Misplaced Pages

Oppose

• This spot reserved for Mindspillage, who said on IRC she was going to post a massively strong oppose. (++Lar: t/c 16:47, 27 April 2006 (UTC) (she's free to delete it if she wants, but don't anyone else! )

Oh, fine, now I can't, just to be contrary! You see what you made me do? Now you're one support closer to having to be an admin. Ha! Joke's on you. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 05:13, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

1. I would have supported had this come, say, three weeks ago, but a recent altercation has left me with the difficult decision to oppose. Not willing to go into details, but it involves Esperanza. Also, even if someone said they'd strongly oppose, there is no reason to do what you did above, Lar. Just let her voice her opinion when she chooses to. NSLE _(T+C) at 04:20 UTC (2006-05-1)

   I guess its not clear, but that's a joke up there.pschemp | talk 04:26, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

   No, it wasn't, and was still not called for, anyhow. NSLE _(T+C) at 04:28 UTC (2006-05-1)

   Ah, there's nothing wrong with a laugh. Snoutwood (tóg) 05:54, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

   Well I found it funny :P. --Celestianpower 09:31, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

   NSLE: Would you mind sharing a little more info? Those of us who don't really know Lar (or you for that matter) would like to hear the full story and judge for ourselves before rendering a vote. --Bachrach44 16:05, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

2. Oppose. Not someone I'd be comfortable with having the delete button. Grace Note 23:47, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Neutral

Comments

• See Lar's edit summary usage with Mathbot's tool.
• Edit count retrieved from Interiot's JavaScript counter:

Total edits	4377 
Distinct pages edited	1501 
Average edits/page	2.916 
First edit	19:08, 8 June 2005 
(main)	717 
Talk	374 
User	285 
User talk	1062 
Image	90 
Image talk	3
MediaWiki talk	1
Template	51 
Template talk	91 
Help	1
Category	16
Category talk	37
Misplaced Pages	962
Misplaced Pages talk	687

User's last 2000 edits:
56 approximate day(s) of edits on this page
Most recent edit on: 4hr (UTC) -- 01, May, 2006
Oldest edit on: 1hr (UTC) -- 6, March, 2006
Edit summary use for this user (over the 2000 edit(s) shown on this page): 100%
Average edits per day: 35.73
Edits on top: 12.05%
Significant edits (non-minor/reverts): 95.5%
Minor edits (non reverts): 2.4%
Reverts: 2.1%
Unmarked edits: 0%

• About the placeholders. There have been questions and concerns raised in the past about supports given prior to the start of an RfA. My conoms and Brenny all wanted to show their support and had signed their views. Because I'm a policy (and process) wonk, I struck the times and replaced them with notes, to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Until and unless they formally re-sign, their supports should not be counted. I have every expectation they will but to be properly process (and policy) wonkish, I had to do it. Now, about Mindspillage's placeholder. That's a joke, folks. She has been asking me when my RfA was going to start and in joking around with me about it she said "I'm going to massively oppose". I have no reason to believe she will, I was being funny. (or not, your mileage may vary). We are doing serious important things here building the greatest encyclopedia ever but we can have fun anyway, darn it. I'm really sorry NLSE didn't get the joke or didn't think it was appropriate, but I support anyone's right to oppose for any reason. ++Lar: t/c 04:43, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

• About the Esperanza incident NLSE refers to. I cannot be sure, but I suspect it's this thread: Wikipedia_talk:Esperanza/Advisory_Council_Elections_April_2006#Karmafist. If not I would like to know what it is, I have nothing to hide and would be happy to address whatever the issue is. I stand behind my comments in that thread. I think the AG of Esperanza made a difficult, but correct, decision there. Read the thread and judge for yourself. ++Lar: t/c 04:43, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

About questions: I tend to be a bit verbose (or "long winded", as user:Dmcdevit calls it... with noms like these who needs enemies? But I digress!). Others have advised me to be terser in answering these, but that's not who I am. Sorry if it seems like a hard slog and I don't get to the point right away but hang in there. You may also find Misplaced Pages:Discussions for adminship/Lar interesting reading. Although the process hasn't been widely accepted, there is useful (if a little obsolete in some aspects) background on me there if you want it. ++Lar

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, if any, would you anticipate helping with? Please check out Category:Misplaced Pages backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.

Answer I like how Petros471 answered these, so I am cribbing from the approach used. I am going to give a short answer, and then refer to the tool list.

Short answer: I am not primarily a vandal fighter, or someone who sees themselves getting primarily involved in enforcement of things like 3RR and the like. That's not to say I won't do them as needed but with 800 plus other admins I think that would usually be covered well enough, short of a crisis. My focus, rather, would be on editorial things (related to making content better) that require admin powers: moving pages that can't be moved easily, and editing pages that are protected, and setting/removing protection. I'd be there to help people as needed of course. I get asked to help people out, or to informally mediate content disputes, once in a while already.

Long answer: So then, let's go through the list at WP:ADMIN, and review the items:

• Protected pages: This is a biggie. I am a big fan/proponent of the Did you know (DYK) process. I have 10 (or more if I have gotten off my butt and edited more articles) successful DYKs now, and I want to get involved in helping select and promote new entries, I think I'd be good at it, (at first in consultation with other admins such as Gurubrahma or Cactus.man). The DYK template itself is protected (for good reason I feel) and images used in it need to be protected as well (this seems to be typical for things used on the main page). While the placing of notices can be done by a non admin, only admins can do the whole process efficiently. There is a (too?) small core of volunteers on that and I'd like to help when I can. There may also be other instances where I want to edit protected pages (with careful examination of consensus via the talk page), but I don't see myself protecting or unprotecting controversial pages as much as just doing the mechanical part of editing protected pages.

• Deletion and undeletion: I'm not a m:deletionist, I'm more of an m:inclusionist with a lot of m:eventualist and m:mergist tendencies. But when something has to be deleted, we should not shy away from it. I think having an inclusionist such as myself do a needful deletion and then being there for the editor whose page got deleted and needs an understanding listener, is a pretty good approach. I would also help out with obvious speedy deletes, and if the PROD process is on line reliably again, doing some PRODs now and then. I think. But I don't see this as a primary focus. (I'd be more likely to try to rescue than delete. (For any article you vote to delete, vote one to keep, or improve one which is on the border of being thrown in the bin --Anthere) I might get involved in the occasional AfD as a closer (probably in consultation with others at first) but only if I had not nominated or commented on it during the course of its review. Like Tony Sidaway and a few others, I would happily undelete and userify articles on request whenever that was appropriate (after review of content for suitability, it's not a carte blanche). I think creating articles in userspace is a good approach, and so is post deletion userification to see if a user otherwise in good standing can turn the article into something encyclopedic.

• Reverting: I don't see myself doing much reversion, because I'm not intending to be a vandal fighter primarily. But I find myself now manually reverting stuff that I see got hit, and I have a fairly big watch list (800 and growing) so this would be useful. As a believer in good edit summaries I would only use rollback for vandalism. I think using rollback for edit warring is not good form at all. Heck, I think edit warring is not good form at all, I subscribe to 1RR, and to the notional admin version of it as well. I would NEVER revert another admin's reversion/block/whatever without consulting that admin and my peers. The parole Tony Sidaway is under now is how I'd always conduct myself.

• Enforcement of Arbitration Committee rulings: If I had a good friend that had run into trouble, it might be a good thing if I did the enforcement, it might be gentler. I think there's value in trying to gently explain things and console and listen. But all my friends here (with the possible exception of Brenny, snicker) are not very likely to get into that sort of situation, I don't think. In general I probably would leave that to others. Wouldn't shy away if it was needful.

• Hiding vandalism from recent changes: Not sure I'd use this very much.

• Block and unblock: I am not primarily a vandal fighter, I only revert it when I find it, so I would expect that usually someone else got to it first and did the block, but if the need arose I would do it. You MUST warn appropriately first, though. That takes judgement, it's not mechanical but we must try to convert vandals to contributors where we can. Remember Don't bite the newcomers!! Judicious warnings can turn people around, I am sure of it.

• Design and wording of the interface: This is an area of interest for me, I have some limited expertise in UI design (I've been working in IT for 25 years) although not a primary focus. It's very high visibility so every move, every change, has to be run through careful consensus first, I think. I am probably more on the timid side than the bold side, all told so unless consensus was clear.. I just don't see myself changing UI stuff much. But it is a good power to have. (especially around April 1st... I confess, I do like a good subtle joke)

• Other: There are a few things here so let's break down further:

• Move category pages and other move protected pages Moving things is an area of interest for me so I could see myself moving category pages as needed, when requested, when it was clear consensus was there for the move. Similarly with moving protected pages.
• View Special:Unwatchedpages to see pages which may be more vulnerable to vandalism. I might add a few that are of interest to me but I don't want to overpromise there.
• View the history of deleted pages- Viewing deleted pages goes part in parcel with restoring and userifying them on request, you can't decide if the request is reasonable without reviewing the page. I would also fix history where it needed fixing but only with a lot of forethought and care (and consultation the first 19 times or so).

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

A: I like every article I've ever touched. They all stay on my watch list pretty much forever, whether I just fixed a stray capital letter somewhere, or wrote the entire article from scratch. But clearly, in articlespace, I'm quite proud of my DYK selected articles. I'm also quite pleased with the progress of the Wikiproject for The Beatles. We've made a lot of progress in a short time, including developing some new article classification techniques and perl based automation, and I am proud to have had a hand in that. I'm also, as some are fond of teasing me about, keen on bridge articles for some reason. (there's an explanation but it's convoluted).

I hang out on Village Pump and do try my hand at answering questions there when I can, as well, although I'm not always the first to get the right answer out. You don't need to be an admin to do it, everyone should give it a try sometime, it's fun to help others.

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: While I have had a few "frank and full exchanges of views" I do not think I've been in any serious ones with anyone where I badly lost my civility. Again, others counseled me to just leave it at that, put in some random feel good statement about how I love everyone, and quit answering the question at that point... but that's not me, perhaps it will be my downfall, who knows? Here are some I recall. There may be others but these are the ones I remmeber the best. (I think an evaluator that draws a conclusion that I like to fight really is missing the point here. I'm just a "cards on the table" kind of guy.)

• Probably the first example of some sharp elbows was the WP:AFD for Checkerboard Nightmare: Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Checkerboard_Nightmare. At the time I had less than 80 edits, and my comment to the discussion was struck by User:Jtkiefer (since resigned as an admin). That put me on edge, I am afraid. To this day I think it highly inappropriate to strike comments of new users, in fact of ANYONE other than oneself, unless they are clearly sockpuppets. Put the edit count under them, sure... but strike? Not even the closing admin (or 'crat for an RfA or RfB) should do that. That put a burr in my saddle and I decided to build up my participation here in order that my words would not again be disregarded. (Hey, everyone needs some reason to start getting serious... my addiction would follow soon enough).
• About this time, the WP:RFAr for that rather unhappy AfD got under way: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Webcomics and I traded elbows with a number of users, including Aaron Brenneman and Geogre among several others. I think everyone involved is pretty equanamable about me at this point though. Aaron, especially, I count among my close wikifriends. (HE may not agree, I dunno, you'd have to ask him)
• Meanwhile, I was cranking out bridge related articles, and after doing a few, I happened to create Pghbridges.com, an article about a reference site good for bridge information. This is the only article I've yet created that got nomed for AfD and I was somewhat taken aback by that. It survived but I was chided for not assuming good faith by the nominator in a somewhat acrimonious exchange that spilt over from the article's AfD page and talk page to several other user pages, JzG's among others, something I regret. I still think that RasputinAXP may have made a mistake on that one but in the final analysis mistaken deletions are one way articles get improved. He and I exchanged emails recently about it. He had forgotten it until I reminded him, and I happily supported his recent RfA, which ended in promotion.
• Userboxes. I have the belief (not shared by all) that knowing where an editor stands is useful. So I have a bunch of them on my user page, and I participated pretty heavily in Kelly Martin's RfCs in all their incarnations. I think Kelly wasn't too happy with my view (as a process wonk) that her actions, while in the spirit of IAR, might not have been for the best of WP overall. I'm still not sure where we stand and I feel bad about that. I want to keep my userboxes though. So you might want to oppose on those grounds.
• Jtkiefer's many requests to be a 'crat... (Misplaced Pages:Requests for bureaucratship/Jtkiefer 5 among others). I spoke out against them. Some might say I was holding a grudge (since he struck my comments in that first AfD). I hope that's not the case, I felt it just wasn't a good idea for him to apply over and over again. You'll have to be the judge of that.
• Being the metawikipedian that I am, I've also been involved in various other discussions about policy, too many to recount them all here. You'd have to ask others what they think of my contributions there.

Additional question from Kingboyk

4. As an admin you will have to do some things that are negative to certain individuals, such as blocking vandals and disruptive users and deleting articles per CSD guidelines or consensus. It's almost certain that at some point this will lead to determined vandalism of your user page, rants on your talk page, complaints at some forum or another, and insults/streams of consciousness by email. As somebody who seems to thrive on consensus and cooperation, how do you feel about this negative side of adminship? --kingboyk 05:09, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

A: Ooh! Good question. So far no one has vandalised my pages except in fun (and I tend to leave that vandalism in there for others to find and chuckle over). But the RCP gang are good at catching that sort of thing and reverting it, and I'd expect in a lot of cases I would only notice it in the history. It wouldn't phase me much. Rants on my talk page? Complaints on other pages? Stream of consciousness in my emails? I get those now, so we're only talking about degree, really... remember I've been active in online communities in various capacities for far longer than some of our 'crats have been alive, and I still get stuff from some other activities even now. Your question is "how do I feel about it?", though... not so keen actually. I'm not one of these "bring it on" dudes that likes to fight. But it's a necessary part of the process, and I'm ready for it to increase again (it has waxed and waned in the past due to my activities (particularly LUGNET, but other places too) elsewhere). One key thing that helps deal with it is that there is a strong support network here. I have found that good, effective editors and admins build a web of people they rely on for moral support when things get bumpy. You're part of that web for me, Steve, as you know, and I have a lot of other friends here too. There are also a lot of other vehicles for getting support (not an exhaustive list): Esperanza (long term stress reduction and support), IRC (a quick fix of joviality, or a place to ask "WTF??" and get advice, either publicly or one on one with someone), WP:AN/I (good for fast breaking things), dropping someone an email (good for deeper issues) and, believe it or not... taking a deep breath, shutting the computer off, and taking a walk.