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Revision as of 12:59, 2 October 2008

Kww

Voice your opinion (talk page) (5/8/2); Scheduled to end 05:17, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Kww (talk · contribs) - From the top “I thought he was already an admin” file, I give you Kww (talk · contribs). A prolific editor with plenty of clue to spare, he’ll make a fine administrator. You’ll find some article work on some album articles, lots of vandalism reversion, and peacekeeping over on What the Bleep Do We Know!?. Kww is well-rounded and well-intentioned; his contributions speak for themselves. HiDrNick! 04:21, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:

I accept the nomination. —Kww(talk) 05:12, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I've been around long enough that most people that vote on these things have encountered me, and have probably formed an opinion of me. I hope that's a good thing. I mainly focus on vandalism and other forms of article corruption, generally in the Disney Channel area. It's a difficult area to work in, because the relative age of the editors there is so young and the vandalism rates are so high. I also take a strong interest in the various pseudoscience/fringe science areas, although I generally only step in when I see the science getting driven out of our encyclopedia.

Many people will look at my block-log. The recent one is easy: an admin noticed a series of reversions, and did not notice that the thing I was reverting was an explicit exemption to the 3RR rule: the other editor was making obvious violations of non-free content policies. You'll notice he reversed the block and apologized quite quickly.

The older block is a tad harder to explain. I discussed it with User:AuburnPilot, and here is the link to his talk page discussion. In short, I was blocked for 3RR and edit-warring when I had not violated 3RR (I was blocked based on a false report, and, when I complained about that, it was replaced with another false report), and was not, in neither my estimation nor AuburnPilot's, edit warring at all.

As for the views that leave my opposition so aghast, here they are again, laid out in full. We have guidelines and policies. People are free to try to get policies and guidelines changed, debate them, and figure out what the best direction for Misplaced Pages is. That's fine. None of us are free to unilaterally ignore them. An editor that constantly edits in images that violate WP:IUP is disruptive, even if he thinks our free-content rules are wrong. An editor that constantly edits in statements that violate WP:BLP is disruptive, even if he believes they are sheltering someone from deserved criticism. An editor that edit wars by repetitively undoing redirects on an article that fails WP:NOT#PLOT is disruptive, even if he thinks that obeying WP:NOT#PLOT prevents him from covering his favorite topic to the depth he would like. We treat consistently treat the first two editors as disruptive editors, and ultimately treat them as vandals. I think we should treat the third case the same. I do recognize that we do not. If I had been thinking in terms of "boy, this quote is going to be framed forever", I would have said it differently.

As for that surreal arbcom experience ... I was threatened with a lifetime topic ban for trying to get a decision clarified when I wasn't even a party to the arbcom case. Blaming me for that is truly a case of shooting a messenger. I think it's telling that essentially no one from either side of the inclusionism/exclusionism debates believed that I should be blocked. A link to that debacle is for anyone that wants to read it.—Kww(talk) 12:59, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

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 administrative work do you intend to take part in?

A: Pretty much what I do today: revert vandalism and keep the Disney and music articles from turning into a quagmire of blog-sourced gossip. I use WP:AIV, WP:SSP and WP:RFPP extensively today, and that's where I will probably focus.

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

A: Well, I still have a fond spot in my heart for Humanzee. It's where I first started editing, and is where you can find my only anonymous edits. It was a piece of speculative fiction, and I worked hard to turn it into a real article. My only featured article is Natalee Holloway, where I am one of the three major contributors.

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: What the Bleep Do We Know!? represented the peak of stress for me. There is something about that article that brings out the worst in editors from both sides of the pseudoscience conflict. I even had the surreal experience of seeing ScienceApologist blocked for edit-warring in a change that MartinPhi had helped write. Ultimately, it took a strategy of just going through the lead sentence by sentence, and getting everyone to agree on a version that didn't make them angry enough to revert it, and making sure everyone understood which policies would prohibit and allow what. Once people focused on making sure each sentence conformed to policy, we got to a version that no one felt compelled to revert. We put the change in with {{edit-protected}} macros, and then left the thing protected for six months. Ugly and bloody, but it worked.

The one I wish I had handled better was Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Sadi Carnot. I allowed myself to get goaded into anger. I learned from that. I may still get angry at times, but you'd have a hard time seeing it from the words I write.

Additional questions from seresin

4.How do you intend to reconcile your opinion on the notability guideline with any potential administrative actions, such as XfD?

A: Reconciliation shouldn't be necessary. My opinion on the notability guidelines isn't particularly important: I intend to be guided by whatever they say while making any decisions, not by what I wish they said. My opinions generally aren't particularly important while closing an AFD, either, because the job there is to evaluate consensus, not to do what I want. What is relevant to AFD closings is how one evaluates consensus. Currently, the !vote system seems to be turning into a vote system, and that is not how consensus is evaluated. People are supposed to argue and debate, not vote. If I encountered an AFD that was all keep and delete with no logic, I would be inclined to relist it, no matter whether it was 10:1 for keeping or 1:10 for keeping, because without debate, there is no consensus. A list of keeps with strong arguments for delete may well be a delete consensus, just as a list of deletes with a few strong arguments for keeping may well be a consensus for keeping. Given the current state of affairs, I expect that my typical path will be to relist, with a comment on the AFD requesting people to actually argue their points. I'm saddened by how the AFD process has turned away from debate and into snout-counting.—Kww(talk) 05:49, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

General comments

• See Kww's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool. For the edit count, see the talk page.

• Links for Kww: Kww (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/Kww before commenting.

Discussion

Support

1. HiDrNick! 05:17, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
2. Support. Seems experienced and knowledgeable enough for me. Probably should archive that talk page, though, and this is the first time I've supported someone who was blocked two days before submitting to an RFA. I know how it is to be blocked errantly. Useight (talk) 05:35, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
3. Support - Seems like a good contributor --Flewis 05:50, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
4. Aye, because I believe Kww would be anet positive here, and despite the horrible diff quoted below by JayHenry - almost any word (i.e. "unproductive") would've been OK there, but not "vandal". Black Kite 11:38, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
5. Support; that comment below was poorly worded, but the sentiment is understandable. Administrators should care about policies and about applying them. — Coren  12:41, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Oppose

1. I don't think it'd be wise to support anyone who's such an active and dedicated partisan in the interminable notability wars. That you ever thought editors who, basically, disagree with your notability opinions should be treated "as vandals, as opposed to editors" you need to be kept away from having a block button. This led to an RFAR clarification and you completely gloss over this in your nomination. If I need a link it's WP:BATTLE. Step away from the notability wars for three or four months and I could support. It's not that you're deletionist or inclusionist. It's that I don't sense any capability to disengage. It's not healthy to be here so heavily for one cause. It never ends well. --JayHenry (t) 05:59, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
2. Oppose Very concerned by the view expressed by the candidate in the link provided by JayHenry. Classifying good faith editors as vandals is serious enough, without access to the block button. TigerShark (talk) 08:16, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
3. Oppose due to major concerns indicated by JayHenry. Stifle (talk) 08:53, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
4. Sorry, while I agree with you more than 50% on notability stuff, the way you go about discussion there (especially with regards to TTN) is a bit too extreme (for lack of a better word) for my liking. Giggy (talk) 10:43, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
5. Oppose, per JayHenry. This user doesn't seem to understand WP:AGF and shows signs of zealotry in the link provided by JH. --Aqwis (talk – contributions) 11:00, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
6. As much as I hate "per.." comments, Oppose per the lack of good faith showed in the diff provided by JayHenry. Ironholds 11:06, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
7. What you said in the diff given by JayHenry was just shocking, tbqh. naerii 11:26, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
8. Oppose As much as I dislike to pile-on, that diff provided by JayHenry is enough to oppose in itself. –Juliancolton 12:42, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
9. Oppose per JayHenry and initial answer to question 4 - we all have to reconcile our ideal views to what consensus is, and the comments and guidelines are liberal enough to be interpreted quite loosely as is anyway. To ignore consensus in a manner described would completely ignore at one major commonsense/intuitive guideline remaining. no thanks. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:57, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Neutral. I'd support, but the diff posted by JayHenry, above, is problematic. I'm going to think on this one. UltraExactZZ ~ Evidence 12:45, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
2. Neutral I am specifically not holding the JayHenry diff against the candidate -- that is a single, isolated aberration. And let's be honest, people, we all say things that we later regret -- you don't hold one mistake against an individual while ignoring the full body of work. In this case, however, I am in the Neutral category because of the candidate's full body of work -- I am having difficulty finding anything that would push me to either Support or Oppose. Ecoleetage (talk) 12:52, 2 October 2008 (UTC)