Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 01:54, 24 October 2007

Ev

Voice your opinion (talk page) (0/0/0); Scheduled to end 2:00, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Ev (talk · contribs) - Ladies and gentlemen, let me present Ev (previously Evv). He's been actively editing since June 2006, and (for some reason) his interests are chiefly focused on areas of conflict, especially the ever-contentious Kosovo and Shatt al-Arab. I have always been impressed with his politeness and level-headedness, and I'm sure he has an excellent grasp of the policies. Visitors at WP:ANI may recall him for edit-warring reports and thoughtful comments. Ev is probably not a FA writer, but whenever there's a fire, I think he's a water rather than fuel (well, he occassionally gets carried away, see , bbut he's at least honest enough to admit his mistakes; at least he's trying to reason the pov-pushers). If adminship is just an issue of trust and experience, I fully trust Ev. I hope you will also. Duja► 10:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept. - Ev 01:54, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Candidate statement
Let me start by thanking Duja for his trust and for making me realize that with just a few occasional "administrative" constributions I would also be helping the project.

I'm Argentine, currently living in Buenos Aires. (My delay in accepting this nomination was due to an unplanned last-minute trip to visit my parents for Mother's Day, which was last sunday).

As Duja mentions, I've been mainly interested in areas of conflict. At the beginning of my involvement in the Spanish Misplaced Pages, before knowing much about policies :-), I had a long discussion on a naming issue with an editor that relayed on raw Google hits to back his position. After being astounded at how difficult it could be to reach agreement on such a simple case, I wondered how Misplaced Pages would handle editing on really controvertial topics. As I once commented in my talk page (diff.), what made me pay attention to the Kosovo articles was mere curiosity in how Misplaced Pages handles editing on such highly emotional topics. It's interest in Misplaced Pages's editing processes more than interest in Kosovo itself.

I feel a certain attachement to what I write, and although I welcome reasonable, well-informed editors improving, correcting and even deleting my constributions, I soon came to realize that I don't want to see those contributions edited mercilessly by just about any person with access to a computer. So, I mostly gave up on content, and focused my constributions on minor details, mainly article naming and reflecting common English usage.

Often, while reading a book, I find myself opening a related Misplaced Pages article to expand something. But, after previewing the changes, so far I have managed to resist the temptation to click on the "save page" button.

I do commit mistakes, quite often, and I'm willing to recognize them, and correct them. I'm deeply aware that I could always be wrong: I'm always open to be persuaded by reasonable arguments.

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Misplaced Pages as an administrator. It is recommended that you answer these optional questions to provide guidance for participants:

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

A: As my limited number of edits per day attest, I intend to do very little admin work, mainly by occasionally lending a hand in two areas: page moves and encouraging talk page discussions instead of continual reverts.

This minor involvement in admin tasks would imply that in every case I would be able to devote the time required to do a thorough job, discussing the issues at lenght when necessary and explaining our policies in detail.

Allow me to expand on the manner and guiding principles by which I would approach these interventions.

Page moves & article naming (requested moves):

As my active involvement in Misplaced Pages is basically restricted to a few naming issues, this is the area in which I have more experience and the natural field for my potential role as an administrator.

Besides reverting some improper page moves myself instead of requesting those actions as uncontroversial move proposals (diff. diff. diff.), and keeping an eye on that section, I intend to close some move request discussions. (I'm already recusing myself from many of those related to Kosovo and a certain waterway on the Iran-Iraq border :-)

I'm confident in having a clear understanding of our current general naming conventions policy and the associated guidelines related to the specific cases in which I have been involved so far -including the often-controvertial one on using English (diff.)-, understanding both the conventions themselves and the manner in which they relate with our core policies of neutral point of view (diff. diff.), verifiability and no original research (see the N. von Renys RM including sections 4, 5 & 7 of the talk page).

I'm well aware of the specific context for which these policies and guidelines are intended, and in whose light should be interpreted: the creation of objective, unbiased encyclopedic articles written in the English language.

I see consensus-building as a process that takes place within the framework of our current policies & guidelines, to reach a certain degree of agreement on how those policies & guidelines apply to a specific case; and not as a vote on whether to follow policy or blatantly ignore it's core principles, it's very spirit.

Thus, in cases similar to the long Shatt al-Arab ordeal (1st RM & 2nd RM), in which literally all policy- & guidelines-based arguments clearly indicated one option, I would not have hesitated to close the discussion in accordance to policy, even if the "vote tally" were to show a 100 to 1 majority of WP:ILIKEIT policy-contradicting arguments in favour of the other option.

Upon gauging the existance of consensus on how our policies & guidelines apply to a specific article, I intend to always give a clear explanation of my closing of the discussion (and a detailed one in acrimonious cases). — Of course, I would always welcome a review of my actions, and would never overturn the closing of another admin without having discussed the issue with him first (I expect that other admins would extend the same courtesy to me :-).

Encouraging talk page discussions instead of continual reverts (dispute resolution):

Having being involved in Balkans-related articles, in the long Shatt al-Arab ordeal (30 March - 23 June 2007) and in my fair share of revert-warring, as well as having passively watched other disputes unfold, I know first hand the detrimental effects disruptive behaviour has on the editing environment and ultimately to the improvement of the encyclopedia.

Much of my own revert-warring had nothing to do with a "need to correct the article right now", but with frustration at the lack of constructive, rational, reasonable dialogue (or, just as often, the total absence of any dialogue at all)... in short, the frustration of feeling like talking to a wall. I often felt that revert-warring was the simplest, less time-consuming way to eventually force the other party to engage in a constructive talk page discussion.

Well, in very much the same manner in which it's often said that former poachers make the best park rangers (and I happen to have an acquaintance that fills this description literally :-), I hope to put my experience in this area to good use by playing the role of the neutral third party, explaining to both sides the need to dialogue and, when required, how our policies apply to the case. And doing so with the enormous help of having the possibility of making polite but very credible references to our protection & blocking policies.

My main focus would be to help editors that engage in constructive dialogue & attempt to reason with the other party deal with disruptive & tendentious editors who simply revert without discussing the issue (diff.) or that just won't listen to reasons (link).

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

A: As a quick glimpse at my contributions shows, most of my edits are marked as minor, and for good reason: I have added almost no content to the encyclopedia (see the reasons in my opening statement). My involvement with Misplaced Pages is basically restricted to some naming issues (requested moves), trying to make articles comply with our current naming conventions and simply collaborating in generating consensus. Examples:

Kilián Ignác Dientzenhofer → Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer (link)

Arvandrud/Shatt al-Arab → Shatt al-Arab (1st RM 2nd RM 3rd time lucky)

Kosova Handball Federation → Kosovo Handball Federation (link)

Green Party of Kosova → Green Party of Kosovo (link)

Srebrenica massacre → Srebrenica Genocide (link) -opposed-

Prager Groschen → Prague groschen (link link)

Kraków grosh → Kraków grosz (link)

Juraj Julije Klović → Giulio Clovio (link)

Juraj Dalmatinac → Giorgio da Sebenico (link & link)

Ivan Duknović → Giovanni Dalmata (link)

Nike → Nike (disambiguation) (link) -opposed- Because valid concerns of wikilink maintenance where raised during the discussion, I have been doing the necessary disambiguations ever since: diff.

Uşak carpet → Ushak carpet (link)

Estonian Liberation War → Estonian War of Independence (link)

Mikołaj of Ryńsk → Nicholas von Renys (link and see sections 4, 5 & 7 of the talk page).

Hala Ludowa → Centennial Hall (link)

Grand Duchy of Poznań → Grand Duchy of Posen (link)

Beli Drim → White Drin (diff.)

Shtime → Štimlje (link)

Suharekë → Suva Reka (link)

From time to time I have also tried to lend a hand in trying to soften some of the discussion related to the former Yugoslavia (mainly Kosovo). To get an idea, see my talk page, the Kosovo archives (link link link diff. link) and some general diffs (diff. diff. ; and this discussion finally leading to this long explanation).

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: Although I'm not sure if using the word "conflict" would be appropriate to describe any particular instance, being active in articles about Kosovo naturally implies taking part in heated discussions. Basically, it means having to deal with editors who simply disregard our policies and unilaterally edit articles to reflect The Truth — editors with whom reasoning is virtually impossible — editors apparently unable to distinguish between an encyclopedic article written in accordance to our policies and an opinion piece intended to "correct the biased perceptions" propagated by . — In short, disruptive & tendentious editing.

Once an uncompromising editor decides that he's not willing to follow our policies, there's no longer a common ground, a shared editorial framework in which to have a productive discussion on how best to present a topic. This just eliminates any possibility of agreement, and transforms our normal dispute resolution process in an arduous and extremely time- & energy-consuming ordeal. As I mentioned before, attempting to dialogue with such editors feels like talking to a wall.

(To avoid any misinterpretation I must clarify that I know perfectly well the difference between a normal -and perhaps quite rotund- disagreement among reasonable editors willing to work and dialogue within the framework of our polices, and total deafness to arguments, explanations and reason).

In these circumstances, I have often resorted to revert-warring. Sometimes to force the other party to engage in the talk page discussion, sometimes just considering edit-warring the simplest, most time-effective way of dealing with someone with whom discussion appeared to be pointless.

I must confess that after seeing too many uncompromising editors following the same pattern, upon seeing that kind of edits being made I often assumed the worst (not bad faith, but that the editor would be as uncompromising as the others) and just reverted on sight, without any attempt to discuss, for the simple reason that I didn't want to waste time arguing at the talk page to no avail.

Having said that, I usually tried to explain those reverts in my edit summaries, and while reverting I have often tried to resolve the issue discussing in talk pages. The following discussions took place during or immediately after a revert war: link link link link link link link link link link link link. Check the related article histories to see the many reverts themselves.

Although I try to justify some of those instances based on the above description of the editing environment (and the troll in me has actually enjoyed some of them :-), with the pass of time I have understood just how disruptive such behaviour is; behaviour for which I apologize.

I made two reverts at Shatt al-Arab a few days ago, but I did so to restore a very-hard-to-archieve consensus and my very clearly explained edits, after an editor's unexplained, blind reverts (four days afterwards, he has yet to made any comment at the talk page). Moreover, fearing that the reverts would continue, at the same time of doing a second and final one (01:07 UTC) I asked for help from a third party.

I do believe that administrators should be held to a higher standard. I intend to abide by one, and expect to be held accountable for any inappropriate behaviour: revert-warring is an issue for which I would be open to recall without imposing any restriction at all, after a simple pro forma request.

Nevertheless, except for those cases described above in which I restricted myself to revert, I believe that my record shows that I have always been willing to dialogue, and to go to significant lenghts & detail to solve editorial disagreements by discussing the issues.

Stress:

I can only think of three occasions in which I have experienced anger or stress in Misplaced Pages:

• Anger when facing what I percieved as an unilateral action to present other editors with a fait accompli. I vented at the talk page (diff. diff.), later regretted my choice of words. As usual, regretting having done something tends to be the best way of avoinding doing it again.
• Real stress (disillusionment) at some moments during the Shatt al-Arab ordeal (1st RM 2nd RM 3rd time lucky), not derived from the eternal talk page discussion, but from what I percieved as administrators blocking consensus-building by treating the move requests as simple polls decided on vote-tallies. I ended up venting in a silly rant at AN , taking a short wiki-break & with another silly rant at AN/I.
• I took a preventive wiki-break after this surreal edit-war & discussion.

I've found that checking Misplaced Pages fewer times per day, delaying answers and edits to the following day -after a good night of sleep- and taking short wiki-breaks can do wonders. Especially when combined with an adequate amount of drinks ;-)

4. If promoted, would you be open to recall, and why?

A: Yes, I would. I believe that accountability is paramount, and -as long as we don't find saints willing to run for office- the best form to expect a reasonable, responsible, proper conduct from those in whose hands we entrust functions that can be abused. As I see it, this is important primarily to avoid the disruptions to the editing environment that would derive from a perception of unfairness, arbitrariness and, worse, immunity.

I have not given much thought to the details of the circumstances under which I would agree to such a request, but, if promoted, any restrictions would gradually decrease according to the time elapsed since this discussion or the last re-confirmation. Once a year has passed after the last "vote of confidence" I would impose no restrictions at all.

General comments

• Links for Ev: Ev (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)

Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review Special:Contributions/Ev before commenting.

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