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Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/FT2

< Wikipedia:Requests for adminship
The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a request for adminship that was withdrawn. Please do not modify it.

FT2

edit

Final (36/12/6) ended 15:30, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

FT2 (talk · contribs) – I have been contributing to Wikipedia on a wide range of fronts for around 2 years now. In that time I've written numerous articles, and refactored or cleaned up many others including several core Wikipedia pages (WP:ABOUT, WP:WTA, etc). I've also taken two serious POV warfare vandals/puppetmasters through Arbcom with full support from other contributing editors, and mediated on several controversial pages.

I have three major areas of focus: cleanup of controversial and messy articles and intro's, some favorite subject areas (notably biographical articles, sexuality sociology and psychology, animal sciences/anthrozoology, religion and spirituality, law, political controversies, science and technology), and as part of the community, I've also stopped off to help on the reference desk, the 1.0 editorial team, some peer review and RFC's, and a variety of informal mediations.

Overall I'd like to help Wikipedia and its articles be higher "quality" in feel, less argumentative (in order to encourage good editorship), and more accessible and useful to the end user in terms of information. FT2 (Talk) 06:13, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:
(Accepted)

Nomination withdrawn
Although the current "accept" is around 80% (35-9 support/oppose), it is clear to me that a significant number of administrators have legitimate concerns over one issue, namely edit summaries. I'd like to respect that and not be nominated over their concerns. There's no rush on it, and it's better to take a month or two for the sake of good practice and good standards. Thank you (both those who supported and those who carefully explained their opposition) for the courtesy of genuine discussion. It's been valued. FT2 (Talk | email | contribs) 08:56, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support
  1. Support Highly experienced user. Long overdue. --Srikeit (Talk | Email) 06:51, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support. Has good judgement, will make a great admin. -- Avenue 07:42, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Support -wow thats a lot of info, do I need to copy the bits I'm supporting by (don't want to double pagesize) -- Tawker 07:45, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Support Seems to be an excellent candidate for adminship, a wealth of experience upon which to draw.  (aeropagitica)  (talk)  08:18, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Weak Support appears to have contributed greatly to a lot of controversial articles and got involved with the discussion of them and other users editing them. I found some edits which I felt FT2 stayed moderately cool in a heaty moment. Bit dissapointed I couldn't find any RC patrolling or WP:AIV reporting which admins need experience on, thus the weak support.--Andeh 08:51, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Support. I am of much the same opinion of Srikeit; adminship for this user is long overdue. DarthVader 11:32, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Strong Support credentials are impressive abakharev 12:03, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Strong Support seems to be the ideal candidate for adminship hoopydinkConas tá tú? 12:23, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Support User seems to have a good understanding of WP:POLICY, and the mindset it takes to be a good admin. Give 'em the mop. --Shizane 13:28, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Strong Support. Long overdue. RandyWang (raves/rants) 13:38, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Support, this is long overdue, use more edit summaries please. --Terence Ong (Chat | Contribs) 14:05, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Support. Good user. --Tone 14:30, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Support He has strange, strange editing tendencies (9 per page), which indicates that his edit count is misleading, or that he is meticulous. But from what I've read of his editing disputes he seems analytical very familiar with policy. AdamBiswanger1 15:27, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Weak Support per answers to questions and checking "force summary", which the user really needs to do.Voice-of-All 15:33, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  15. Support. Great editor, good experience in controversial matters. He does, however, need to use more edit summaries so people know what kind of edits he made. Mr. Lefty Talk to me! 16:11, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  16. Support per above, been here a long time. —Khoikhoi 17:27, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  17. Support per all above. Roy A.A. 17:31, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  18. Support. Meets most of my criteria. SushiGeek 21:17, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  19. Support. Makes good edits to interesting articles. Skinnyweed 22:07, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  20. Support Looks good. Never ran into FT2 as I never edited any of the articles that FT2 edited. Caveat to use edit summaries more. Thanks for following through with my demented requests -- Samir धर्म 00:13, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  21. Support. Zaxem 02:17, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  22. Merovingian {T C @} 02:43, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  23. Weak Support. Please click the "force edit summary" button, though. - CrazyRussian talk/email 05:39, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    (Already done – [1] FT2 (Talk) 07:07, 18 June 2006 (UTC))[reply]
  24. Support - Seems a good contributor. And I believe he will start using edit summaries after this. Afonso Silva 14:08, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  25. Support - Dedicated contributor and is able to deal well with controversial topics. Knows his way around wikipedia. BabyNuke 15:05, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  26. Support - A very experienced user. Mr. Turcottetalk 16:42, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  27. Support. Thoughtful, busy and very experienced. --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 18:00, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  28. Turn force edit summaries on, please. Other than that, great candidate and has my full Support ++Lar: t/c 22:03, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    (Already done, see above and [2] FT2 (Talk) 03:00, 19 June 2006 (UTC))[reply]
  29. Support (was Neutral) Excellent answer to my question. First sentence was enough to change my vote. But please, use edit summaries. -- Миборовский 22:10, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  30. Some support I'd like to see some more summary usage (lots more actually) but otherwise you've done everything right. MichaelBillington 01:09, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  31. Support Seems to be a good contributor.--blue520 02:30, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  32. Support One doesn't have to always use edit summaries to be a great editor. FT2 speaks directly to this fact. --Alphachimp talk 06:14, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  33. Support- self-nomination sometimes indicate self-confidence, and edit summary is important - but several ones are of no use as they do not "indicate" types of edits done but have de-generated into mechanical excercise. I am talking of exceptions and not the general trend. I have found old experienced editors not using edit summary. One can always improve. Do we have a mechanism to gather data for edit summaries for all edits done since the first edit? I am really curious to know. --Bhadani 12:23, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  34. Support, though edit summaries are important. Hope the candidate makes the improvement. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 18:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  35. Support. --Conti|✉ 23:10, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  36. Weak Support. Looks like they have made a few mistakes... but overall a good editor and would help the project if they had admin tools. The low edit summary usage is a concern. Nephron  T|C 05:00, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. A 30% edit summary usage for major edits is just way too low. I wouldn't hesitate to support you in a month once you've gone about fixing this problem, but really, anyone looking to be an administrator must know that edit summary usage is an important issue (and potentially a deal-breaker). --Cyde↔Weys 21:42, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    I would have opposed to, but my usage was 45% when I applied and it went to 100& as I almost always used summaries after my RfA passed (since I took the advice of people telling me to get it up). Its not too hard to fix, and when I did that, there was no "force summary option" (though I heard of some old script for that recently). I am confident that his usage will be right back up where it should be in no time, and that his summaries will be at least halfway decent (when he does use them, they are pretty clear). He also has strong other credentials.Voice-of-All 22:30, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    I understand that users, such as yourself, may reform after RFA, but of course we cannot be assured of that, and I would feel really stupid if I supported and it turns out he didn't make any changes to his edit summary usage after obtaining adminship. I can only vote on what I see, not what is promised for the future. --Cyde↔Weys 05:43, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Oppose as per Cyde. Edit summaries usage is way to low for me. Sarah Ewart (Talk) 08:32, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Oppose self nominations are silly. Myrtone12:40, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    That would be a reason to change policy, not a reason to oppose a specific person's nomination (irrelevant whose) under an agreed policy.
    More specifically, choosing one's vote under a process, because one doesn't approve of the agreed process itself, is a poor idea. For example, it would be perceived as inactionable or "not a reason" if editors voted to keep or delete certain articles simply on the basis that they felt some aspect of the AFD process was "silly".
    (Apologies if this is out of place. However, I would feel a similar comment and explanation appropriate on any discussion thread, if it seemed a contributor had misunderstood the actionable reasons for a vote) FT2 (Talk) 13:30, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    You may not agree with his criteria, but it is his criteria. Many RfA participants do not like self-noms (I have no major problem with it) because they feel that an admin should be known to others in the community. My first nom was a self-nom and was not successful and my second was not a self-nom and was successful, although I am not saying that was the only reason. --rogerd 17:54, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Weak oppose -- image uploads. I just deleted Image:Bestiarii (EUR Museum).jpg, which was sourced to a website that specified noncommercial use, but the image was tagged with {{PD-100}}, presumably because the subject of the photograph was an ancient object. A number of other images were uploaded that seemed to come from various websites or .wmv files, with no information about the creator, and tagged as "fair use", in spite of being used as a convenient way to illustrate articles instead of discussing the film or photography[3]. User seems to be unclear on Wikipedia:Image use policy and Wikipedia:Fair use. Jkelly 21:56, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    (User has read policy and is clear on it, and believes that they are legitimate under it, for reasons explained on your talk page [4]. But we can discuss that on talk pages or ask experts, I accept that as rare photographs, they may be a borderline case where expert input is needed to judge their status. I believe they would legally be considered fair use judging by that wiki policy. Meantime I accept, of course, it's your right to vote as you will, it's just for the record, that they were indeed considered carefully, and to confirm if they turn out not to be fair use it's not for lack of policy awareness. Either way thank you for raising it there. It's good to double check if there is a question. Hope that helps. FT2 (Talk) 01:24, 19 June 2006 (UTC))[reply]
    The fact that you've been engaging in good conversation about it helps more. I cannot say that it isn't still a concern for me. Jkelly 23:54, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Oppose for low usage of edit summaries for major edits.--Jusjih 00:24, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Oppose - the use of edit summaries is simply too important to disregard. When one has to pour through old article histories, looking for specific information or conflicts, the task is made so much harder by editors who didn't use edit summaries along the way. It is a clear message on Wikipedia, not easily missed. I'll consider support in several months if edit summaries are used. Sandy 02:42, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Oppose Low edit summary usage is to important to let it slide. Sorry. — The King of Kings 20:38, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Oppose. Edit summaries.—Perceval 03:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Sorry, but I do oppose when edit summary use is at this level. May support a future nom. Jonathunder 04:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Oppose per most of the above, edit summary usage is just too low. Improve that, reapply in three months, and I'll happily support. Xoloz 05:28, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Oppose. I like FT2. I do. But. If NLP and NLP and science are any indication, he doesn't have a real good idea of what we are. There is more to this than # of edits. --Woohookitty(meow) 09:27, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    They aren't typical. In fact they're probably the most atypical articles Ive been around. They're an attempt to fix article(s) and roll back a years subtle vandalism by a blocked meatpuppet ring. The problem is, we know there is an "opposing view", but we don't know how to fairly represent it, because the people who have pushed it were also forging or misrepresenting many (and potentially most) of their citations and massively slanting POV (confirmed/evidenced). I spent 2 weeks solid trying to research it online to learn what is thought of it, and most of the scientific research I found was weak-supportive, but I don't know if that's representative either. So it's not actually clear what ought to go in and what should not. I've already asked for input from those who know the full picture on NLP and science, because I myself don't feel I know it all. But it hasn't materialized yet, which is why that article is still 1/2 formed and seems as it does. I'm still trying to figure out how to approach this problem, since it is unclear which prior material and edits to trust, and which ones not to trust. We agree these articles need to be sorted out, but on their talk pages. FT2 (Talk | email | contribs) 10:49, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Oppose per item 3 above. Tom Harrison Talk 13:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral
  1. Neutral, low use of edit summaries (especially for major edits), otherwise a great editor--☆TBC☆ (aka Tree Biting Conspiracy) 12:01, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Neutral - edit summary usage is way too low. Please check the "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary" box. Didn't even use an edit summary when adding his RfA from this page. —Mets501 (talk) 13:43, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    After the edits below, I just noticed this comment. Now checked - thanks FT2 (Talk) 14:00, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Neutral The very low edit summary does scare me off a little. Yanksox (talk) 13:46, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Neutral per Yanksox, although excellent contributions and good answers to questions are noted. --Guinnog 14:13, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Edit summaries commented at (6) below. FT2 (Talk) 14:15, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Neutral In normal circumstances this would have been an oppose vote for the lack of use of edit summaries. However, on reflection this user has contributed to a number of varied areas on Wikipedia (over a long period of time) and so I feel that it would not be appropriate to oppose. I do no however feel inclined to vote in favour as the use of edit summaries is still a serious concern.--Wisden17 14:59, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Neutral. Will support if happy with answers to question below. -- Миборовский 18:56, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Neutral I have gone back and forth about this for a couple of days, and think this is an outstanding candidate for admin, except the edit summary thing, which IMHO, is very important. --rogerd 03:54, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comments

User's last 5000 edits.Voice-of-All 06:53, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply] 

--Viewing contribution data for user FT2 (over the 5000 edit(s) shown on this page)--  (FAQ)
Time range: 168 approximate day(s) of edits on this page
Most recent edit on: 6hr (UTC) -- 17, Jun, 2006 || Oldest edit on: 2hr (UTC) -- 1, December, 2005
Overall edit summary use (last 1000 edits): Major edits: 18.55% Minor edits: 79.78%
Average edits per day: 66.1 (for last 500 edit(s))
Article edit summary use (last 513 edits) : Major article edits: 29.23% Minor article edits: 79.27%
Analysis of edits (out of all 5000 edits shown of this page):
Notable article edits (creation/expansion/rewrites/sourcing): 0.3% (15)
Small article edits (small content/info/reference additions): 7.24% (362)
Superficial article edits (grammar/spelling/wikify/links/tagging): 20.06% (1003)
Minor article edits marked as minor: 61.47%
Breakdown of all edits:
Unique pages edited: 684 | Average edits per page: 7.31 | Edits on top: 4.02%
Edits marked as major (non-minor/reverts): 18.04% (902 edit(s))
Edits marked as minor (non-reverts): 11.1% (555 edit(s))
Marked reverts (reversions/text removal): 3.18% (159 edit(s))
Unmarked edits: 61.3% (3065 edit(s))
Edits by Wikipedia namespace:
Article: 55.64% (2782) | Article talk: 11.44% (572)
User: 13.9% (695) | User talk: 3.78% (189)
Wikipedia: 9.42% (471) | Wikipedia talk: 3.8% (190)
Image: 0.58% (29)
Template: 0.8% (40)
Category: 0.32% (16)
Portal: 0% (0)
Help: 0.02% (1)
MediaWiki: 0% (0)
Other talk pages: 0.3% (15)


Username FT2
Total edits 12179
Distinct pages edited 1363
Average edits/page 8.935
First edit 09:23, 11 July 2004
 
(main) 6434
Talk 1866
User 1398
User talk 548
Image 43
MediaWiki talk 1
Template 84
Template talk 38
Help 1
Category 16
Category talk 5
Wikipedia 1321
Wikipedia talk 424
Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia 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:Wikipedia backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.
A: One area I can't help right now is, I'd like to be a bit more able to help when other users have disputes, edit wars or obvious vandals are active, which sometimes benefits from having access to administraotr functions. I've been helping other articles when I get the chance, and plan to continue doing so more. But there's times users want a hand, when it's not running smoothly or there's problems, and I'd like to have it in my ability to be more responsive, if the help they need requires protection or short term blocks, or faster response to vandalism. That turns a lot of editors off, so anything that makes editing less antagonistic, is probably a good thing. In between times I'm sure there will be a lot of housework - deletions, undeletions... I'm not expecting to be using admin tools all the time. But the few times it's appropriate, and other things have failed, it's often nice to be able to help, instead of just tell people to post a request and seek help from others.
2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
A: Yes. Over two years quite a few :) See my user page for more on my contributions to date, and what I have enjoyed doing so far in that time. If there are any clarifications or questions, or DIFFS and version IDs wanted to back anything up, please ask here or on my talk page.


Edit: At the suggestion of Samir [5] I've copied the following from my user page for others' convenience. It seemed somewhat long so I left it on the user page -- hopefully this is what was asked for? DIFFs (also at Samir's request) will take an hour or so (however long the browser takes to refresh) to dig up, depending how many questions get asked :)
What I do on Wikipedia

My interests are in three main areas.

  • I have a penchant for cleanup of controversial and messy articles, especially those where it would be interesting, if it was better sourced, balanced and sorted out. I particularly like cleanup of intro's and "overviews" and I've done that on many articles. I also enjoy subjects which it's hard to see a balanced view, because it usually isn't that difficult, and it's good to reduce others' stress levels :)
In this context I've worked heavily on a wide range of Wiki-policy/information pages (WP:ABOUT, WP:SOCK, WP:SPA, WP:DBF, WP:NPOV, WP:RFC, Template:AfD_header, and WP:WTA), and of articles and templates that have caught my attention at some time or other.
  • I also have some favorite subject areas: Biographies, sexuality (including fringe/paraphiliac sexuality), animal sciences, psychology and cognition, religion and spirituality, science and technology, law, and political controversies.
In this context I've written, cleaned or expanded much of BDSM and Zoophilia and their related articles, various articles related to neuro-linguistic programming, a range of Judeo-Christian articles including cultural and historical background of Jesus, and several key law cases, as well as the original fully cited "as it happened" 2004 election controversy article.
Articles I've worked on
Any errors in this list are mine. Please ask on my talk page to clarify any of the following since 2004.
Special memories
  1. The category:zoosexuality series was tough to research, but well worth it.
    • Zoophilia (before current), a highly controversial subject, which started as a minimally cited "legal/myth/porn" summary, is now highly informative, stable and agreeable (no edit or POV wars for 18 months), and by June 2006 probably the most solidly cited and comprehensive source on the net, and positively viewed for Featured Article by outsiders. I feel this article above all, showcases Wikipedia's ability to take even subjects many would consider controversial at best or a rare pathological or abusive fetish at worst, and turn them into valuable sound encyclopedic sourced information. With the exception of JAQ's refactor in Jan 05, about 90% of the substantive edits (ie those which added cites, information or sections) were my work.
    • Zoosexuality and the law (new), an example of how to do an article, not just a list.
    • Bodil Joensen (before after) , a researched biography of the first animal porn star. Very human, and very sad. Well worth a read, even if you hate the subject..... this is one that specially touches me...
       
  2. The zoology and welfare articles were very rewarding:
  3. Neuro-linguistic programming was fun.
  4. Religion... I have to say it. My two favorite ones I worked heavily on were
  5. Politics, two articles stand out:
    • By far the most heavy duty achievement was 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities in the immediate aftermath of the 2004 election. Despite numerous "sour grape" and POV attempts to AFD it, the article received resounding support from other Wikipedeans, and was (if a bit long) solidly cited to the hilt. It was later split into about 6 articles on separate themes, but a snapshot of the original as I wrote it on the first day, can be found here. The citing was important since it was a major controversy with accusations in the USA of "poor losership". By Nov 28, just prior to splitting out, it was far longer and more complete, had overwhelmingly survived two rounds at AFD, and was being referenced elsewhere on the web as one of the most solidly cited comprehensive resources for the subject and its background, and why it was taken seriously. At that point the election was only 3 weeks old and the debate would still rage nearly another 2 months.
       
    • The other political article I'm specially pleased with is List of war crimes. Although still not neat and often poorly cited, its an important article in terms of the focus it covers -- that there have been many such acts, and many countries have done them, "friends" "strangers" and "enemies". That neutral perspective was missing from Wikipedia, which previously focussed only on the few cases taken to court... invariably by the West.
       
  6. Philosophy, spirituality, science...
Major edits
Disputes and resolutions
  1. Cindy the Dolphin - solved categorization dispute for editors (new)
  2. Homosexual recruitment (before after) - noticed an AFD dispute whether encyclopedic. Researched and mostly rewrote article, after which it was accepted it was.
  3. Talk:Sexual intercourse - the "circumcision debate"
  4. Trusted Computing (before after) - Precariously stable after previous editor dispute, rewrote introduction -- delicate!!
  5. Cultural and historical background of Jesus - mediator following editors' RFC, later co-author of new article with user:Slrubenstein
  6. Zoophilia - controversial, regularly attacked by POV warriors. Cool and level head needed!
  7. Arbcom: Ciz AKA DrBat - Documented and presented case of POV warrior on zoophilia. Initial case Jan 2005, finally removed from article after 2nd arbcom Jan 2006. Previous steps included mediation, discussion, etc.
  8. Arbcom: HeadleyDown and sock/meatpuppets - Documented and presented case of POV warrior on neuro-linguistic programming. Finally removed from Wikipedia June 2006. List of bans, blocks and socks, and their dialogs, needs to be seen to be believed. Several mentors got wikistress before this was concluded.
Wikipedia and Template namespaces

Wikipedia namespace:

Up and coming:

Templates created or improved:

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: I've never been the target of conflict, or involved in wikidrama, in any way that I'm aware of. I have responded to perhaps a handful of users who had serious comprehension issues when it came to WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:OR, WP:STRAWMAN, and WP:NPA, but have never found it necessary to be other than WP:CIVIL and courteous in return. Cites and pointers to these are available for anyone on request to see how I handle myself under pressure. Most of them resolved easily one way or another.
I wrote Wikipedia:Don't be a fanatic, and I think it's good advice. There's a fair number of people whose, in their wish to contribute, need to remember three key words..... balance, community, and purpose. I don't have a problem drawing a line, or stating policy, I don't find there's a need to have a tantrum or coronary in order to do so though.
The only major Wikistress I've ever had was mild one-article burnout on documenting one of the cases for Arbcom. Not surprising since this was a major sock/meatpuppet ring with some 10-20 accounts in use. I took a break from that article Dec 2005 - May 2006, and returned when the mentors independently realized most of the users were socks and blocked them. This page RFarb entry#documentation of blocks and socks which just documents the sock issues, never mind the content and attack issues, may explain why I burned out a little on it :) A few mentors came close to burnout on that group too, before the culprits were ultimately blocked.

Optional questions from Yanksox

4. What do you believe is your greatest attribute as an editor? How could this be enhanced or put to good use with admin powers? Yanksox (talk) 07:10, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly it's seeing the article from more than one viewpoint. From an editor's viewpoint, an article has to be neutral, well cited, comprehensive and balanced. But from an end-user's viewpoint it has to be easy to digest, reliable, comprehensive, and well rounded. They come to Wikipedia to find information relevant to their interest, that isn't in their easier accessed sources. So that means thinking from a reader's point of view, what they might feel useful to know on the subject, and then being willing to put work in to research and structure it. That elusive thing called structure, that it has flow, and organization, not just multiple "mind dumps" of text. As an editor, really wanting an article to shine, to not only be informative but to showcase Wikipedia too, and having the ability to do that, is one of my strengths. I don't know if it's the "greatest", but (along with calmness and balance) it's the most useful.
None of that needs any admin powers at all, really. 95% of anything worth doing, can be done by the newest editor without needing more, which is one reason why I haven't bothered to inquire so far.
However, if the interest of the editor is to help out in situations which involve more problematic issues - editors in dispute, vandalism, poor ettiquette or conduct, or simply helping with delete/undeletion, then its a bit different. Then without admin powers one is limited to what can be done by discussion. That's enough to handle most such situations, but not all... and I'd like to be able to not "cop out" on the few cases that need it. There aren't many. But there's enough. FT2 (Talk) 07:26, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
5. What is one of the most important things, in your opinion, that an admin can do? Yanksox (talk) 07:28, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There's a saying in duplicate bridge strategy - "Take care of the bottoms [ie the bottom scores], and the tops'll take care of themselves". The most important thing an admin can do, is not screw up too badly. People remember a hot tempered bad judgement more than a good edit, and the ensuing social discord may detract from other editors in turn. That means, more awareness of his/her own quality of editing, own conduct, own approach. Admin should be seen as a tool, applied for because of a wish to accept a responsibility, and used only in accordance with well developed judgement. That means, an admin who edits nothing, but does no harm, is fine, but an admin who adds much wonderful material but also makes bad judgements, bad blocks, acts impulsively, assumes bad faith etc, is a problem. The most important thing is to avoid those, and put them right where they went wrong. Beyond that, carry on being a decent editor, keep having fun, know when to draw lines or seek help/advice, and don't burn out. FT2 (Talk) 07:34, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
6. Voice-of-all's edit counts for you show quite a low edit count usage:
Overall edit summary use (last 1000 edits): Major edits: 18.55% Minor edits: 79.78%
Can you comment on this? --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 11:26, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect there might be multiple reasons. I wasn't aware it was that low for major edits, though. Having given it some thought and looked at some articles I've worked on, I can think of a few contributing factors
(none of which changes that having seen it, I agree with you, its low):
  1. A number of those "major edits" are in fact minor ones and/or should have been better described, like this (wikilink a section), this (citation addition) and this (link addition). Mea culpa - unquestionably I should take more care in future when an edit does have a clear description.
  2. Descriptions such as "yet more wording tweaks" and "more minor fixes to intro" for multiple sequential edits has seemed unlikely to be helpful to others. So many edit summaries would just have a vague description, that I've never been too sure what's useful or expected to say about them. For example, what kind of non-generic useful summaries might one give for this or this addition, that would save another editor having to check each actual edit for themselves anyhow?
  3. Mostly, I don't quite trust computers not to die just as I click "save", so I often do multiple "quick saves" of a working draft every few minutes midway through an edit series (wherever I've got up to) before carrying on, in case I mess up somewhere and lose work to date. I've tended to figure anyone who reads the history will see what was being worked on, from those edits which do have summaries, and from the talk page descriptions of the edits done, when finished. That's why the minor edits have a reasonably high compliance rate -- they aren't usually part of such a long series of edits. The major edits are very often "quick saves" in a long edit session, where I might easily have quick saved it 10 or 20 times before its done, or I don't want to lose a decent paragraph wording. Examples where this has happened:
Or maybe it's just a fault that I should change in future. I'm willing to take comments, but as it stands that's the reasons I can think of why it has been as it is right now.
By contrast, please note that edit summaries, when included, have strongly tended to be comprehensive and complete - example: NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, Cultural and historical background of Jesus, Labrador retriever, and Template:Jew.
Anyhow, now it's pointed out, consider it being acted upon -- as in the past few edits. FT2 (Talk) 13:46, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Nscheffey

7. In answer #1 you state that as an admin you would help with "protection or short term blocks", "response to vandalism" and "deletions, undeletions." Can you show examples of your requests for page protection, reversions and warnings of vandals, and contributions to the AfD/Speedy delete pages, to verify your understanding of these processes? Nscheffey(T/C) 13:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(Will come back to this new question in a few hours, finishing above one first then company'll be here. Courtesy note - thank you. FT2 (Talk) 14:37, 17 June 2006 (UTC))[reply]
(Update - weekend just got unexpectedly busy, I'm collating some examples and a reply for you, since looking up diff's can take time, and will post them this evening. Thank you FT2 (Talk) 12:54, 18 June 2006 (UTC))[reply]
Quick AFD edits until later (probably not the best but at least quick to find in the meantime):
  • Two quick sample contributions to AFD: Apr'06 Nov'04
  • Initial post addressing an editor who posted "This whole VfD constitutes a procedure abuse by a single individual. Please consider its fast resolution as an emergency" on an AFD, with suspected meatpuppet activity: Nov'04
FT2 (Talk) 14:46, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Miborovsky's question

8. In your own words, what is the fundamental difference between an admin and a non-admin, registered contributor?
A non-admin has excuses, an admin has far fewer? That's my first thought.
Flippancy aside, an admin has (ideally) been round longer, seen more, demonstrated knowledge and sufficient awareness of policies and attitudes to bear some responsibility for exemplifying the spirit and practice of the project. An admin also has more ability to do wrong if they mess up, to cause problems if they let personality and strong emotions get in their way, and to set a bad role model, and fewer good excuses of ignorance or acceptability if they do so. Those are some key differences.
None the less, despite the extra standards expected, some people will want to support Wikipedia and help it along, and have been judged by a competent peer group as justifying a tentative trust to do so. So maybe the real difference is, an admin has represented to others that as a long standing Wikipidean he/she will be trustworthy to represent Wikipedia and help with certain kinds of decision for the project and has been trusted that they will help (and not hinder the project) if given that trust. They have also made a commitment to nurture the project. A non admin *should* do the same, but has not made any such explicit and willful commitment to do so, nor is Wikipedia at such risk if they don't, and therefore may have more rope.
Another answer might be - although both are (ideally) trusted and competent, the minimum level of trustworthiness and competence is higher for the admin.
And a final answer, focussing on the role rather than the authorization, might be - a non-admin is on Wikipedia for the fun of editing and contributing. An admin is there for that reason, but also performs a function, which may involve mundane or a share of "chores", extra jobs as well as "fun".
It's a good question. Thank you. FT2 (Talk) 12:54, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Optional Question from Nobleeagle (Talk)

Q: What part of Wikipedia do you dislike the most or feel most frustrated with in your time here thus far (this can be a user, type of user, policy, restriction etc.)? Have you tried to overcome these and would adminship make life any easier for you?


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.
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