Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Oshwah: Difference between revisions

Oshwah

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (4/1/0); Scheduled to end 19:00, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Nomination

Oshwah (talk · contribs) – Oshwah may not be the most prolific content creator here on WP. Frankly, I don't believe that content creation is an important part of adminship, whereas the AFD process is and should be valued more highly by users. However he has done exemplary work in CSD, image copyvios, ACC, and much more. He has also done excellent work in keeping vandals and trolls off the wiki. Therefore, I believe he is ready to become an admin. Eat me, I'm a red bean (talk | contribs) test 00:49, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Co-nom

It is my pleasure to co-nom Oshwah for the mop. He has edited Wikipedia for seven years; although there is a huge inactivity gap between 2009-2013, this still leaves him with nearly two years of active editing, also racking up nearly 24,000 edits. He primarily fights vandals, tags articles for speedy deletion, and creates accounts. Although he probably only wants to work in these two narrow areas (account creation doesn't need admin), more importantly, he does what he does best well, showing excellent knowledge and skill. He has a whopping 6,000 vandalism reversions with more than 300 AIV reports and about 800 CSD taggings with a negligible 1-2% error rate (which is actually barely heard of these days). I therefore believe that Oshwah would make a great addition to the admin corps. Esquivalience ^t 01:56, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I happily and humbly will accept the nomination. Eat me, I'm a red bean, Esquivalience - Thank you. I appreciate not only the time you spent to write such kind words, but the fact that trust me enough to put your names forward like this. I'll try not to let you down :-) ~Oshwah~ ^{(talk) (contribs)} 18:46, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. Please answer these questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?

A: The admin tools are a Swiss army knife; you don't just get a blade on one day and then get the tweezers on another. You're given all of the functionality that it comes with and you have to be trusted to hold and use them properly and when the time is appropriate. Just like being an admin, having a knife is no big deal, but using it inappropriately where it causes harm (even accidentally and in good faith) is absolutely a big deal.

Analogies aside and with that being said, I intend to use a subset of the tools at the beginning, and then slowly expand my tool use as I become proficient with the role. I will begin by using the tools to expand my role in vandal fighting. I will continue to revert vandalism and tag articles as before, but I will also be able to extend how I counter vandalism by performing blocks when appropriate, performing revision deletion on extreme and gross violations (according to criteria of course), assisting with the AIV and WP:UAA noticeboards, as well evaluate and process page protection and protection reduction reqests.

Once I'm absolutely comfortable with this increase in responsibilities, I'll branch out into the administrative backlog; I'll start by evaluating CSD and page move requests, and eventually become proficient in keeping the administrative backlog as caught-up as possible. I will eventually branch out into the AFD category and assist in closing discussions there, but after I've completely familiarized myself with the basic areas first.

It's important to share exactly what I'll be using the tools for (you obviously need to demonstrate the need for them), but also address the fact that the admin role enables many different tools and responsibilities that absolutely must be used with care. It's easy to say "Hey, look at all the things I'll do!"; it's crucial to also share where I plan to start, how I plan to familiarize myself and become proficient with the responsibilities, and what areas I'll expand to as I transition into this role. Quality over quantity.

2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?

A: Most of my contributions to Wikipedia have been WikiGnome-based. I've reverted a lot of vandalism over the years that I've volunteered to the project, as well as created many reports to AIV and UAA, tagged many articles for speedy deletion for advertising, spam, and copyright violations, and kept an eye out for sockpuppetry symptoms, conflicts of interest, and BLP violations and edits that require oversighting or revision deletion.

I've also contributed extensively in the ACC process. To date, I've created exactly 700 accounts and denied 328 requests. By best contribution to the ACC project was the complete overhauls that I made to the ACC Guide, the ACC project page, and the Username Policy template. Before these edits, the ACC Guide was ambiguous, disorganized, and very hard to follow. It made a lot of new tool users afraid to participate due to the way that the guide was formatted, and it allowed for potential mistakes to occur that could have been very high-risk. I uploaded a new flow chart image for tool users to follow when addressing requests for usernames that were similar to others, and eliminated the ambiguity that was present before. I also redesigned the ACC project page and template to reduce the many requests that we'd receive that were not supposed to be filed there, as well as answered more common questions and addressed more situations in advance so that the team could process more requests with less time spent addressing problematic ones.

I also contributed to some of our backlogs, one if which being CAT:SHADOW. I've performed file moves in order to address the issue of file names existing in Wikipedia that have the same name as a different file that exists in the Wikimedia Commons. These moves allowed for the local images to continue to exist, while allowing for images that belong on the Wikimedia Commons to be used in articles here. I've also contributed to the AFD backlog, and it's a place that I need to (and plan to) participate more in.

My talk page has also expanded exponentially over the years with questions about Wikipedia policies and proper edits and expansion to Wikipedia articles, as well as requests for assistance. In the past, I've been able to get away with archiving my old discussions by year; lately I've been having archive them by month. It's been an absolute pleasure to meet the many different people that I have, address conflicts, answer their questions, and (most importantly) help new users in ways that will encourage them to become long-term contributors here (which over the years has been on the decline).

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: Absolutely. Reverting the amount of vandalism that I do typically generates questions and heated replies on my talk page almost daily (minus all the threats, insults, and vandalism that is made to my user and talk space as a result). I've always responded by treating everyone with respect, answering their questions so that they can contribute positively, and offering my assistance to help fix the article if they feel that they're still not sure how to address their concerns. The concept that many editors fail to remember is that IP's are people too, they deserve the same respect and courtesy as registered users do, and I've done my best to do just that. It's important to know that you just can't solve every problem. Not even administrators can. When you're in a conflict with another editor, you just need to recognize that there are some will just never get the point no matter how many different ways you try to explain. You should always assume good faith, explain the issue and cite relevant policies and guidelines, and (most importantly) offer to help - but you should also know when it's time to walk away. Don't worry; if they're going to continue to be disruptive or violate policy without care, they'll most certainly be back.

Edits in the past have certainly caused some stress. In fact, a typical situation that can be somewhat annoying occurred just the other day. An IP was causing vandalism to BLP articles, reverting my edits to restore the vandalism back, and it kept going for over half an hour and it occurred often enough that I had to keep a tab open on the IP and repeatedly press F5 so that I could rollback the next edit as soon as it came in. Was it annoying? Sure. You're tapping your shoe waiting for the AIV to get processed, or hoping for an administrator to stumble into what is happening and block the IP, and you're having to focus your almost-complete attention to that IP while you wait. It occurs somewhat frequently, but that's what comes with fighting vandalism and I'm happy to take on that task instead of having someone else suffer. As an experienced editor, I try my best to emphasize that I'm here to serve you. And I'm happy to take on that pain for you so that you can have fun and contribute to Wikipedia wherever you want to.

How do I deal with such stress? Take a break and do something else for awhile. When I start thinking, "okay, this is starting to not be fun anymore", I'll go somewhere else for a bit. I'll create some accounts, move some files, or participate in some editor help requests or noticeboard discussions. It's most important, above all else, to remain neutral and absolutely keep your cool. Once you leave the realm and start getting sucked into a heated issue or debate and resort to incivility or heated responses, you have just shown them your belly and you have lost any credibility that you've worked to establish with them. It will not solve the issue at hand, and it almost always make the issue continue, if not worse than it was before. Upon taking the role of an administrator, you not only have to have extensively demonstrated professionalism in this area, you now have to take that professionalism and lead by example.

Additional questions from User:DESiegel

4. What is your view of Process is important?

A: I agree that process is important, as it how we standardize how we create, expand, enforce, and maintain Wikipedia. Article deletion, article creation, dispute resolution, request for adminship are examples of areas that all have processes - they consist of accepted standards that must be met in order be sure that each item that goes through that process is examined and processed in a fair and consistent manner, and with the involvement of as many editors as possible so that the best and most appropriate decision can be made. Otherwise, if no process existed, many of these areas would suffer from lose and inconsistent decision-making, and the quality and standards that Wikipedia holds up to as a free encyclopedia wouldn't exist. Deletions would be performed inconsistently and by whatever rules that the decision-maker feels will "work". It would create unfairness in the RfA area; one editor with 200 edits and no experience may gain adminship under one "set of rules", while the request from a different editor who would clearly benefit from the role would fail under another. Articles would be created under one "acceptable standard", and then instantly be reviewed for deletion because their "standards" for deletion are much stricter than those that allow you to create. It would degrade the overall quality of Wikipedia, and we wouldn't be the fifth most visited website in the world. What's even better is that we have policies such as WP:IAR that help try and eliminate the "red tape" effect, and allow us to use common sense and make the most appropriate decisions with "edge cases" (so long as it's used appropriately).

5. How strictly should the literal wording of the speedy deletion criteria be applied?

A: Strict. The speedy deletion process exists to bypass the need for discussion and consensus with articles that obviously do not need to go through such a process. Carelessly tagging an article for CSD as an editor will add unnecessary time and work for administrators, and carelessly deleting an article per the CSD as an administrator will inappropriately bypass discussion and consensus - a founding principle of how Wikipedia operates, and immediately delete content that might just otherwise have needed sources, expanding, or fixing. If there's an "edge case" or if the speedy deletion criterion questionably applies, there's always proposed deletion. And in cases where the article doesn't qualify for either (or if PROD fails), there's always the AFD process.

6. What sort of thing constitutes a "claim of significance" in assessing an A7 or A9 speedy deletion? Can you give some examples of things that do or don't qualify?

A: It's very important to understand the true meaning of WP:A7 and WP:A9 and how it's supposed to apply. WP:A7 and WP:A9 can't be applied if there's a "claim of significance" in an article, but we're missing an important part here - the "claim of significance" must also be credible. "Credibility" in an article is a test as to whether or not the claim is logically valid and reasonably plausible to occur. "significance" is a test as to whether or not the credible claim would cause the subject mentioned in the article to be notable. Significance does not require any sources or citations; it's simply whether or nor the claim would cause any person, company, etc. to be notable. If the article makes a claim that is both credible and significant, then these CSD tags cannot be applied.

I hope these examples aren't too silly:

"Billy Bob was a person who lived to be 10,000 years old" - Significant? Yes. Credible? No.

"Billy Bob was a person who lived to be 65 years old" - Significant? No. Credible? Yes.

A good essay that also explain this is Credible claim of significance.

7. What is the place of WP:IAR in carrying out administrative actions?

A:

8. An admin is often expected or requested to help others, particularly new users, and to aid in calming disputes, either resolving them or pointing the participants to proper venues for resolution. How do you see yourself in this aspect of an Admin's role?

A: This is something I pretty much already do on a regular basis. Questions appear pretty regularly on my talk page, and I do my best to do this for everyone. I'll typically explain how Wikipedia's policies work, cite the relevant policies and recommend that they review them, let them know that they're welcome to reach out to me if they have any more questions regarding those policies, and offer to help assist them with the specific article that they may be referring to. Communication like this is an absolutely critical habit and skill-set for an administrator to demonstrate, and I absolutely plan on continuing to do so.

Additional questions from Ritchie333

9. You say you want to work in UAA. What would you do about the following usernames:

• Jane at Companies House
• Eric H Corbett
• Sexual mysteries
• !!!,,,@-@-@-@
• I Am Not Jimbo
• WikiTruthTeller
• 911WasAStitchUp
• Widget Wonders

A:

10. An IP removes the phrase "who is best known for" from Gerry McAvoy with a summary of "rm pov". A registered editor reverts with a summary of "rvv". The IP re-reverts with a summary "don't revert for no reason; if you can't understand npov policies you are committing core vandalism" The editor reverts with "reverting abusive IP editor". The IP reverts again with a summary of "for fuck's sake what is wrong with retarded twats who don't know anything about writing an encyclopedia". You are first on the scene looking at the article's history at this point - what do you do?

A:

11. On User talk:86.174.68.182, you warned the user for vandalism twice using Twinkle, while I went straight to a block without hesitation. If you had the tools, would you do the same?

A:

Additional questions from User:DESiegel about speedy deletion examples

12. As an admin, you are patrolling Category:CSD and find an article whose entire content is "In 1979-80 the <organization>, a feminist art center in <Major US City>, issued a nationwide call for lesbian artists to organize exhibitions of the work as part of <Event name>." It has been tagged for speedy deletion under WP:CSD#A1, no context. What do you do?

A:

13. Recently you tagged Naser Muheyeldin for speedy deletion under WP:CSD#G12 (copyvio). I (User:DESiegel) removed the tag with the summary "Speedy declined: Seems to have reproduced a list of uncopyrightable facts in chronological order". What are your thoughts on the matter?

A.

14. Recently you encountered this version of Khairallah Assar and tagged it for speedy deletion under WP:CSD#A7. An admin removed the tag with the summary "decline speedy, obviously includes an assertion of significance sufficient to defeat A7". What are your thoughts on the matter?

A.

Discussion

• Links for Oshwah: Oshwah (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
• Edit summary usage for Oshwah can be found here.

---

Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review his contributions before commenting.

Support

1. Support – Honestly, I'm not seeing any real problems here. Member since 2007 (though with some definite activity "lulls" in there) – but "highly active" (>100 edits per month) for about a year. >10,000 main space edits. AfD (which I don't follow closely) looks pretty good overall. CSD is a more recent pursuit by this editor, but I don't see any problems so far. No articles created (Oshwah gets credited for "creating" one article, but I'm confused on that as it existed before Oshwah's Nov. 2008 "creation" – so is it a histmerge or something?...), but this isn't a "deal breaker" for me. Anyway, I've seen Oshwah helping around ANI some, and I don't recall any issues there either. I suspect this Adminship would be a NETPOSITIVE for the project. So I'm supporting. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 19:57, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
2. Support as a net positive to the project. Kharkiv07 (T) 20:06, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
3. Support user has been very proactive in combating vandalism --Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 20:43, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
4. Support It was not even two days ago when I had asked User:Oshwah if he would be willing to accept an RfA nomination from me over IRC, to which he responded with a 'sure' of some sorts. Despite my (perhaps) lateness to the cause, I will simply translate my nomination to an affirmative vote for this RfA. I agree with the NETPOSITIVE, and it should also be noted that Oshwah has taken an active role in anti-vandalism from my observations, which has been previously stated by the nominator(s). Since the majority of RfAs are dedicated to diffs and broader analysis of project engagement, I'd like to note that on IRC, Oshwah has demonstrated a kind, outreaching tone to those users who may either need help or simply seek for advice. Nonetheless, his responses to user questions and concerns appear to reflect his familiarity and understanding of Wikipedia philosophies, styles, and methodologies. I do agree that article creation should not be the only major factor when considering an RfA, primarily because there are a handful of roles on-wiki that having sysop user rights could certainly compliment. --JustBerry (talk) 21:13, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose. Wow, a whopping 45% of Oshwah's edits are in the "User talk:" namespace, totaling about 10,185 edits. The only other namespace that this editor has edited that comes even close to matching this number is the Article namespace, which only has about 20–30 more edits than the "User talk:" namespace. Edits in the "User talk:" namespace do not prove competency in the use of the administrative toolset since the majority of actions that require a reaction in the "User talk:" namespace are not in response to administrative tool use. (The only major exception is blocking notices.) In fact, compared to the Article and User Talk namespaces, in the major namespace where discussions happen that require administrator action, the "Wikipedia:" namespace, Oshwah only has about 900 edits (only 4%). Due to Oshwah's lack of proven experience in areas where administrators are needed the most, Oshwah may state competency of tool usage in the questions above, but I just do not see the proof to back up those claims. Steel1943 (talk) 22:14, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Neutral

Hatting my own comment before this gets out of hand. -dennis
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I almost opposed outright due to the nominator saying "I don't believe that content creation is an important part of adminship". It isn't your place to decide what others judge to be important, and the arrogance in which you show in your nominating statement is foolhardy, as a good number of people DO consider some form of content creation to be important, at least to a degree. I will look around closer before I decide to support or oppose, but wanted to be clear that the nominating statement was one of the most foolish noms I've ever seen, and since the candidate choose you to nominate him, it brings his judgement into question. At the very least, you just shot your candidate in the foot. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:53, 13 September 2015 (UTC) If he had said "content creation is not an important part of admin work" I could see your point. He's stating HIS belief, not saying what he thinks others should think. Peridon (talk) 20:19, 13 September 2015 (UTC) Read the main nomination a bit closer: "Frankly, I don't believe that content creation is an important part of adminship." He treats it as opinion, not fact. Esquivalience t 20:34, 13 September 2015 (UTC) Also, candidates usually don't choose nominators, rather the reverse, a nominator offers to nominate a candidate. I might add that I tend to agree with the view. I do a fair amount of content work at the level of rescuing stubs and new articles, helping with drafts, and formatting work on moderate level articles. I do almost nothing on articles at or above B-class, certainly not GAs or FAs. I don't feel this has had any negative impact on my performance of admin tasks. DES (talk) 20:50, 13 September 2015 (UTC) I saw what he wrote and I'm quite capable of parsing it on my own. Your reply doesn't help, Esquivalience. I'm not a hardcore "must have $x content" voter by any definition, but to see a nom poke the content creation bears seems foolish. I haven't voted yet, but surprised to see so much reaction to my comment in a neutral section. And yes, candidates DO choose their nominators, no one is forced to run or to allow another to do the nomination. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 21:01, 13 September 2015 (UTC) Perhaps this is a misunderstanding. I don't think anyone is diminishing the importance of content creation. Administrative tools and content creation should be kept very separate. The sentence "I don't believe that content creation is an important part of adminship" is not an attack on content creators, I think it is pointing out that content creation is not part of the job. I don't think that "content creation" is a part of "admin work" at all. Content creation is something handled by all editors, and administrative work is something else entirely. As an admin I know that when I get involved in content I need to take off my admin hat, and when I act as an admin I need to take off my editor hat. Chillum 21:02, 13 September 2015 (UTC) (ec) I'm not sure I understand the outrage here. Technically it's true: admin actions such as blocks, page protections, page deletions don't create content. At best, they preserve current content. Whether or not content creation experience is necessary for admins to make the right decisions is debatable but that's not how I read the nomination statement. Pichpich (talk) 21:03, 13 September 2015 (UTC) It isn't outrage, not at all. I am just taken aback by the foolishness of it, and waiting for the problems that will happen because of this statement. He didn't do the candidate any favors. I won't hold it against the candidate (although I think he would have been better with a more experienced nom that doesn't start off with statement that some people will take poorly). I didn't expect all the reaction to my observation, it is simply my observation prior to voting. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 21:15, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

1. Neutral just for the minute pending answers to questions. The 45% of user talk edits, many of which seem to be automated Twinkle messages, also gives me cause for concern. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 21:22, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

   I'd like to note that the RfA introduction mentions that the candidate intends to use the tools for anti-vandal efforts, which the candidate seems to be active in. If your concern is a lack of personalized messages on user talk pages, that might be a different story all together. It would be helpful if you could give some clarification as to what exactly your concern is, so readers can more easily follow along your train of thought. --JustBerry (talk) 21:29, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

   User:Ritchie333/How newbies see templates, User:Ritchie333/Hit and run editors and similar essays of mine should hopefully clarify my position. Using Twinkle per se isn't a crime, though I've personally turned it off recently. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 21:36, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

2. Neutral leaning towards support, pending fuller investigation of candidates editing record and further discussion here. DES ^(talk) 21:25, 13 September 2015 (UTC)