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Kww

Voice your opinion (talk page) (20/2/0); scheduled to end 22:35, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Nomination

Kww (talk · contribs) – From the "Wait, he's not already an admin?" file, I nominate Kww (talk · contribs) for the bit.

He is not the most uncontroversial candidate to hit this page: he can be opinionated and vocal in a way that irks some and has, in the past, been guilty of dramatic hyperbole to make a point he felt strongly about. On the other hand, he is dedicated, hard working, cares for Misplaced Pages in all he does and — most important of all — he learns from his mistakes. I can think of no better qualities in a prospective admin. — Coren  21:59, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I accept the nomination. —Kww(talk) 22:32, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
First off, I can't deny the existence of the bonfire that was my first RFA, so there's no use trying. As a result, I can't deny the existence of my infamous Bulbasaur quote, and I won't do that. Probably wouldn't if I could.
Another thing I wouldn't do is claim that I said it in the heat of anger. It was poorly phrased, and had I known it might become my epitaph, I certainly would have said it differently, but I honestly believe in the core concept underlying it: editors that consciously and repetitively ignore guidelines are disruptive, and need to be treated as such. Everyone is allowed to disagree with guidelines, and to attempt to get consensus to change them. Creating scores of articles in open defiance of them and edit-warring over efforts to redirect the non-compliant articles is disruptive.
Two blocks in my block-log. The Sept 30th one is easy: an admin noticed a series of reversions, and did not notice that the thing I was reverting was an explicit exemption to the 3RR rule: the other editor was making obvious violations of non-free content policies. You'll notice he reversed the block and apologized quite quickly, with the explanation in the unblock as "my error".
The older block is a tad harder to explain. I discussed it with User:AuburnPilot, and here is the link to his talk page discussion. In short, I was blocked for 3RR and edit-warring when I had not violated 3RR (I was blocked based on a false report, and, when I complained about that, it was replaced with another false report), and was not, in neither my estimation nor AuburnPilot's, edit warring at all.
To recap my editing thrusts: I'm not heavy on the content-creation side of Misplaced Pages. I've worked on one featured article (Natalee Holloway), and worked very hard to get What the Bleep Do We Know!? beaten into reasonable shape. The first article that I worked on heavily was Humanzee, and the first one I created was chromosomal polymorphism. Looking at chromosomal polymorphism today, I'm a bit ashamed of my work, and may take some time to improve that one.
In terms of editing difficulty, WTB was probably the most difficult article I've ever worked on, and I became aware of the pseudoscience issues on Misplaced Pages as a result. I was truly astonished at how hard people would work to try to portray nonsense as defensible. I don't directly work much on pseudoscience articles, but I do monitor a few to make sure that they don't turn completely into support of nonsense. I'm not well liked by the pseudoscience crowd: Tom has one of my quotes framed at User:Tom Butler#A perfict quote. Again, that isn't a popular sentiment, but one I'm not going to try to hide.
I spend most of my time in what I think of as "damage prevention". I scan for vandalism, unsourced material, poorly-sourced material, guideline violations and policy violations and revert or fix such edits. Most of my effort in the last six months has been on record charts, which is truly a problem area. What I noticed was that the charts had degenerated into essentially random lists of countries and numbers. There wasn't widespread agreement as to which charts were good and which were bad, and there weren't any standard places to verify figures, making it difficult to detect and repair vandalism. I started a discussion about creating a consolidated list of charts to be avoided, which ultimately resulted in WP:BADCHARTS. I produced the bulk of WP:Record charts/sourcing guide, aka WP:GOODCHARTS, which worked at it from the positive direction. 10,000 edits later, and the record charts across Misplaced Pages are in much better shape. This is work I'm proud of, and it illustrates what I think is the right way to tackle major problems: gain consensus as to direction, and then proceed quickly and efficiently. For those that concern themselves about such things, all my edits, including those, have been done manually: no scripts, bots, Twinkles, or Huggles.
I have also participated in the epic struggle which is WP:FICT, and I have to say I am disappointed with the results. We do need a compromise in this area, if only to keep the peace. A decent compromise was proposed, but it was ultimately killed by people trying to change it after the RFC. That happened in both directions, both from people that wanted to write a blanket permission slip to write articles on every episode of every drama ever made, and from people that wanted to tighten the sourcing requirements so much that it became a restatement of WP:N. Neither of those represents a compromise. I think anyone that examines my edits dispassionately will see that I was doing my best to argue for the ethical maintenance of a compromise.
Administratively, I have always focused on vandalism and sock-puppetry, and expect to continue that focus into the future.

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: Pretty much what I do today: revert vandalism and keep the Disney and music articles from turning into a quagmire of blog-sourced gossip. I use WP:AIV, WP:SPI and WP:RFPP extensively today, and that's where I will probably focus.
2. What are your best contributions to Misplaced Pages, and why?
A: I think my best contributions to date have been WP:GOODCHARTS and WP:BADCHARTS. Imposing some order on such a problematic area was sorely needed, and I suspect that this will be my most lasting influence on Misplaced Pages.
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: What the Bleep Do We Know!? represented the peak of stress for me. There is something about that article that brings out the worst in editors from both sides of the pseudoscience conflict. I even had the surreal experience of seeing ScienceApologist blocked for edit-warring in a change that MartinPhi had helped write. Ultimately, it took a strategy of just going through the lead sentence by sentence, and getting everyone to agree on a version that didn't make them angry enough to revert it, and making sure everyone understood which policies would prohibit and allow what. Once people focused on making sure each sentence conformed to policy, we got to a version that no one felt compelled to revert. We put the change in with {{edit-protected}} macros, and then left the thing protected for six months. Ugly and bloody, but it worked.
That whole surreal arbcom experience, where Kirill Lokshin proposed topic banning me from all fiction articles, apparently because I dared question people using E&C2 as justification for blocks on TTN that went well beyond the penalties outlined in E&C2 for edits that didn't violate the restrictions imposed.
The one I wish I had handled better was Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Sadi Carnot. I allowed myself to get goaded into anger. I learned from that. I may still get angry at times, but you'd have a hard time seeing it from the words I write.


Questions by Ottava Rima
4. What is your stance on BLPs? Any work on BLPs? How would you treat the concerns of the subject of the BLP? What kind of assurance should we have that people are building consensus and seeking to be neutral at BLPs and how can we have such?
A. Technically, Natalee Holloway is a BLP. Her fate has never been determined, so we treat her as alive. I think sourcing and balance are both crucial. Everything needs to be sourced, but people need to recognize that controversial claims may be both positive and negative. I get as upset about "world's greatest steam-powered kazoo player" as I do over equivalent negative statements. The current proposals to start deleting all unsourced BLPs don't bother me much. I think the timeframe supporters of that concept are fighting for is a bit unrealistic, but I'm not fond of unsourced articles of any kind.
5. How do you feel about admin that may violate CoI? Should an admin block someone who blatantly vandalizes pages they work on? Should an admin block someone who contentiously disputes something on pages they work on? Should an admin block someone who personally attacks in regards to pages the admin works on but seems to provide valuable edits elsewhere and is a good faith editor? When and where should an admin seek a third party to handle blocks or confirmation on blocks?
A. I think caution needs to be applied on both sides. Some are very quick to criticize involved admins that block, and some admins don't seem to recognize their own COI. As an example that might actually apply to me, I don't think there would be anything wrong with me blocking someone that vandalized Natalee Holloway, despite my involvement in it. If someone was inserting material that was trying to drive it away from what I consider to be NPOV, it would be pretty questionable if I blocked, no matter how hard the other editor was violating what I perceived as consensus, even if he was edit-warring, because it's difficult for me to be unbiased, and probably impossible for me to be perceived as unbiased.
Questions from Malinaccier
6. Could you explain the situation with User:Wildernessflyfisher about the article temple garment?
A. You can find an independent summary of that dispute at User:Alanyst/WFF. A little background for those that aren't familiar with the area: Temple garment is an area where WP:NOT#CENSORED comes into play. The temple garments are considered sacred by most branches of the LDS, and displaying images of them or discussing them with people that haven't undergone an endowment ceremony is considered improper. As a result, the related articles are frequently blanked or have all images deleted. An anonymous editor removed an image from temple garment, which I originally reverted as an unjustifiable removal, and (unfortunately) didn't quote policy until the second reversion. I explained the policies to the anon, he recruited Wildernessflyfisher as a meatpuppet, and the situation rapidly degenerated. Alanyst, being an LDS, attempted to moderate. It should be noted that while Alanyst and I disagree as to whether removing the images is vandalism or a content dispute, she believed that my actions were pretty much by-the-book in all other respects, and comments a few times on my efforts to explain and discuss.
As to the core issue of article content, I think the images are pretty straightforward and illustrative. If it were not for the sacredness issue, the question of their removal wouldn't even come up. No one has ever given a sound secular reason for removing them. I have always tried to ensure that the article remains respectful: I work towards keeping derisive slang from being introduced, derogatory descriptions of LDS beliefs from being made, etc. If someone were to insert an image of a Penthouse Pet wearing temple garments, I would argue very strongly that the invisible mannequins in the current image was more respectful of the sensitive nature of the topic illustrated.—Kww(talk) 23:47, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
7. If you had administrative power at the time, would you have blocked Wildernessflyfisher for asserting you were a vandal?
A.For saying Kww is a known vandal on wikipedia, so his allegations really don't bother me? No, it would never be right for me to block based on that. If it had continued, I might have asked another admin to look at it. I'm not big on doing blocks based on WP:NPA, and it needs to get pretty bad before I would do one, and, if I'm the target, it's hard for me to claim that I have unbiased judgement. If he had continued with the meat-puppet attack, I would have blocked.—Kww(talk) 23:47, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Question by A Nobody
8. Given your participation in the fiction related arbcom cases and threads, including the one in which you were nearly sanctioned, would you close AfDs for fictional characters and television episodes?
A.I won't make any campaign promises to not exercise admin powers on certain things. Imagine that I promised not to, and then, having been voted the bit, went ahead and closed a fiction AFD as "delete". Do you think you could use that as grounds to get the delete overturned in DRV? You'd be laughed off the page. People will have to evaluate my suitability as an admin based on their conception of how I would perform in all aspects.
9. Given your participation in the fiction related arbcom cases and threads, including the one in which you were nearly sanctioned, would you use admin tools against those with whom you have known tensions in these disputes whether it be myself, Pixelface, or any others?
A.I can promise not to be vindictive, and to only use admin tools in ways that will be upheld by the community.

General comments

RfAs for this user:

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

Discussion

~ ωαdεstεr16«talk 23:45, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Support
  1. Support Deserves the tools. -download | sign! 22:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
    I don't think anyone 'deserves' adminship -- it isn't (or at least shouldn't) be treated as a reward for good work. Not suggesting that you think it is, could just be a misunderstanding. :) — neuro 22:38, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  2. Support - Provided nothing serious crops up. Knowledgeable, a quick review of Kww's contributions doesn't give me too much cause for worry, easily a net positive with the tools. — neuro 22:38, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  3. Support Looks good from here. hmwithτ 22:42, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  4. Support yes please! Kww is a great editor. I am sure he will benefit the administrator tools. I also believe, that he can stay neutral with the tools. --Kanonkas :  Talk  22:55, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  5. Support- no worries here. From what I've had to do with Kww in the past, I believe they're intelligent and hrad-working. I see no danger of Kww misusing the tools. Reyk YO! 22:57, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  6. Kww does a lot of good work in the places where he edits, and he often deals with a lot of vandals. The tools will be of great use to him. I think he's learned from past errors. Acalamari 23:07, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  7. Support; per not contradicting myself.  :-) — Coren  23:12, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  8. Strong support - Hmm, I always thought you were an admin... --Dylan (chat, work, ping, sign) 23:13, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  9. Aye per my comment on the previous RfA, and his excellent work since then. Black Kite 23:20, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  10. Support from the most controversial candidate to hit this page. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:30, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  11. Support No issues. America69 (talk) 23:41, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  12. Support. The only possible issue I had was the situation about the temple garment images, and you've cleared that up for me. Thanks for your quick response. Malinaccier (talk) 23:57, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  13. Support. Great editor, cool head, will use the tools well. — sephiroth bcr 00:11, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  14. --Giants27 /C 00:18, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  15. Support Why not? - Fastily (talk) 00:51, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
    See below. Sincerley, --A Nobody 00:52, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  16. Support I found A Nobody's oppose to be unconvincing, and I have no issues with this candidate. Good luck! :) ∗ \ / (⁂) 00:55, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
    You have not had to contend with the candidate assuming bad faith with myself and certain others in practically every dealing. There is nothing to suggest that the candidate would not be biased when it comes to fiction discussions, barring a pledge to absolutely avoid closing any AfDs pertaining to them and not to block those on the opposite side of the fiction disputes. Dissenting opinion is one thing, but even in the case of virtual snow keeps? Moreover, see this edit summary. Because he (notice the "I") doesn't agree with something it is unacceptable? Sincerley, --A Nobody 00:57, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  17. Support. I've seen this guy in action, and I have to say that he is an excellent at handling BLPs. Definitely someone we want as an admin. bibliomaniac15 01:03, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  18. Support. I regret my oppose from last time. I've watched the candidate closely since the last RFA and I realized that the diff cited by me in the previous RFA and linked by A Nobody below was blown ridiculously out of proportion and is now ancient history as well. The deletionism does sadden me, but it's clear to me that Kww is a good Wikipedian. --JayHenry (talk) 01:08, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  19. Support No question, none at all. Fine editor, who I worked with on Natalee Holloway which became TFA last October, and I see all the hard work he does keeping the music area under some kind of control. Deserved it last time, deserves it now.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:11, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  20. Support I see no reason not to. LITTLEMOUNTAIN5  01:13, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
    Reasons have been presented below. Sincerely, --A Nobody 01:14, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
    Are you going to badger everyone who's not convinced by your oppose? Reyk YO! 01:20, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
    Given past experiences with the candidate, I am deeply concerned that we have the potential for a non-neutral admin and as such in a discussion, it is worth making sure that we prevent any disasters now rather than wait for it when someone becomes an admin. As seen in the other seven or so RfAs I commented in today, I am more apt to support someone, but in this lone RfA in the today, I have deep concerns. Sincerely, --A Nobody 01:25, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
    And given that you are one of two opposes (the other of which is a horribly nonsensical oppose from someone who has opposed every single RfA for a while), you're apparently not convincing. People aren't convinced by your oppose, so don't badger people. If they think there is any credibility to your oppose, then they'll say so. As of now, they don't, so keep your comments to yourself. — sephiroth bcr 01:33, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
    Well, the others in this thread have not had so many interactions with the candidate and those who have had interactions in these fiction disputes would see and identify the clear bias. We do have issues with those who are biased as admins closing AfDs based on their biases and blocking opponents as well and it is imperative that we avoid these problems in the future. Objective editors will indeed see the problems here and will express reservations accordingly. In a discussion editors interact with each other. If this were just a vote, it would be just a list of supports and opposes. Best, --A Nobody 01:36, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
    Except that the objective editors who have !voted support have looked at your oppose and don't find it convincing in the slightest. Stop feeling so full of yourself. People will oppose per your oppose if they agree with it. If they don't, they're going to support or oppose for different reasons. Trying to impose your bogus criteria on other people doesn't work. — sephiroth bcr 01:40, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
    Why are you so mean to me? You know, I try really hard to be nice to you as in User_talk:Sephiroth_BCR/Archive_21#Of_probable_interest_to_you... and yet the hostility continues... To be honest, this is exactly my concern, i.e. admins being needlessly aggresive with those with whom they disagree a la here as well. And yeah, I think most editors want to support and I figure most above are assuming good faith or have had pleasant interactions with the candidate outside of the fiction disputes, and as such I have only commented to those who either referenced me directly or who had some kind of "why not" that just disregards the oppose. I have always found it somewhat insulting if there are opposes to say, "why not" or something to that effect. Finally, I think most editors can handle having someone challenge their stance. You don't see me get up in arms when someone challenges my stance in an RfA. I hope that Kww will prove me wrong, but I have reservations based on previous interactions and again, many of those on the supports has not been in these discussions and so the only way to make them aware of them is to share with them. Best, --A Nobody 01:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  21. Support, I do not believe there are too many admins at the moment for this candidate to be sacrificed or burnt at the stake. --candle•wicke 01:52, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Strong oppose per Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_adminship/Kww#Oppose. Candidate has played a major role in perpetuating a WP:BATTLEGROUND atmosphere in discussions pertaining to fictional characters and television episodes and was nearly sanctioned by ArbCom for role in these disputes. Candidate had strange support in the previous AfD and has twice been blocked for edit warring. I am concerned that candidate could abuse tools when dealing with the various editors on the opposite side of the fiction discussions and would not trust to be unbiased when it comes to closing fiction and episode related AfDs. See for example Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive145#Topic_Ban_for_Kww. Moreover, candidate holds a grudge against those who opposed his previous RfA. Now, he criticizes Casliber for his interpretation of not a democracy and yet uses votes with no arguments in AfDs. Barring a pledge to never use admin tools with those with whom the candidate has disputes in these fiction discussions and to never close AFDs for which a potential bias exists, I cannot support. Sincerely, --A Nobody 23:45, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
    • I see that, but to be accurate, you did concur with its removal after its removal. Anyway, just to be clear, given that first oppose in the old RfA and what I have seen in the fiction discussions, my concerns are really twofold: 1) you are zealously critical of your "opposition", i.e. whether say for example you really do think of ill of myself and Pixelface, I see little to no efforts at reaching out or really compromising with opponents and my concern there is what would you do as an admin? Would you defer to neutral parties or would you seize the opportunity to just blocks those you don't like? Given that you said those who write the fiction articles are "vandals", that doesn't strike one as a willingness to WP:AGF. 2) If we take that belief that such articles are vandalism despite serious opposition to that effect, how would you handle deletion discussions? Could you be neutral? You don't see me closing AfDs as a non-admin closer, because I know where I stand and how people would take that. Given that you are clearly and adamantly on the opposite end of the spectrum, would you similarly avoid closing such AfDs or dealing with prods for fiction articles? Sincerely, --A Nobody 00:32, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
    • I recognize that at this point in time, there is no consensus to block editors for knowingly and repeatedly creating articles that violate WP:N, so you need have no fear of me suddenly going on some kind of inclusionist blocking rampage.—Kww(talk) 00:41, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
    • It goes beyond just that to those with whom you have had specific disputes, such as Pixelface and to be honest, I can't think of any instances where you were nice to me. In dealing with such editors as us, would you defer to a neutral party? Sincerely, --A Nobody 00:45, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
    The last instance of this user being blocked for edit-warring was in November of 2007. Its been about 18 months since that. - Fastily (talk) 00:51, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
    And in that time the candidate has been less than conciliatory when dealing with inclusionists and with regards to fictional articles. Sincerley, --A Nobody 00:53, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Too many administrators currently. DougsTech (talk) 01:17, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Neutral