Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Bluegoblin7 8

The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a permissions request that did not succeed. Please do not modify it.

• Closed as unsuccessful. Chenzw  Talk  12:14, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Bluegoblin7

Bluegoblin7 (talk • changes • count • logs • page moves • block log • email)

End date: 12:09, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

We all know him, we all know the ups and downs and the good and the bad of Gobby. The wiki has been going through a more active spate and its the more mature and 'seasoned' editors who have been keeping this ship on track. Gobby is definitely one of those seasoned editors having made his first edit here in October 2008. He has been an admin before and knows the score there. He has been incredibly active in areas such as DYK, his bots, GA and VGA, vandalism-fighting and other admin related areas. There have been some issues in the past which caused some drama amongst the users here, but Gobby is almost like a new person and has clearly worked on the issues which had risen, even stating so on his user page. I have no doubt that Gobby will be a positive addition to the admin team here. Its obviously not a 'big deal' to get these tools and I believe Gobby will simply get on working with the extra buttons as he is already comfortable with them. The road on Simple English Wikipedia is a little rocky just now with the new faces, and this old hand has been extremely helpful. One major example is he's done some excellent work clearing the mess that DYK had evolved into. I've always been impressed with the sheer effort Gobby puts in to his workload here. I urge users to take a second to reflect on this user. The history of Gobby may cloud judgement and I'd ask that people take a second look at him before '!voting' - I trust this user, and firmly believe +sysop'ing will be an excellent move - for him and the rest of us. Kennedy ^(talk) 11:28, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Candidate's acceptance: I put some thought into accepting this nomination: certainly more than I have done for any of the other seven(!) that I have had in the past. I can't really say anything other than what Kennedy has pointed out in his nomination statement - except to add that in the three years since I last had the tools I've come to realise that life really is too short to care about many of the things that I previously got 'worked up' about. There certainly won't be a relapse. Goblin 12:09, 12 July 2013 (UTC) I ♥ GoblinBots!

Support

1. Strong Support as nominator. Kennedy ^(talk) 11:28, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
2. Support. No backtracking now ... but I don't think you will. I think this is a very good idea. StevenJ81 (talk) 12:03, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
3. Support. --Auntof6 (talk) 12:12, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
4. Strong support Trusted and great contributor. ~ curtaintoad ~~ talk ~ 12:19, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
5. Strong support Great user. Goblin already works on administrative tasks like archiving pages etc. I am sure he will make a great administrator again. Reception123/Receptie123 (talk) 12:35, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
6. I've been blocked few days while supporting Kennedy despite his light mistake; therefore, I feel sympathetic with another previous admin who is also sorry about his own mistakes. ONaNcle (talk) 17:14, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
7. Support- Bluegoblin7 has been around this wiki for a long time, and at times has been a coloful and controversial character. He has my trust and support.--Peterdownunder (talk) 02:39, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Agree with Djsasso below. I'm sure I can speak for no small portion of the community when I say that the clerking work that you do is much appreciated. With that said, it's fine to tell us that adminship isn't a big deal, but the fact that this is your eighth request tells me that we need to see a strong need for the rights to outweigh the concerns expressed in your previous requests. And I don't see that. You only resumed actively editing again in April. Since then, you've made around 480 edits (of which less than 10 are in the main space), 19 log actions, 5 QD requests, 5 anti-vandalism reverts and no VIP reports. This does not demonstrate a need for the extra permissions, which is something that I think you need to do when considering both your problematic history and the numerous concerns raised in your previous request. Perhaps you could leave it a little longer, so that there is more evidence of a continued commitment? Osiris (talk) 12:16, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

   I've never been a massive "vandal fighter" since being on the wiki, as I'm sure all of my contributions and logs will show. If I see vandalism I'll get rid of it, but I don't actively watch Recent Changes in the hope that something might pop up. It's just not something that appeals to me, and that will likely explain why the QD requests and antivandalism reverts are so low. As you highlight, I'm much more of a clerk (And, when time allows, article writer) and that is where, traditionally, my hand has been turned - clearing backlogs and closing things - doing the boring, menial administrative tasks that are largely in the background and leaving the much more glamourous 'vandal fighting' to others. ;-) Yes, on occasion this will include deleting QDs, clearing VIP and closing RfDs by nature, but again it's not something that I will go out and do actively. To take RfD as a quick example, there's currently three outstanding requests to be closed - all of which would be delete although the one furthest from the bottom would probably be extended as there's only been one user inputting aside from the nominator. At times this number has been much higher. Of course, though, there is no rush to have these closed, I'm just using it as an example of where my hand would be turned. Much more commonly you'll find me using the tools for 'tidying up' - reviewing old, unneeded protections; tidying the VGA rotation and other, similar often-forgotten but still important tasks. Whether this demonstrates a need for the tools, however, is of course not my decision to make. Thanks for your comments. Goblin 12:50, 12 July 2013 (UTC) I ♥ Kennedy!

   I'd like to see you participate more at RfD before you start closing them, because that was one of the concerns expressed in your previous request. In my opinion, we haven't had enough time to see whether that's still going to be an issue (although the few comments you have made since then are good, they were very easy cases). I also don't think we've had enough time to see whether the kinds of things you and Macdonald-ross talk about below have improved - whether indeed you will demonstrate a difference between being blunt and being rude. I do think you need to assume good faith more often, you've accused several editors of being "disruptive" just in the past few weeks or so. You say that you're no longer going to get worked up over little things, but in the three months you've been back you have verbalised your frustration over quite small things (minor formatting issues on discussion pages, that "rant" on your talk page, and you edit-warred over the level on the "vandalism information" template without any communication). I just think we need more time to see that those sort of outbursts are not going to escalate into something that damages the editing environment. And that you're going to stick around for a bit longer this time. Osiris (talk) 06:31, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

2. Well, editors need to know what happened. The main issues were:

   1. Goblin made decisions too abruptly, and continued after this was pointed out to him.
   2. He was downright rude to some users and, when an editor pointed it out to him, Goblin's response was "I know I'm rude, but I don't care". Now that's something an admin just cannot say. He never acknowledged he was in the wrong there, and also never promised he would mend his ways. No-one has ever criticised his productivity, but it is his temperament as displayed in such examples which led to his de-sysopping.
   3. Since then, until the recent flurry he has not really been a member of this wiki. Make of that what you will, but I read it as "if you won't make me an admin, then I won't contribute to this wiki".

   So far, I see no clear repentence, and that is something we need to see. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:37, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

   1. Abrupt is probably the wrong word - they weren't unexpected. If I remember rightly, I made a couple of bad blocks in cases that I was very much involved with, instead of following more orthodox procedure. There was also a case when I unblocked myself, a big no-no.
   2. If I haven't acknowledged I was wrong in my actions in that particular case (I thought I did) then I will now: I was in the wrong and I don't think I need to promise to mend my ways when I have! (Although, again, I thought I did.) One thing I will say is that regardless of the outcome I won't stop being blunt with people: it gets the message across most easily. However, one can be blunt without being rude, something that I did not always pay attention to in the past.
   3. I'm sorry, but I do have to take issue with this, which is completely ludicrous. It is three years since I lost adminship (for the second time, for clarity) and a year and a half since my last RfA. Prior to April, my largest period activity was in August last year, before that January 2012. My 'real life' has been such that I haven't physically had the time to keep editing Wikipedia (although I have been watching), absolutely nothing to do with whether I have the admin tools or otherwise. As I've acknowledged above, my work is primarily clerking and content creation - two things that I can both do without the tools and will continue doing whether I have the tools or not. I'm not sure where the feeling that I won't contribute without them has come from (I have far too much responsibility to worry about in real life, for one) but, frankly, I am rather offended by that statement and genuinely didn't expect it from yourself. Alas. Goblin 15:05, 12 July 2013 (UTC) I ♥ Gordonrox24!

3. Not that familiar with the ins and outs of the community, but seeing a comment of "I unblocked myself" is rather wow. Other comments in the response to Macdonald-ross always leave questions regarding temperament suitability. This is no comment on his content work, which appears to be just fine and something that should be highly encouraged. It is hard to find good content contributors and wiki gnomes. --LauraHale (talk) 06:46, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
4. After thinking about it a bit and reading what Osiris wrote in his most recent comment. I have to say I agree with where he is at with the situation. I am still somewhat concerned about the temperament I guess. -DJSasso (talk) 12:16, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
5. The shaky past makes me distrusting. Albacore (talk · changes) 00:24, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
6. Strong oppose WTF? So many RfAs. Plus, he mainly focuses on DYKs, but I don't really see how the admin tools will help. And as I flipped through his recent contribs, very few article edits, not even vandalism reverts on articles. ✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 11:09, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• Not commenting one way or the other at the moment. Has had a lot of problems in the past but I think he is probably over them. I hope he is anyways. But he has been super inactive recently. I would personally prefer to see some longer term activity before upping him again. Would hate to see someone made an admin and have them disappear immediately afterwards like has happened a lot in the past. -DJSasso (talk) 12:14, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

  The point about inactivity isn't one that I have overlooked. Certainly I have every intent of remaining active - not necessarily at the levels that I once was, but certainly on a par with other administrators and 'high profile' users. I don't think any of us can guarantee that we will be around in x months time, so I definitely don't want to say anything for certain, but I don't plan on disappearing - I've been a big critic in the past of people getting adminship and then disappearing, for whatever reason. Besides, I've still got a really long list of (V)GAs that need finishing. Goblin 12:20, 12 July 2013 (UTC) I ♥ Jersey!

• Questions: Inactivity to me isn't as big of a deal compared to your past and what you've learned down the road, as long as you've consistently been an avid contributer to the site. Still, I'm curious about your take on these questions:

1. After looking through your old RFAs, I know there have been obvious issues in the past; however, times do change, we grow, and we hopefully learn from our mistakes. Rather than us pointing out those issues, what do you feel you have done wrong in the past?
2. As a follow up: How do you believe you have changed? And if provided access to the buttons, can we be sure that your past will not affect your actions this time around?

This will inevitably decide my vote, or at least help me understand your current thoughts on what you've been through the last five or so years. Others will be able to absorb more information from answers too. Thanks! — RyanCross (talk) 04:41, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• I'm on the bridge here, so I have to be neutral. Ever since I've known Bluegoblin, he has been a dedicated user, but I also know he's had some setbacks. I don't weigh inactivity as heavily compared to what I know the candidate is capable of to better the site and the community; however, his past does make me nervous about how he'll act and respond with access to the tools this time around. To me it's not much of a time issue, but I still believe he needs to prove himself worthy of the buttons again. Also, not answering my questions above during the RFA period and being inactive the last four days has me questioning especially. Keep at it. — RyanCross (talk) 10:27, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

The above adminship 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.