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Cynical

Voice your opinion. (21/12/4) Ending 11:28, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Cynical (talk · contribs) – Well, this is a self-nom so what can I say? I've been on Misplaced Pages since 22nd May 2004, and (according to Interiot's tool I have 5129 edits. My one area of weakness is in images - my only real contribution to imagespace has been an unfortunate one (detailed in my forthcoming question answers) and I would probably stay away from images, at least until I get a more useful understanding of them Cynical 11:08, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: Self nom, I accept the nomination Cynical 11:28, 12 October 2006 (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 voters:

1. What sysop chores do you anticipate helping with? Please check out Category:Misplaced Pages backlog and Category:Administrative backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.
A: Well Afd and RC patrolling are the two areas I have had most experience with as an editor, so I would more than likely concentrate on those. Although Tawkerbot2 has lessened the burden of the actual reverting/warning itself, we still need RC patrollers to catch the vandals that TB2 misses, and RC patrolling admins to block vandals. I am fairly familiar with the sorts of arguments that come up on Afd, and I think this would allow me to distinguish genuine contributions from the meatpuppetry which tends to occur on certain issues.
2. Of your articles or contributions to Misplaced Pages, are there any with which you are particularly pleased, and why?
A: If I had to pick one I suppose it would be Braehead. The article was so bad I actually (somewhat harshly, I'll admit) nominated it for speedying. However at the suggestion of User:Halibutt I gave it an overhaul, turning it into a healthy stubling. It's now (through the efforts of others of course) developed into a good quality article (I mean that descriptively, not in WP:GA terms!), so I am kinda proud of it in a way.
3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?
A: There have been two really: one partially my fault, the other entirely my fault:
  • I made a lot of 'whitespace only' edits with AWB a while back, with the result that I was removed from the AWB CheckPage, because I misread the diff pages AWB was presenting me with. To cut a long story short, my misreading of the diffs gave me the impression that my edits were affecting content, when it was not. I dealt with it by removing the AWB check (I know, not the most good faith of actions, but it used up less of my and Bluemoose's time than discussing whether I should get back on the Checklist or not. I would hopefully avoid such a mistake in the future because I now have a better idea of AWB's functions, and I am better at reading complicated Misplaced Pages diffs.
  • The other one was when I nominated several images on Squeakbox's userpage for deletion in the belief that they were not used on any articles (I checked the 'what links here' instead of the list of transclusions at the bottom of the image page). Entirely my fault. However, instead of explaning this to me Squeakbox decided to respond with accusations of various kinds (stalker, vandal, troll, running a campaign of harassment against him, interfering with his userpage) - all of which are available from my talkpage archive, some of the diffs were also presented as evidence (by me) in the Squeakbox/Zapacatanas arbcom case. In the future, I would obviously hope not to make the same image policy mistakes (hey, once I know something I generally don't forget), but other than that I would hope to conduct myself in the same way - responding in a civil manner even when accused of unpleasant things, and admitting my mistakes as soon as they were pointed out to me in a substantive way (by this I just mean 'you're wrong because x' rather than 'OMG U SUXX0RZ !!!1!one' or something to that effect)

Question from Malber (talk · contribs)

4. What do the policy of WP:IAR and the essay WP:SNOW mean to you and how would you apply them?
A: IAR is not a big stick to hit objectors with, it is a recognition of common sense within Misplaced Pages policy. When invoking IAR it is always necessary to consider the impact. Yes, whatever change you are making might benefit Misplaced Pages when judged in isolation, but it is important to balance this benefit with the harm to Misplaced Pages that will be caused by the anger of those who disagree. In the vast majority of IAR situations there is no problem in satisfying this, but if you invoke IAR and 50 people immediately start screaming at you then it's a fair indication that it wasn't a suitable situation for IAR. This doesn't mean that I will simply 'shoot first and ask questions later' - quite the opposite. I meant this as a counterargument to those who claim IAR as a catch-all denial to anyone who questions them. My approach would be to make sure (as far as possible) that I would not offend anyone by invoking IAR, or that any objection would be minimal in comparison to the benefit to Misplaced Pages.
Again, SNOW isn't a way of evading debate, it's a way of getting the job done faster when there is no debate. If someone nominates Hypothetical Article X for deletion, and nobody except the nominator and his meatpuppets supports it, then it is a waste of time to continue with an AFD. In such a situation, I think it would be a good idea to post the intention to invoke WP:SNOW on the page itself (as a Comment in an AFD or whatever the situation requires) a few hours beforehand, and then only do it if no significant objections are raised.

Question from Radiant

5. You say in your RFA standards that candidates should respect consensus. Yet you say in those same standards that candidates should have a minimum of six months' editing time - a standard which runs counter to consensus, since RFA regularly promotes candidates with less than six months' experience. Please explain this dichotomy. >Radiant< 12:35, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
A: I wasn't aware of any particular 'formal' consensus as to binding standards for adminship - in fact there is no consensus as to whether there should even be any binding prerequisites for adminship - as far as I am aware the general opinion is that each user should contribute to RFAs on the basis of his/her own opinions. The 6 months thing is just my personal opinion, and is not set in stone - if someone has been particularly active in the community then I see no need to wait 6 months to see if they are prone to incivility or whatever. 6 months is simply the point at which I wouldn't go out of my way to look for evidence of such high levels of activity. In any event, just because I have different opinions from the majority does not mean I would act counter to consensus in any given situation - the point of an administrator is to put community consensus into effect, not dictate what it is, and I would certainly not impose my own will against that of the community.


General comments

Cynical's editcount summary stats as of 16:36, October 12 2006, using Interiot's tool. (aeropagitica) 16:37, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Since I can't use Flcelloguy's tool from my university network, you can get a copy of my contribs tree (I don't know how recent though) from Interiot's tool Cynical 11:27, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm troubled by the several oppose votes that call into question Cynical's voting record in RfA. It is troubling when there is speculation that all that is needed to become an admin is to rack up editcounts at recent changes then go to RfA and support every nominee in the hopes that they will support you back, then see this theory confirmed by the failing votes in this RfA. Shouldn't we be basing our decision on this user's editing history, behavior in dealing with others, and understanding of policy? Voting oppose because Cynical didn't support a candidate you liked smacks of too much politics. I suppose it is somewhat fortunate that this cronyism is so bald faced. —Malber (talk • contribs) 12:11, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Discussion (for expressing views without numbering)

Support

  1. Support answers are good. Best of luck! --Alex (Talk) 12:36, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  2. I thought he was one. – Chacor 14:56, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  3. Support. I find nothing wrong with his application of WP:IAR, and as much as I would like to oppose for his (in my opinion) extremely over-rigorous RfA support criteria, I find no evidence that this candidate can't handle sysop tools. RyanGerbil10(Kick 'em in the dishpan!) 15:56, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  4. SupportCheers, :) Dlohcierekim 16:03, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  5. Support. - Mailer Diablo 16:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  6. Support. Sure. Mackensen (talk) 16:59, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  7. Support Trustworthy user -- I've always found him civil and courteous. Although my personal stance on IAR is to ignore any use of it, per itself, I find nothing distressing in candidate's response on that question. Xoloz 17:10, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  8. Support: Oppose 3 is just plain wrong. Cynical didn't oppose because he didn't like the nominator; he opposed because the nominator made a misleading claim in his nomination. There's a difference. Nor does Oppose 1 really impress either; if you put yourself forward for RFA you really should have bothered to have read some of the guidelines beforehand; not to do so is lazy, and you shouldn't be surprised of you wind up with a series of pile-on opposes. Fires of adversity forging a masterwork, anyone? This seems like a good all-round candidate with a healthy editcount break-down and excellent dedication to the project. My only slight qualm is the lack of any GAs or FAs - we are here to write an encyclopedia, after all -, but that's not really a reason to oppose, and there are plenty of reasons to support. Moreschi 18:49, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    I did not say he did not like me. I said even if I made a mistake as a nominator, you should not vote to oppose the nominee, that's not good judgement. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:45, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  9. Support Michael 19:02, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  10. Support per Moreschi's comments. Seems a very good and sincere user as well. --Siva1979 19:53, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  11. Support - we need more hands at CAT:CSD, and opposing based on RfA voting patterns strikes me as foolish, at best. ANYONE CAN VOTE AT RfA - denying the mop ain't going to change this users voting patterns. JesseW, the juggling janitor 01:42, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  12. Support :) --Terence Ong (T | C) 03:14, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  13. Support Seems okay, and there's something admirable about self-nomination. Charlie MacKenzie 08:26, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  14. Tony Sidaway 11:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC) My original poor impression of this editor (the kind of thing to which I always apply a very low weight) was easily remedied by viewing his edits. This guy is up to the job. His opinions on Ignore all rules and RFA are not material to his adminship. It's only a set of buttons, not a set of godlike powers that can only be entrusted to those who toe any particular line.
  15. Support. I've taken a bit of time to closely consider the concerns listed below and to look at the nominee's track record, user page, etc. After careful consideration, nothing put forth in the oppose comments really convince me that this candidate ought to be denied the tools. Most of the "problematic" edits given as examples are not as egregious or unreasonable as I think they are described. This nominee demonstrates a need for the tools and I have no problem trusting him with them. Agent 86 17:08, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  16. AGF Support. Not strictly meeting my standards but I'm willing to take and give a chance. Stifle (talk) 18:15, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
    Support. Meets my standards. Do not find oppose arguments compelling. Believe this user's use of the tools will be beneficial to the project, despite lack of popularity among some users.Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 21:51, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
    Duplicate support, see number 4. Picaroon9288 23:16, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  17. Support  Doctor Bruno  01:37, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
  18. Support after reviewing the Oppose section. What the hell a voting pattern on RfA has to do with being suitable for adminship? Nothing at all.  Grue  07:45, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
  19. Support per WP:AGF, and per belief that, barring major cases of incivility or other abusive behaviors, expressing an opinion in a discussion should not be held against anyone. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 20:22, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
  20. El_C 23:57, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
  21. Support per above and specifically Agent 86. Good editor who would work effectively as an admin. AuburnPilot 02:02, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
  22. Support I think Cynical would be a better asset with admin tools than without and is probably unlikely to change his RfA. Though I disagree with excessive opposals, I disagree that this is relavent to community spirit and adminship.--Konst.able 12:08, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Strong Oppose - No fricken way. On User:Cynical/RFA voting record you state "You might notice that there are many more oppose votes than supports. That isn't because I'm particularly hostile to adminship candidates, it's just that if an RFA is already at 'runaway' stage (say 40,2,4) then there is little value in lengthening the page if I support the candidate." I assume to explain the fact you oppose 3 x more nominations than you support. Yet; here you're the 16th oppose - 0 supports, here 14th oppose - 0 supports, here, here, here, here, here, and here you vote in RfA's that clearly meet WP:SNOW and are spiralling downwards towards fail... and I only made it less than half way through your list, but I assume it continues on in the dozens and dozens of oppose votes you've made. We (administrators) are supposed to encourage and support the community. We already receive a heap of complaints about administrators supposed incivility and claims of bad attititudes. In summary; You dont seem a team player, I dont like your attitude, and your having the tools will not benefit the encyclopedia. Glen 12:58, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    • I don't see the contradiction. To pile on support on a landslide is redundant. An oppose vote with constructive criticism added to a failing nomination is ultimately beneficial to the nominee and goes more towards encouragement and support than the warm fuzzy blanket of an additional support vote. And I think comments like "no fricken way" and "I don't like your attitude" in an RfA nom border on incivility. —Malber (talk • contribs) 13:19, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    • First of all, I hardly see 2 - 9 -1 (the cooksey diff you listed) as runaway (there have been RFAs succeed with far more than 9 opposes), but I'll leave that aside. The point is that I try to base my contributions to RFA the same way that all contributions to Misplaced Pages are supposed to be guided - what will bring the greatest benefit to Misplaced Pages. Where someone is clearly going to succeed, and I don't have any objections to their becoming an admin, then there is no real benefit to Misplaced Pages in my adding to the list of supporters. Where, however, an RFA primarily contain Oppose votes, unless there is something silly like 0/50/10, then there is still a fair (if not particularly high) chance that the RFA could be successful (given a late rush of supports for example, if people only check Dragons flight's RFA summary every few days). If adding an additional Oppose vote (even one that, with hindsight, looks unnecessary) makes it less likely for someone unsuitable to succeed, then that benefits Misplaced Pages. However when making such contributions I will try to suggest ways for the user to increase their chances next time round - in most cases such votes aren't down to anything concrete which is negative (e.g. incivility, vandalism etc.) but from a lack of positive - e.g. lack of experience, lack of talkspace contributions or something along those lines - and people like that have every chance of being a great candidate in the future. Cynical 14:47, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Finding out after the fact that your application of WP:IAR was incorrect is a bad way to operate and can lead to many potential unnecessary confilcts. I'd like to see a little bit more maturity in the answers to questions to dispute resolution as this is IMO one of the most important functions of an admin. —Malber (talk • contribs) 15:24, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Sorry, my answer to IAR above might not have been terribly clear. I didn't mean that I would just do anything, claim IAR, and deal with the consequences later. Far from it (I've been accused of being a process wonk in the past) - I meant that I would try to judge whether anyone would object to IAR invocation in advance - and that any critcism afterwards shows that a given invocation was wrong. I meant that in response to some incidents where people have claimed 'IAR' in response to people making substantiated policy complaints about what they did. Cynical 16:54, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    Oppose. I believe it is not acceptable to vote against somebody at an RFA if your issue is with the nominator and not with the admin candidate; see here. Another encounter with this user made me think that he is unnecessarily rude Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:57, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    Wrt Lethe's RFA, my concern wasn't with the nominator, but with the fact that the candidate didn't have any significant experience in Afd. As for my message to you about Mathbot, I accept that it was not as civil as it might have been - I was just trying to respond to (what I saw as) Mathbot leaving unnecessarily judgemental messages on users' talkpages. Cynical 16:54, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    I will suggest you read again the text of your oppose vote in that RfA. It says " due to misleading information on nomination" (if it was misleading, it was my fault as nominator, and not admin candidate's). Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:40, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
    I stand corrected. Not my best ever RFA contribution. Cynical 18:41, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
    Dropped my oppose vote. The candidate admitted the wrongdoing and I hope he will be more careful in the future on how he votes on other people's RfA's (which are the common objections). Good luck. Oleg Alexandrov (talk)
  3. Oppose generally because of the concerns raised by Glen. Further, I firmly believe that one should avoid pile-on opposes in RfA. I'm also concerned by the use a profanity to describe the failure of a nominee to properly set up an RfA page, when you could have used more diplomatic words would suffice.-- danntm C 20:14, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    • I didn't originally mean for it to seem incivil/offensive - it was (a rather poor attempt at) not taking it seriously. But I agree that it isn't the best way I could have worded that, and I apologise. I've corrected the page appropriately, however I reccomend people check out the diff you provided - I'm not trying to hide anything here. Cynical 20:20, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    I appreciate your promptand honest response, but my underlying concern is that have the tendency to rub salt in the wound of those who run into trouble at RfA. I do hope you learn for this experience.-- danntm C 13:18, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  4. Oppose per diff provided by Oleg. Mathbot is a very useful tool, and edit summaries are important. Jonathunder 22:21, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    I wasn't criticising Oleg for encouraging people to use edit summaries, I just felt that the messages left by Mathbot were overly judgmental, and potentially newbie biting. Cynical 14:05, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  5. Oppose voting record is alarming.--MONGO 22:36, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  6. weak oppose. Cynical's contribs shows a good range of contribution to vandalism reversion, user warning, afd participation, and particularly prod-watching. However I'm not 100% happy with some of the incivility highlighted above. Boilerplate voting on the buscuit afds (a group of articles about biscuits/cookies that were speedy deleted, brought to deletion review, restored and procedurally nominated at AfD) e.g. was posted to almost all ~30 debates. Yes they were all speedily deleted and restored as a group, but in my opinion comments and reccomendations on AfDs should relate to the article being considered in that debate. If you feel something is worthy/not worthy of an article you should be able to say why, in terms of that article. I'm also troubled by edit summaries like . The community consensus is that AfDs should be consensus driven not votes, and consensus is imho one of the key things an admin should show commitment to - you should be making edits just "to keep the 'afd is not a vote' mob happy", you should be one of the 'afd is not a vote' "mob". When closing sock/meatpuppet infested AfDs, or ones where one side of the debate expressed clear polocy-backed reasons and the otherside vauge "I've heard of it it needs an article" handwavery, you need to be able to back up your closure explaining why you didn't go with the votecount - and you need to do this without hypocracy. I think you will make a good admin, just not yet. If you take on the constructive criticism here then in another 2-3 months you'll probably get my support. Thryduulf 23:45, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    Just to clear up, I wasn't just 'block voting' on the basis of my objection to the speedy - I also believed that each and every article (well, except the one that I voted Merge on) was notable enough for a Misplaced Pages article. I noted this in my Afd comment, and since my reasoning for each discussion was essentially the same it seemed a waste of timne to use different wording just for the sake of it. Cynical 11:58, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  7. Oppose per Glen. Your voting record alarms me. You have opposed some of the best admins that we have today and you opposed Taxman, who is doing a brilliant job as bureaucrat. Nishkid64 00:38, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
    I accept that - some of those I voted against have turned out to be first class admins, and Taxman has been great. However I think this is the inevitable consequence of RFA - contributors are asked to make somewhat arbitrary judgements based on very limited information, and I think it is unavoidable for some of those judgements to turn out to be wrong. Cynical 14:05, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
    As someone who has taken the minority opinion on many rfas, I'm troubled by your reason for this oppose. Someone simply voicing their opinion should not be a problem. Even disagreeing with policy is ok, as long as the users actions still support the general consensus and don't violate WP:POINT. --T-rex 14:43, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  8. Oppose, the diffs provided by Glen suggest the candidate is not well prepared to deal with inexperienced users with the necessary patience and provide necessary encouragement. I am willing to be convinced otherwise by diffs to the contrary but Glen's evidence is fairly damaging. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:38, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  9. Oppose per Glen, Christopher Parham, and a few others. 1ne 16:10, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  10. My previous encounters with Cynical do not make me satisfied regarding aspects of his personality and behavior on-wiki that are directly related to the tasks an administrator must undertake. --Cyde Weys 18:40, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  11. Oppose per the above. I'm not too happy with the straw man response to Glen, kind of missing the point in response to my question, copy/paste voting on AFD, and general civility issues. >Radiant< 09:46, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
  12. Oppose per Thryduulf, Radiant. Angus McLellan (Talk) 00:03, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
  13. Oppose per views on userpage in opposition to notability standards for Misplaced Pages articles, and for excessive inclusionism in general. Puppy Mill 13:19, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
    My opinion on notability standards is just that - an opinion. It does not mean that I would discount Afd 'votes' (for example) just because the person used notability as the basis for their 'vote', any more than someone opposing the inclusion of schools articles on Misplaced Pages (for another example) means that they would automatically discount any 'votes' supporting the inclusion of a schools article.Cynical 17:45, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Neutral

  1. Neutral. I would never oppose someone based on their voting record, as long as I felt such voting was done in good faith (which Cynical has clearly demonstrated). Although I am a little concerned about the confrontational nature of this RFA, I am voting based purely on my criteria. Themindset 23:40, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  2. Neutral on the one hand, the cited examples of alleged incivility, aren't especially (as usual). On the other hand, rather weak encyclopedia contributions provide an awkward combination with the excess inclusionism. Opabinia regalis 02:23, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  3. You're a fine editor, but I think there are some civility issues which need sorting out. I'm sorry, but an administrator has to be approachable enough for new users to want to come to you with an issue. Nothing really freaks me out here, but I'll probably stay neutral. — riana_dzasta wreak havoc|damage report 12:54, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  4. Weak Neutral A roll of the dice here. Sorry, Cynical. It's a random tossup as I'm seeing.People Powered 03:27, 15 October 2006 (UTC)