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Moralis

Please note: The formatting of this page is intentional. It was done after much discussion on WT:RfA and with the consent (read: consent, not necessarily support) of the candidate. Please do not alter it without discussing the issue at WT:RfA.

Voice your opinion; Scheduled to end 02:15, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Moralis (talk · contribs) - Excellent editor who has been with Misplaced Pages for quite a while and deserves to be an admin. I've found him always helpful, professional, and polite, even when dealing with trolls. He's helped out a lot on The Black Parade and other related articles, and really deserves this for all his hard work. mcr616 _Speak! 01:38, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:

I feel honored just seeing this page come into existence. I accept.

A comment in that empty space up there says that the candidate may make an optional statement here, so I will.

My edit count might not be as high as some users', but a lot of what I do is RC patrol. I've made a lot of posts to AIAV over time, and adminship would certainly cut down on that. The reversion tools would also be helpful. I've got a masochistic interest in doing the various things that a lot of users probably consider mind-numbing, like addressing copyedit backlogs, and staring at an IRC readout of recent changes, looking for oddities to fix.

Recently, I've developed a strange interest in mediation. This started out as simply butting into discussions, but over the past couple of days, I've found myself getting involved with the Mediation Cabal, which has given me a unique perspective on the various issues we have with each other as Wikipedians.

I've often considered adminship a long-term goal, thanks to the various small ways it would help me with RC patrol. I also decided a while ago that I would never nominate myself, however, so I'm pleasantly surprised to have ended up at RfA anyway. --Moralis (talk) 02:15, 12 April 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?

A: Cutting down the backlogs at WP:AIAV and WP:RfP is a biggie. Responding to speedy requests, as well. It's my basic intention to keep an eye on everything that could potentially become backlogged (the Administrative backlog category might be helpful) and then spend too much of my free time keeping that from happening. --Moralis (talk) 02:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

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

A: I've done a lot of revamping of The Black Parade, but I'm mainly proud of being dubbed a "Vandal Huntar" by User:Ryulong. I spend a fair amount of my free time on RC patrol, mostly via IRC. And I have a LOT of free time- I'm unemployed right now. --Moralis (talk) 02:15, 12 April 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: For the most part, conflicts with other users have involved mistaking a legitimate edit for vandalism, and this always means a prompt apology and restoring the material I've messed with. Most recently, I was involved in an NPOV dispute, but I think I remained appropriately civil throughout. I had just submitted a Mediation Cabal request when the dispute died down. --Moralis (talk) 02:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

4. You edited as an IP before? Good for you! Do you remember which IP address or addresses you used? We can then look at those edits too. --Kim Bruning 19:25, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Apologies for being long in responding. I didn't notice this question hwere until just now. Unfortunately, I didn't have a static IP, and I also wasn't keeping track of my edits at the time, so I can't provide such information. Thanks for being interested, though! --Moralis (talk) 06:07, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Optional Question from User:Bucketsofg.

5. What is your interpretation of WP:POINT? Does the non-standard organization of your present RFA fail it? Does my question?

My interpretation of WP:POINT: "If you disagree with a policy(/guideline), attempt to change it reasonably through our policy-making system. Do not create violations to prove that the policy is flawed. Also, don't create a situation where the policy is used even though it plainly doesn't apply/isn't reasonable. Basically, if you can't make your point through traditional discussion, you probably haven't got a point. Don't use underhanded means to try to make one anyway."

In other words, "Obey the spirit of the rules. Don't ignore them to make your case, and don't abuse them to make your case."

I don't believe that this RfA violates WP:POINT, because the format of an RfA is not policy, to my knowledge. Please correct me if I'm wrong- I haven't paid too much attention to RfAs in the past- something I intend to change now that I've seen how the discussions usually go.

I also don't consider this terribly underhanded on the part of the user responsible. This is, as stated, an experiment. If it works, it might become something we use in the future. It might not. I don't know. Since this isn't a policy violation, I don't see anything wrong with trying something out and seeing how it works.

I don't think WP:POINT applies to your question. While it may have been a leading question, I don't see how WP:POINT addresses that. It was a legitimate question about my interpretation of a policy, and that's a perfectly good question to ask an RfA candidate. --Moralis (talk) 06:07, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Completely optional and possible frivolous question from Physchim62

answer at your own risk

7. Under what circumstances would you be willing to ignore all rules?

A. I think WP:IAR is very similar in its message to WP:POINT and WP:SENSE, insofar as all of those policies implore the user to enforce rules only with respect to the spirit of those rules. Primarily, if it's appropriate to Ignore All Rules, you're already dealing with a WP:POINT violation. There are also situations in which "consensus" may be ignored if that consensus is a result of meatpuppetry- primarily, I think, where a number of users have ganged up on a smaller group more for the purpose of being right than to actually accomplish anything.

Rules are enforced for the wrong reasons all the time, although in a lot of cases, those issues don't exactly make it to the public eye, because they're often localized disputes. Sometimes this take the form of content being deleted "per policy," when it very plainly does serve a purpose (users have axes to grind, for the most part). A lot of people use WP:NOT or WP:NOTE to remove articles or content as advertisements or vanity when what they really need is some TLC, rather than death by fire.

A lot of content is also removed that, while the rules do provide for its removal, just isn't hurting anybody. Of course I respect WP:NOT, but exclusionism can be taken at least as far as inclusionism, and it sometimes is. I tend to ask myself whether I can envision a reader finding the article helpful (read: useful- interesting and useful are two separate issues) and if the answer is yes, I will generally support the content's inclusion, regardless of what the policies have to say about it. It's my opinion that, in general, if content is useful to somebody, it's made Misplaced Pages more useful as a whole.

Needless to say, the result of an AfD is still something that must be respected (that particular rule generally should not be ignored). If approved, I'll obviously act according to the community's wishes, regardless of my opinion. I do think there's some validity to the argument that if content is really appropriate it'll find its way.

Basically, ignore all rules applies to content whenever inclusionism makes sense- and I will not pretend to be able to describe when that is, as it's kind of a case-by-case decision for everybody, based on the merits of the content in question and how they stack up against policy. IAR applies to all guidelines and policies when enforcement just plainly isn't fair- the unfortunate thing is that what I consider a common-sensical toss-out of a rule might to you be a flagrant violation. That is both the beauty and the curse of a collaboration. I feel like I haven't answered your question very well, but as of now, I'm quite tired and can't think of more specific examples. I hope this gives you a decent idea of what I'm getting at. --Moralis (talk) 13:30, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

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

Please keep criticism constructive and polite.

Discussion

• Did you edit as an IP before you registered? Just curious, your edits seem quite knowledgeable for a newbie :) User:Veesicle 02:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I did indeed. I really wish I'd made an account, so I'd have that history to point to now. I also think I'm pretty good at absorbing info, but that's just me talking myself up ;) --Moralis (talk) 02:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose It is good to see users that want to help Misplaced Pages, but I don't think you have enough experience just yet. Only 700 edits is too few to apply for adminship. Try when you have more, and you will be likely to succeed. Captain panda 02:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  Comment While I can respect that position, I do think that opposition on the basis of edit count is rather unfair, considering the potential number of edits a user might have made before registering. --Moralis (talk) 02:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Fair edits; seems to know the policies well. Will put admin tools to good use and seems unlikely to abuse them. Adminship is no big deal. ➪HiDrNick! 02:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support. As HiDrNick notes above, adminship is indeed no big deal. Moralis has shown greatly impressive work at WP:MEDCAB, and has carried on the mediation tasks in a professional and intelligent manner; and the main-space contributions I have looked through from this user's edit history have been well thought out. In my random sampling of edits, I was unable to detect any civility violations. When faced with this profile - obvious awareness of how to go about doing things, civil attitude, and clear usefulness in solving disputes - I think we should be less carping about matters such as edit-count and time length, and not carry on this ridiculous pursuit of editorial dick-waving. --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 03:07, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support. I am sick of all this editcountitus. He is a good user who I am confidant will not abuse or misuse the tools. -Mschel 03:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose It's not just the number of edits that concerns me - it's the distribution of them. Looking at the contribution history, the candidate did 100+ edits on Dec. 13-14, 2006, mostly with anti-vandalism work. Then he more or less disappeared until March 1, when he assembled another pile of vandalism reversions. Then another month of relative quiet, followed by 100+ edits in the last week. That edit pattern doesn't conform with the long-term record of consistency I expect to see in an admin candidate. It might be better to come here more often and do fewer edits each time. YechielMan 03:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  Comment My disappearances have both been due to the loss of my laptop. When I'm around, I do think it's ridiculous how much time I spend logged in and active (not that you all can see that =P) --Moralis (talk) 03:13, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  Comment - I fail to see the logic here. First of all I find the explanation acceptable. 2nd, shocking as it may seem, people have lives to lead. As long as this editor makes valuable contributions as often as he can he's an asset.Mark83 11:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support. From what I have seen Moralis is a good user, while his edit count may be lower than some, I really couldn't care less about edit counts. --Danlock2 03:27, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose I just wish I could accept you, but you simply don't have enough experience with your account. I agree with the two votes above; you need to be more regular with your editing and need to have more edits. Through your contributions, I can see that you do a good deal of vandal fighting and participate in mediation disputes. A suggestion (not that I'm an admin) is to work more on the backlogs and be active in Xfds. It seems you have quite a bit of experience here, with your excellent knowledge of most aspects of Misplaced Pages. Hopefully, you'll make adminship, but if you don't, those are some of the things you may want to work on. Sr13 (T|C) 03:33, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  Huh, this is different: an Oppose comment where the editor goes on to say "Hopefully, you'll make adminship..." (and clearly talking about this RfA, not some future one).Herostratus 15:38, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Edit count isn't an issue, the user is obviously very experienced with Misplaced Pages, and could be a more valuable contributor as a sysop. Look at the content of his edits, he is a positive force in the community. - Bennyboyz3000 04:20, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral Did you have a static IP address to edit from? If you could provide that then it would certainly help to demonstrate your depth of knowledge regarding contributing to Misplaced Pages. (aeropagitica) 04:37, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  Unfortunately, no. At that point, my IP address was changing frequently... and, at any rate, I wasn't keeping track of what it was. --Moralis (talk) 04:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. The candidate does not have yet have a long enough record as a consistent contributor to earn my support for adminship. Singopo 06:03, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support: per Bennyboyz3000 Anynobody 09:09, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral leaning towards support. Despite the convincing answers and nomination, I really feel uncomfortable supporting you with a low edit count and irregular activity. —Anas 09:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support Terence 09:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose such a low rate of activity since registering in 2005, just over one edit per day, doesn't really cut it for me, sorry. The Rambling Man 10:09, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Change to Neutral - a willingness to ditch the previous RFA format and go for the new refactored version (even though I don't necessarily agree with it) shows a great level of dedication to the project. Well done, but still more activity needed for me... The Rambling Man 20:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose sorry, but you're too inexperienced to support, particularly in Misplaced Pages space. --Dweller 12:00, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• After reviewing the contrib history, I see no problems. Very civil user, will make a decent admin. —AldeBaer user:Kncyu38 13:17, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support - I kept on asking the Admins if there should be a minimum edit requirement but they decided against it so if the Admins dont have a problem with someone with 700+ edits..Neither do I..Go For it..--Cometstyles 14:06, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral. I am concerned about the candidate's statement that he wishes to become an administrator (found in the userboxes on the candidate's user page). However, I would likely support if the candidate were endorsed by a WikiProject, since such endorsement would tend to indicate the necessary social and collaborative skills for adminship and might overcome my concerns that this editor is seeking adminship for the sake of having it. Kelly Martin (talk) 14:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  This reason to deny support continues to baffle me. So to be a good admin, never admit that you want to be one? Certainly in my workplace promotions are given to people who openly and strongly state that they want the job!--Xnuala (talk) 22:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support, without question. This guy does mediation work? And with that sort of recommendation from Nick Turnbull? We should all be falling over ourselves to support this guy. --bainer (talk) 15:12, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support. If a low edit count doesn't mean he wouldn't be an OK admin, then why bring it up? Unless it tells us something useful about the person, it can be ignored. He can work on his edit count while an admin, if that matters. No indication that he wouldn't be a good admin. Herostratus 15:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Checking through this user's contribs shows nothing but thoughtfulness and usefulness to the project - edit count means very little. No qualms about making him an admin whatsoever. User:Veesicle 17:24, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose needs more experience. Crum375 17:24, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support: Those in opposition can't come up with anything other than ridiculous editcountitis crap to base their opposes on. Sorry, but that's not evaluating a candidate as to whether they can be trusted or not. I *HAVE* done a review of the candidate, and find nothing to suggest this candidate can not be trusted. In fact, I've found quite the reverse. He's patient, thoughtful, articulate and level headed. All qualities I'd like to see in an admin. Those opposing based on editcountitis (all of the opposes, to date) should be ashamed of themselves. --Durin 17:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose - Not nearly enough experience--$UIT 18:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose - Not enough experience. Naconkantari 18:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral - leaning towards support. It's not so much the edit count as the diversity of experience. Getting involved in mediation is a huge plus, though. We always need more mediation folks. You're definitely on the right track and I'll likely have no problems supporting you in the future - Alison 18:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• --Tony Sidaway 18:32, 12 April 2007 (UTC) This fellow seems to be competent in a number of spheres useful to Misplaced Pages, and has no history of bad behavior. I don't think we need ask more of an administrator.
• Neutral: While I do believe this user can be trusted and would probably be an asset as an administrator, I am not quite sure if this user has enough experience quite yet. I am not leaning towards support or oppose as I am completely undecided and I think this user still needs to prove themself before being accepted as an administrator. While I would not be dissapointed if Moralis did become an administrator I do not think they have the experience needed quite yet.  Orfen  | _Contribs 18:46, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support - Low edit count and lack of experience, but whatever. Adminship is no big deal, and we should give it to (within reason) anyone who wants it. Walton 18:59, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support. His edit count is high enough to give a decent sample size and I don't see any evidence that he'd misuse the tools. As an aside, I definitely prefer this format and would like to see it used on more (if not all) RfAs. ChazBeckett 19:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Edit counts can be used in analysis of an editor's contributions, but they have their limitations. Opposing purely on grounds of "no experience due to no edits" does not consider two things - the first is that reading policies, engaging in discussions, writing articles, or in this case, mediating disputes do not require pressing "Save page" that much; as a result, they're not properly measured in edit counts. The second is that life happens: laptops break down, people move, classes or work take priority, etc. That does not necessarily mean that a user with 700 edits is any less committed to advancing Misplaced Pages's mission than a user with 70,000. Besides, as they say, if an admin makes one admin action a year, it is still a net benefit to the project. Ergo, support. Titoxd 19:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral. If This edit summary by Durin states correct in saying "Refactoring per discussion with nominee; do not revert as this was agreed upon.", then Moralis' agreeing to make the bureaucrats RfA closing job harder does not seem to demonstrate a willingness to help others in their tasks. Diffs would help to review the agreed upon discussion. (This discussion did not help clarify things.) In any event, Moralis' does not have enough reviewable experience to determine whether he is a trusted users who understand policy. -- Jreferee 19:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  It does not make the bureaucrats job any harder in any respect. Bureaucrats are expected to evaluate consensus. They are not expected to count votes. The suggestion to change RfAs into this style was brought by User:Sjakkalle at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Reform#Proposal_by_Sjakkalle. The format of this RfA has NOTHING to do with the capabilities and qualities of this candidate, and I would ask that you remove this element from consideration and focus on the candidate, not the form the RfA is taking. --Durin 19:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  Evidently, members of the admin's board were interested in refactoring an RfA in order to remove the support/oppose/neutral ratio from obvious viewing. I, personally, don't think that a direct vote tally should be used by a crat in determining whether to promote or not, so I agreed to be their guinea pig for this experiment. I fail to see how this makes a bureaucrat's RfA closing job any more difficult, if they're not basing their decision 100% on the vote tally. --Moralis (talk) 19:36, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  The reason given for the refactoring made it appear that this RfA was refactored during the RfA because of an agreed upon discussion between Durin and yourself. The diffs now provided by Durin and your explanation did help in understanding your participation in the refactoring and I revised my reasoning accordingly. Since your statement on future process did not change my position on evaluation of your present process understanding, I maintained my neutral reasoning. -- Jreferee 23:12, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Neutral leaning towards support, perhaps. I'm curious enough about further edits that we haven't seen yet, that I'm not yet ready to commit to either choice. :-) --Kim Bruning 19:28, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose I see very little participation in policy making, and I don't see much at all in the areas where admin tools are useful. _InBC 19:33, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral Nothing in your history would compel me to oppose your adminship, but I feel that you do not yet have the experience I feel is necessary for one to be an admin. I would like to see more interaction in policy-related areas. Your contributions to AIV are valued, keep up the good work. Leebo /C 19:36, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral I am leaning toward support, though I can follow both sides of the argument on this one. I think he needs a little more experience with Misplaced Pages before becoming an administrator. Though, I see nothing wrong with this candidates behaviour and been part of Meditation is a big plus. I also think his decision to allow his RfA to have its S/N/O tally removed is not a reason to oppose. Camaron1 | Chris 19:49, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose Not enough experience with the Misplaced Pages namespace (half of Moralis' contribs there are less than a week old). No it's not editcountitis: I just don't see a way to convince myself that the candidate currently has enough experience with Misplaced Pages's processes to be an admin. On an unrelated note, I hate the refactoring of the page which makes it harder, imo, to make sense of the debate. Pascal.Tesson 20:21, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
  • • What, you mean read people's comments? --Durin 20:29, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  Doesn't the bureaucrat do that anyway? Mackensen (talk) 20:22, 12 April 2007 (UTC)