circumstances. As far as I recall I have never had an ANI report filed against me. I much prefer to simply discuss matters civilly. I have never been blocked, nor even legitimately warned (I have twice on WP and once in e-mail been threatened with inappropriate blocks by someone engaged in a dispute with me). I have never to my knowledge crossed the three revert rule boundary, other than permissibly, e.g. against vandals.


Additional questions

Question from Nsk92

4: What is your take on WP:IAR?
A: I believe it is an important safety valve – namely to prevent over-reliance on process from ever becoming an impediment to actually doing encyclopedic work – but perhaps too often cited as a reason to do something outside of consensus. I cannot recall ever relying on it as a justification for any action of my own, though resorting to it has been tempting a few times. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 03:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Additional optional questions from Groomtech
5. Do you believe that Wikipedians have rights? If so, what will you do to uphold them?
A: Wikipedians have all the same legal rights as anyone else, and various WP policies protect them with remedies that admins (and sometimes higher) follow. Examples include deletion of "outing" material and other violations of privacy, including from page histories, and blocking of outers and other attackers. WP:BLP applies to any Wikipedian notable enough for coverage in an article, and we all have the right to protection of our off-site material from violation of copyright, and so on. Within the realm of Misplaced Pages culture, editors in good standing have various entitlements or privileges (I'm not sure I'd call them "rights", per se. These are generally also covered by policies (and guidelines so well-accepted their essentially amount to policies). These include, editing without being verbally assaulted, editing without having to ask anyone's permission or establish consensus first provided we are willing to discuss and not editwar, ability to seek dispute resolution, and being heard fairly at WP:ARBCOM if that DR fails, even ability to ignore process when it genuinely thwarts improving the encyclopedia. I'm not certain what sort of answer to give, other than "apply policy fairly", to "what will you do to uphold them?" without an indication of what sort of scenarios you have in mind. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 10:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Additional optional questions from Tbsdy lives
6. Editor X starts the following thread after editor Y makes a change to the Falklands War article:
"I find editor Y's editing puerile and it looks like we have a POV-pusher holding this article to ransom. They clearly have no idea that the Falklans War was fought over a 74 day period, and not a 96 day period as they claimed in edit xyz, and in fact if you look at the Encyclopedia Britannica article on this then you will see that this is the case. The fact that you have said that the war lasted so long shows me that you have a clear anti-British agenda you are pushing - why else would you have modified this article to say that the conflict went on for such a prolonged time?"
Editor Y responds:
"How dare you accuse me of being a POV-pusher! your behaviour on this article is disgusting. You are clearly someone who doesn't assume good faith, and your edits show that you yourself are pushing an pro-British agenda. What have you got against Argentina? I can't believe you reverted my edit! How dare you. You are a piece of shit, and I demand that you reverse your edits AT ONCE!"
How would you deal with this situation? In particular, what, if any, actions would you take against editor X, and what actions, if any, would you take against editor Y?
A: Interesting. I'd want to look into the 96-day claim - there could be something to it, some kind of definitional dispute, perhaps. Editor X should be warned to be civil and his/her edit was approaching WP:NPA. Hiding behind carefully constructed wording like "I find... editing" puerile and "looks like we have" a POV-pusher is a form of weaselwording (as that phrase is more generally used, off-WP), and POV-pusher is ad hominem, not just a complaint that a particular edit (not -or) seems to be biased. I would also suggest that Editor X needs to provide reliable sources for changes to an article that appear to contradict other sources already cited (even if they are tertiary like EB). If I'd already satisfied myself that the 96-day claim was a valid interpretation (e.g. based on date of withdrawal rather than ceasefire or whatever) I might ask Editor X to clarify, or just do it myself. If I couldn't find any evidence of the 96 day claim and Editor X thus appeared to be pushing a fringe view or an outright error, I'd have to be firmer, and point to WP:V as a policy and warn that additions of material that isn't veriable will be removed. Editor Y I would warn about WP:NPA, since there was no question that it was breached with the blatant name-calling. If contribs showed the user to be a noob, {{uw-npa1}} might be in order, after a welcome, but I might actually be inclined to leave a personal note, as the editor also seems to be confused about other matters, such as that articles are built by consensus not demands and shouting. Neither editor deserves a block even if this has been going on for a while. If it has, then WP:WQA should perhaps be made aware of it, and if the users are editwarring not just bickering, the page might need to be temporarily protected. Most of this via their talk pages. On the talk page of the article, if I posted about it there, I'd ask that the discussion become more civil and mention relevant policies including CIVIL, and V. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 15:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)


General comments

RfAs for this user:

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

Discussion

User:Neurolysis/Counters.js

Before I oppose or support... What form of canvassing was SMcCandlish supposed to have done? I don't see "excessive cross-posting", as the people contacted weren't uninvolved; he even explained why he specifically messaged them in the notices. The notices were neutral in tone, so weren't "campaigning". They weren't "votestacking" because he notified at least one person who opposed him last time. And it sure wasn't "stealth" because it was all on-wiki. The canvassing guideline states:

Neutrally worded notifications sent to a few editors are considered "friendly notices" if they appear intended to improve rather than to influence a discussion (while keeping in mind excessive cross-posting below). For example, to editors who have substantively edited or discussed an article related to the discussion; or perhaps to a Wikipedian known for being an expert in a related field and who has shown interest in participating in related discussions.

That seems to be a pretty good description of what he did. Granted, I wouldn't do something like this (and I didn't inform anyone of my RfA when I ran), but while it might seem a bit "tacky" it seems to fall well within our guidelines for communication. Am I missing something? -- Atama頭 01:48, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you're missing anything. It falls under WP:CANVAS#FRIENDLY in my opinion. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 20:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Support
  1. Pre-transclusion nominator support, as I'm about to go to bed. Please will the first person here after transclusion "un-hide" this, so the datestamp follows it... --Dweller (talk) 23:21, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
  2. Support per nom. Per GlassCobra, I do not see anything oppose-worthy in some diffs from 2006 and 2007. Neither does letting a couple of people know of your RfA qualify as canvassing, in my opinion. Without wanting to cast doubt on the good faith of the opposers, I really think that to oppose over these issues is straining. This is the janitor's mop we are talking about here, not the keys to the crown jewels. --John (talk) 16:29, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  3. Support, per my nomination.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  4. Support, per nom. Tim Vickers (talk) 00:18, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  5. Support Long-tenured and dedicated editor, nominated by well-known and respected peers. Opposers are quite unconvincing, to the point of seeming to hold a vindictive grudge. Petty arguments from 2007 (which are not "recent") and "but he types too much!" are rather poor reasons to deny someone the tools to cleanup the project and block vandals. Notices on the talk pages seem to be mostly neutrally worded, which does not violate WP:CANVASS; disappointing to see people already locking onto that. Best wishes to the candidate, GlassCobra 01:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  6. Support. GlassCobra says it very well above. We need dedicated and tenured editors like SMcC with the buttons, and I'm disappointed that this seems to be getting sidetracked.--Kubigula (talk) 05:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  7. Support: glad to find out about this. I haven't always agreed with SMcCandlish, but I think he's a fine editor and talks a lot of sense. I note SV's complaint under Oppose, but suspect the candidate has changed a lot in 3–4 years. He's very experienced. Tony (talk) 07:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  8. Support No significant worries. I'm not convinced that SMcCandlish actually crossed the line with canvassing, although I bet he now regrets not being more careful. If I was convinced there was an attempt to bias the RfA with canvassing I would automatically oppose. Polargeo (talk) 10:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  9. Support per nominator. Armbrust (talk) 12:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  10. Support - The way this RfA is going, my vote probably won't make a difference but I find myself supporting anyway. None of the opposes are remotely convincing; while "verbose", this candidate does show much reason in his arguments. The canvassing claims are about messages that clearly aren't canvassing. My only concern at this point is that he seems to be not very welcoming to new editors, and that should be improved upon, but I see no evidence that he is actually hostile so I will still support. -- Atama頭 16:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  11. Support. Of course. -SusanLesch (talk) 18:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  12. Support I had a touch of hestitation over the canvass issue. But The co-nominators response clarifies it to me and the back ground to it. I think regardless its best not to practice this method even if it means bringing people of nuetral standing, but alternatively it shows not trying to hide things which is a good quality. So if any hesiations exist its over that event; howver, theres quality experience and time here building the project. I have to trust that the tools will not be abused. Ottawa4ever (talk) 18:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  13. Support. While I am a supporter of WP:NOBIGDEAL, in this case I really have no worries; as long ago as August '08 I was surprised he wasn't already an administrator! If I'd known about this sooner, I'd have probably co-nominated him. Cheers! --Philosopher  20:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  14. Support I am not sufficiently convinced by the opposers to be unable to support this candidate, and the work the candidate does here is sufficient to make this a support rather than a neutral. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 23:22, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  15. Support Many of the concerns brought up in the oppose crowd seem to be focused on either minor details like sending a couple of messages to users about this RFA to concerns stemming from a nearly three year old rfa. Overall, SMcCandlish seems like a good editor with a good grounding on how Misplaced Pages generally works. I am sure he will be able to use admin tools effectively. --Hdt83 05:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
  16. Support What Hdt83 said. Admins are held to a high standard but it seems, to this completely impartial observer, rather like this nominee is being held to a standard approaching perfection. The nominee is not flawless. He is clearly a bit process-wonky. His canvassing flirted with exceeding acceptable boundaries. He might even be slightly argumentative, but as far as I can tell he maintains a polite, balanced tone when making his point, and his point is generally well backed up. Most importantly, I see no reason to think the tools granted would be abused, and I see some reason to think that the nominee would benefit from access. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 08:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
  17. Support. Perfectly suitable for the officially sanctioned brand of admins. Pcap ping 09:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
  18. Support. Always found him to be trustworthy and helpful. PhilKnight (talk) 16:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
  19. Support May I just say that this entire canvassing affair is just silly — SMc has not violated WP:CANVASS (which is one of many WP policies that is far too POV dependent). May I just advise reducing the verbosity (when speaking, I am often overtly verbose, which does not help me in arguments!) Booksworm 18:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose. My only experience of SMcCandlish was in 2007, but it left its mark. It was during a poll to propose the adoption of Misplaced Pages:Attribution. I can't remember whether McCandlish opposed the proposal itself or simply the process. All I recall is that it was one rules-lawyering post after another—several hundreds of them (I counted at the time close to 1,000) on various talk pages in around two weeks, many of them about protection, and tags about protection, and the protection of protection tags—all meta meta issues. It was the most draining thing I've experienced in the five years I've been editing.

    It seems it wasn't an isolated event. In SMcCandlish's first RfA, Radiant wrote: "SMC has a tendency to drown out discussions through sheer sesquipedalian verbosity," giving as an example Misplaced Pages talk:Notability/Archive 5, 250 kb long, with over 80 posts from McCandlish in the space of three days. The way this RfA has been prepared may be another example. It was created in July last year, then SMcCandlish started fiddling with it on January 4, because he was "trying to coordinate all co-nominators into one draft page," posting about its development in various places until it finally opens over two weeks later, a process that could have been completed in a few hours. Also note SM's long explanation today to NuclearWarfare about he wasn't really canvassing when he was ... canvassing. :) I fear he would spend his adminship focusing on detail, all the while missing the point. I'm sorry, SM. SlimVirgin 23:35, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

    SV, with the exception of the preparation of this RfA, you do realize that your criticisms are 3-4 years old now? I haven't looked into SM, but that is a pretty long time ago. Do you have anything more recent to point to?---Balloonman 23:53, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
    In what way are my declining to accept an unexpected nomination last year, going through admin coaching materials, and carefully answering the standard RfA questions, in an open way, problematic? It is disappointing to me that you still have these other concerns, especially since we have had no problems with each other since the WP:ATT debate, that I can recall. If there is anything I can do to assuage them, please let me know. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 00:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    I haven't looked for recent examples, Balloonman, except for the two that jumped out at me: the long prep time for this RfA, and his long denial today to NW that he wasn't canvassing when he was. These examples very much fit my memory: everything is denied and argued against, everything contradicted and explained and re-defined, until the people he's debating move on or go crazy. SM, we've had no interaction at all since ATT, and I'm sorry to oppose like this. I just think you would have a tendency to use the tools rigidly to further the rules, not the project. SlimVirgin 00:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Thanks for the explanation. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 01:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    You are entitled to your oppose and a past dispute, especially if it was your only interaction, will always loom large, but I cannot understand your linking of any of those matters with SM's carefulness of preparation for this RfA, answering the entire admin coaching quiz and pre-preparing answers to the typical questions. Would that more RfAs were diligently prepared for in this manner. However, you are factually incorrect about one matter. This RfA page was unilaterally created by a previous user (not one of the present nominators), after which the user told SM about it, and he declined at that time. The very long time since creation is thus an an artifact of that prior user's umprompted creation.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  2. Oppose. Concerns about canvassing . Also, concerns about temperament - as seen both in historical behavior pattern and recent diffs shown by both SlimVirgin (talk · contribs) and Richardcavell (talk · contribs) , . Cirt (talk) 00:45, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  3. Oppose - looking at this this this and this(FAIL), I will oppose because of canvassing. Sorry. smithers - talk 01:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Intent is at the heart of improper and disruptive canvassing. There was no secretive, mass posting of a biased message here. SM notified four three (see below) people and one was to inform one of the principal opponent of his previous RfA—not exactly the act of a person seeking to campaign for improper purposes. Maybe it would have been better thought, but I would hope people will look at this with an eye toward intent and not simply react to the charged accusation.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Smithers7, your 4th link there is me responding to Dweller's own admin coaching materials and offer to nominate. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 02:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    I just realized that. my bad....
  4. Oppose. I came here to support, but I found the diffs presented above concerning. Canvassing or not, the whole notification of RfA issue doesn't sit well with me. I'll re-evaluate in a few days but this is my !vote for now. -FASTILY 02:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  5. Oppose for many, many, reasons. Deletion work has a very spotty track record: this MfD, this Afd, this AfD, and I'm sure lots of others. I concur with the earlier accusations about being argumentative, such as and numerous other interactions. Going through recent history, I see way too many confrontational comments in edit summaries. Bold, revert, discuss doesn't work very well if the discussion is happening inside of edit summaries. A recent example of this can be found in the edit war over at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/FAQ. Here he's jumping all over a newbie in the form of edit summaries, a newbie who still hasn't even been welcomed! Here quite a few experienced editors seem frustrated with the candidate and indicate that he was engaged in or bordering on tendentious editing or at least had a bad case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. The striking thing here is that one doesn't need to go very far through the history to find conflict after conflict after conflict. The TLDR wall of text in his answer to question 3 is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of conflict. A lot of these aren't "lets figure out the right thing to do or figure out what the community consensus is" type of conflicts, they tend to escalate very often. Gigs (talk) 02:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  6. Oppose per all the above, recent and quite worrying diffs. I am particularly disappointed by the canvassing ones, and I'm sorry but that is such a fundamental guideline that I cannot support an editor who either doesn't comprehend or respect it. —what a crazy random happenstance 03:03, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    I'm not sure I follow you. I cited WP:CANVAS myself, in specific detail, when I disclosed the small number of notices and why I made them (1 to someone mentioned by name, 1 to previous staunchest opponent, 2 to people with a long but likely neutral perspective on my regular editing habits). I'm sorry that you feel this was a terrible thing to do. Would it have been better to not let an editor know that I had discussed in my RfA my dispute with him and its resolution in case his memory of the situation differed? To hope that my RfA detractor and 2 other editors most in a position to meaningfully comment didn't notice the RfA? I do understand of course that actually canvassing would be a very bad thing to do. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 03:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  7. Oppose the lack of knowledge that even good faith attempts at notification look awfully like canvassing when running for RFA concerns me about this user's judgment. MBisanz 03:33, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  8. Oppose, mostly per SV. User seems overly process-wonky based on what I've seen. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 03:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    I hate to badger, but in what way has this been a bad thing from this editor? I haven't !voted, but my only experience with the user has been on wonky processes, and I've been somewhat impressed in that respect. If I saw this argument a lot it would be one thing, but this is the first "wonk" argument I've heard, although people regularly oppose on CSD grounds, or AfD grounds more generally. These are much more interpretive areas, areas of deep division in the project, but I've never seen anyone opposed based on wonkishness there. If there's some dogmatic approach the editor took I might find that persuasive, but I don't find the generalized complaint all that compelling. Shadowjams (talk) 09:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
  9. Weak oppose for excessive verboseness in his arguments as illustrated in the diffs above. (on re-reading this seems lame but it is honestly why I am opposing...) -- RP459 /Contributions 04:07, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  10. Oppose: My own recent experience with the nominee is here, a recent debate with roots over a year before, where SMC claimed a consensus in his favor which in fact ran strongly against his position. He debated the point in exhausting length and detail, claiming consensus once again for his views even in the teeth of overwhelming opposition. His language was often confrontational. But here's the capper, IMHO: "I can't win with you or the handful of other people flaming me incessantly here, no matter what I do, so I'm not trying." What the hell? "Win?" When are policy discussions zero-sum competitions? We are trying to work out sensible and workable solutions here, not playing some geeky MMORPG with the aim of vanquishing our opponents. Obviously SMC's contributed a lot to the encyclopedia, but nothing I've seen leaves me with much faith as to SMC's capacity for impartiality or accepting consensus against his POV.  RGTraynor  05:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    It's just an expression. "I can't win with you, whether I do x or y" is an common phrase of consternation at being argued with on personal grounds instead of the merits of the argument. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 08:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Which I would be pleased to concede if the record didn't show numerous statements from you demonstrating a Me vs. Them mindset. It's quite possible to disagree on the merits of an argument without such a disagreement stemming, by definition, from personal grounds.  RGTraynor  08:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Hm. I'd like to address those supporters chiding Oppose voters who cite "talking too much" in their opposition. An essay I wrote, WP:KEEPCONCISE, expresses my take on it. We've all seen discussions, hundreds of them, where a filibusterer has bent things completely out of shape just by drowning out everyone else with torrents of words. Barrage hard enough, for long enough, and you get people dropping away from sheer exhaustion. This is a grave disservice to the encyclopedia, and it is not remotely a petty or trivial complaint. When an admin deals with a problem, I want someone who's going to apply the rules smoothly, concisely and impartially. I don't want an admin belaboring the point until the other side gives in. I don't want one declaring a consensus that doesn't exist. I don't want one who blames - as SMC does all too often - a "small cadre" of obstructionists for any opposition.  RGTraynor  05:52, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  11. Oppose: Bad attitude for an editor, let alone an admin.
    — V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 06:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Strong oppose for trying to discount the Wall Street Journal as a reliable source because I didn't say a pay-per-view source "counts against" the article's notability; I said it does not count for it, since no one has paid to get access to it and see if it helps establish notability. in Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/DuPont_Registry. Pcap ping 07:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Factual corrections: That was not the source in question. WSJ was never mentioned at all by me in the AfD. The source that was at issue was not questioned as unreliable, simply as unexamined for whether its discussion of the subject was non-trivial and thus actually counted toward establishing notability. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 08:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    WSJ was the source you questioned. Pcap ping 12:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    It wasn't, sorry. I questioned the first source posted by Michig. I had never even noticed Phil Bridger's post about the WSJ (it looked like part of Michig's sig). I was responding directly to Michig, and Bridger's just happened to be between these posts. I didn't even notice the WSJ being mentioned at all until you pointed it out. Doesn't matter anyway: The point was not that either of these sources were not notable, but that the one I was referring to was only known to exist, not known to contain non-trivial coverage. A moot point, since non-trivial coverage was found elsewhere, and the subject's notability under WP:N confimed. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 13:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Phil later asked you a direct question about the WSJ source he found, and mentioned "WSJ" in text, after you asked for articles in "Forbes or WSJ". I would have to stretch WP:AGF from here to the Sun that you've not read any of that, because you again posted to the AfD later. Bear in mind, that I had no trouble finding references in Forbes either, which I've added to the article. Irrespective of these details, it seems you have trouble admitting when you are wrong, like in this AfD, where everyone else thought the sources were reliable. It doesn't bode well for adminship. Pcap ping 14:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    I have no problem with being opposed, nor with your criticisms about my AfD judgement, only with being wrongly accused. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 15:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    I'm willing to WP:AGF that everyone opposing on this page is wrong, and needs to be corrected, which should explain why you replied to practically everyone. But that begs the question: why does everyone misunderstand you? Could it be that your communication skills are not what's expected on this wiki? Pcap ping 18:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Should you argue with people describing you as too argumentative? You're damned if you do, but damned if you don't. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:03, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Okay! I'm convinced! Who hasn't lost a RfA argument? Pcap ping 09:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
  12. Oppose - I'm worried that the user comes across as self-righteous and argumentative. , . - Richard Cavell (talk) 00:38, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    If you go through the entire two threads those diffs were posted in it shows that SMcCandlish is very knowledgeable about wikipedia and passionate about getting it right. Polargeo (talk) 12:33, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Changing from Neutral to Oppose now that I've seen this. The candidate should have handled that entirely differently. The user in question should have been welcomed with a potential-problem-user template. The user appeared to be spamming wikipedia with COI material for two days, yet obviously was acting in good faith and could be a real asset to the project. - Richard Cavell (talk) 10:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    So you are moving to oppose because SMcCandlish cleaned up an article 5 months after it was created and didn't welcome the user who had been inactive for those entire 5 months. Polargeo (talk) 10:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  13. Oppose. I'm sorry. It pains me to oppose any candidate, let a lone an obviously competent, long term editor but I just do not feel comfortable with you having the tools at this moment in time. The way this RfA has been conducted and the diffs provided by opposers above me appear to portray an editor with an argumentative attitude who does not take kindly to constructive criticism and, perhaps more importantly, is incapable or unwilling to provide concise and succinct rationales for his actions. Especially for a potential XfD closer, communication is a vital skill for administrators, who often have to justify their actions (for example, in closing a heated XfD or to ArbCom ) in very little space. I did wonder about the canvassing, but, while raising an eyebrow, it was not a deciding factor in placing my !vote. Please don't take it personally, I don't doubt you're a good editor and I see no reason you couldn't be a fine administrator in the future, but I just cannot support you now. HJMitchell You rang? 11:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Thanks for the clear comments. I have no problem with constructive criticism, including yours and SlimVirgin's and so on, and have not responded to any of that here, only addressed what I see as false accusations and asked for clarification where the criticism wasn't fully understood. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 13:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  14. Oppose, as someone who is herself excessively patient towards bumbling new editors, the last thing I feel the encyclopaedia needs is an admin with apparently no patience towards the same. Richard Cavell's diffs are quite persuasive. Sorry. Elen of the Roads (talk) 11:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Please check the whole situation. I think this is being misread. SMcCandlish was not being rude to a new editor but was cleaning up an article which was 5 months old. Polargeo (talk) 12:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Exactly. I explained the edits I was doing in the article in detail so that other editors saw that I had rationales for making them, instead of just making a boatload of edits all at once and labeling it all with a generic "cleanup" summary or something. I think this is the first time I've heard of someone being voted against in RfA because they did use explanatory edit summaries. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 13:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    My reason for bringing that page history in the first place up was to illustrate what seems to be an ongoing pattern of somewhat confrontational edit summaries. If that newbie comes back and sees them, they will come across as pretty bitey, no matter what your intention was with them. Not everyone has the entire MoS memorized, and one should be careful not to be condescending when correcting MoS mistakes, especially so when they were made by a new user. Gigs (talk) 14:07, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Accepted. They could be construed as bitey. But the way you portray it suggests that SMcCandlish is in full knowledge that he is jumping all over a new users contributions, when in fact other people have edited the page in between and the page is several months old. Maybe he should not have been so bitey and maybe he should have looked through the page history to make sure he wasn't hurting newbie feelings but best not to portray it incorrectly in this RfA. Polargeo (talk) 14:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Very good point; thank you for clarifying. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 15:03, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  15. Oppose, I've had the advantage of reading the diffs and !votes above, I agree with the position of HJMitchell Ajbpearce (talk) 12:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  16. Oppose: Disappointed because we really need good Admins. Clearly this candidate has been weighed, measured, and found wanting. This is not a personal attack as my comment equally is true of me. Ret.Prof (talk) 13:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    That's not entirely true... if you are yourself overweight, calling someone else fat is still not a very nice thing to say. GlassCobra 14:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    I'm not offended in any way, anyhow. :-) — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 15:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Yes, but if you enter a beauty competition, where your weight would be an issue, it's very appropriate for the judges to comment on it, "not very nice" or otherwise, and whether or not the judges could themselves match the prevalent standards. What's inappropriate is implying there's something wrong with expressing misgivings in a process where that's our duty to do.  RGTraynor  18:48, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Indeed it would be the duty of the judges to point out where a candidate fails to meet standards; however (to continue the metaphor) surely they would be tactful and civil about pointing this out? Surely they would see that "you have been weighed and measured, and you have been found wanting" or other somesuch nasty remark would be unnecessary. GlassCobra 20:33, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Since just about every Oppose vote in every RfA with an experienced nominee boils down to either "Here's why you're unfit to be an admin" or "Here's why I can't trust your judgment," I'm curious as to how you would phrase these sweetly and nicely ... or how your belief in not making "nasty" remarks squares with some of your own recent Opposes at RfA and RfB, with statements such as "Seriously worrying immaturity pattern," "serious lack of knowledge," "I have lingering worries about maturity issues," "Oppose per general maturity concerns" and the like.  RGTraynor  01:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
  17. Oppose It is good that an editor is willing to explain decisions, and to engage in discussion, and SMcCandlish does that; however, there is a point at which explanation and discussion tips over into persuasion, and it starts to appear as though the editor is attempting to convince others of their point of view rather than engage in reaching a consensual decision. The evidence presented in diffs, and in SMcCandlish's involvement in this AfD, tends to point toward SMcCandlish not being consensual enough for the role of a neutral admin. At this point there are enough concerns about SMcCandlish's judgement that the community is having difficulty in giving the candidate their trust. An appropriate action now might be to stop debating about about people's observations, take on board the drift of the AfD, withdraw for now, address the concerns raised and reapply in 6 months time. SilkTork * 13:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    That's likely, but I'd like to let it run for a while, if not to completion because much of this criticism is valid, and I won't be able to address concerns if I don't receive them. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 15:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  18. Oppose My only interaction leaves me with questions of his suitability to be an an admin, that along with the concerns raised above leave me here. A move was requested at Talk:Pocket billiards to move the article to Pool (cue sports). There wasn't much participation in the 7 days it was open but good arguments were made as to why the move should occur and no one stated that the move shouldn't occur. Almost a month later SMcCandlish states that he has no problem with the move. which he later retracts and says that the move should be undone unless a massive cleanup is done. I tried discussing with him as to why a cleanup needed to be done but instead of trying to explain he only restates what he has said before. When I don't understand his explanation he says "If you "still don't understand" then just don't worry about it and move on." This is not the attitude I think is necessary to be an admin. Admins need to be able to explain their decisions and not try to push people away. When no one sides with him he goes to WP:RM and says that it isHe also requested an uncontroversial move it back to the original name. This raises a concern that he would do things that he wants to do without concern to consensus. ~~ GB fan ~~ 13:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    Another factual correction: Your claim that when no one sided with me I went to WP:RM about it is backwards. I posted the "should be undone unless a massive cleanup is done" message you refer to and the uncontroversial requested move at the same time, as is clearly shown by my sigs in both instances. The uncontro. move was controverted, and turned into a regular RM discussion. Then I was disagreed with about putting the article name back the way it had been, and the RM closed in your favor. As with other replies above, I am not "talking back" at you about your criticisms or your opinion, only correcting false allegations. I'm sorry you felt upset about my handling of the issue, you're right that I was curt, and you are perfectly within your rights to vote against me for it, just not to revise history. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(ل)ˀ Contribs. 17:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    You are right on the timing, I made a mistake. I didn't pay attention to the timing and explained it how I remembered, I was not revising history. I am not and was not upset about anything, I just do not believe the way you handled this is the way it should have been handled and it concerns me that you would handle things this way as an admin. ~~ GB fan ~~ 22:32, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  19. Oppose per HJMitchell.--Coldplay Expért 00:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
  20. Oppose You nominated an article for deletion. Sources upon sources were provided, and the AfD closed as keep. Fine and dandy- this happens every single day; sometimes we need to discuss notability in order to establish it. However, on the talk page of this RFA, you say, "I'm unaware of any admins on the system who have never lost an XfD debate". Lost? I'm struggling to figure out how getting notability established for an article and having it kept is seen as losing- AfD is not a zero-sum game; a good discussion that leads to sources being uncovered benefits everyone. Some of the other diffs pointed out above are concerning, as well. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 00:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
    This is misrepresenting the context of that statement. In fact cherrypicking a sentence from a long rational explanation and making the candidate look bad for using it. Polargeo (talk) 09:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
  21. Oppose for the canvassing issue, and replying to all the Opposers is a bit odd. BLGM5 (talk) 14:36, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
  22. Oppose sorry, but this isn't a fair RfA with the way its been advertised. ThemFromSpace 19:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Neutral
Neutral - I'm worried that the user comes across as self-righteous and argumentative. , . - Richard Cavell (talk) 00:38, 21 January 2010 (UTC) Changed to Oppose. - Richard Cavell (talk) 11:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  1. Neutral Per Richardcavell. Doc Quintana (talk) 02:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
  2. Neutral I will not oppose, because SMcCandlish is a veteran editor with a good deal of excellent article work under his belt (particularly articles about cue sports), an ability to reason and debate thoughtfully, and an ideal participant in CfDs. I think he would do an excellent job closing CfDs and TfDs, and in most other areas he cited. But I also think he can be far too much of a "process wonk," to borrow Wizardman's description above. My experience with the candidate at this MfD originally put that thought in my mind. There, SMcCandlish argued that the page in question, long tagged and treated as a guideline, could not be considered a guideline because it had not gone through the proposal process and therefore was not eligible for a speedy keep. Although there was a lot of disagreement over this issue, and I would not hold it against SMcCandlish normally, it seems that it's part of a pattern, supported by evidence in the "oppose" section above. There's nothing wrong with being loquacious or often arguing for adhering to policy (I myself do those things), but this candidate sometimes takes that too far. I won't oppose based on that, but I'm not comfortable supporting either. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 20:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
    I made a comment about the process wonk argument above. I'd welcome responses to that comment. Shadowjams (talk) 09:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)