Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 19:22, 19 November 2014

Thomas.W

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (7/0/0); Scheduled to end 15:29, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Nomination

Thomas.W (talk · contribs) – Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to present Thomas.W (Tom) for your consideration. I've encountered Tom in many places over the last few months, including at AIV (which is frequently backlogged) and SPI (which is semi-permanently backlogged and chronically under-staffed). In all our interactions, he has struck me as diligent and thorough—indeed he was able to help in a recent SPI concerning a large sockfarm by identifying a sockpuppet I had missed. He is well versed in policy, having had an account since 2006 and having been active consistently since early 2011. In that time, he has made almost 500 reports to AIV and I don't recall declining any (nor seeing any declined by other admins), a great many contributions to SPI, and accumulated a total of some 24,000 edits. While he is not a prolific content writer, he is not a simple button-masher either, as can be seen from his involvement in several articles (and, importantly, their talk pages) over a period of several years, where he fends off not just obvious vandalism but also POV pushing and other unhelpful edits. He has shown himself willing to do the requisite digging to prove or disprove a statement, and to explain himself on the talk page in the event of disagreement.

I believe Tom has the balance of contributions that voters at RfA like to see and which produce good admins, and that he will make a very useful addition to the admin corps, especially in areas that are (contrary to the popular meme) crying out for more admins. Thank you, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:47, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:

I gracefully accept the nomination.
And, in case anyone wonders why I made very few edits during the first five years (2006-2011) and then all of a sudden became very active, it's because I retired in 2012, and all of a sudden got a lot of spare time. Thomas.W 14:39, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

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

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

A: I would start by helping out at WP:AIV, which at times is understaffed, particularly before noon European Time (when there's a lot of vandal activity, both by night active editors in the western parts of the US and by editors in Asia), and would also offer my services at WP:SPI. I have previously been asked if I wanted to clerk at SPI, but chose not to, since I, not being an administrator, wouldn't be able to check all evidence needed to find links between masters and suspected socks, such as looking at and comparing deleted contributions. And thorough investigations are needed before endorsing or declining CU-requests.

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

A: Judging by the handful of other RfAs I've looked at after being asked if I would be interested in becoming an admin, most candidates list articles they've brought to FA or GA status, but a quick look at my contributions would show that all I have to boast about is a couple of DYKs, and that I, even though I have created a number of new articles, am not a heavy article creator. Which is a deliberate choice, because having an online encyclopaedia that anyone can edit requires having both editors creating content and editors preserving content. Without the former there wouldn't be an encyclopaedia, and without the latter the articles created by the former would quickly be trashed, or altered in an unacceptable non-neutral way, by vandals, POV-pushers, fringe-pushers and others, who are not interested in creating the kind of neutral/unbiased encyclopaedia that I feel Misplaced Pages should be. So I primarily fight sneaky vandalism (editors making small, often incremental, edits changing numbers, dates, names etc, which is a far more damaging form of vandalism than four-letter words), POV-pushing and fringe-pushing, a timeconsuming "job" that requires a lot of work with sources, both finding sources, checking sources and evaluating sources. Which, since both vandals and POV-/fringe-pushers often are very persistent, requires "adopting" an article, and watching over it for extended periods of time. As can be seen in the list of my most edited articles. My best contributions, and the contributions that I am most proud of, would therefore be the many cases of particularly sneaky vandalism, and POV-/fringe-pushing with fake and/or deliberately misquoted sources, that I have exposed and reverted. Such as the sneaky vandalism on Glock that resulted in this discussion. A recent example of POV-/fringe-pushing that I helped stop would be the fringe edits on Bosnia and Herzegovina repeatedly made by 109.175.45.101 and 37.203.115.171, and the POV edits by Overdtop on the same article that quickly followed, where I was then able to find a direct connection between the IPs and the named account (as can be seen in this discussion; this support for what I did, on Talk:Bosnia and Herzegovina, might also be interesting).

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: The kind of "job" that I have chosen to do here on en-WP regularly involves reverting, and confronting, editors who are out on a mission, pushing political or religious POV or very fringe ideas, and who are willing to do just about anything to get whatever message they want to spread into the articles they target, so I have been involved in a number of conflicts over the past couple of years. I have also had totally frivolous reports filed against me at both WP:AN3 (the latest one being this) and WP:ANI; none of those reports have however found me guilty of anything, and most have resulted in a boomerang against the OP. And none of the conflicts, or reports, have caused me any stress, even though dealing with particularly persistent and obnoxious POV-pushers have occasionally made me feel a bit frustrated.

Additional question from Samwalton9

4. You nominated List of infantry weapons of World War I for deletion in June, an AfD which was closed as speedy keep. What did you learn from that AfD and do you still believe this article should be deleted?

A: As it was when I nominated it I felt it should be deleted, yes, but it has been totally rewritten since then (286 edits by 26 different editors). Because such lists should IMHO only include weapons that were standard issue, not whatever weapon someone brought with him, as well as only including countries that actually took part in WW I. Which wasn't the case when I nominated it for deletion. It's still not a great list article, though, with just a handful of books mentioned as references at the end, not a single inline citation, and quite a few very dubious entries. British Bull Dog revolver is one such dubious entry, since it was totally obsolete by 1914, being a black powder weapon from 1872. What I learnt from it was that I shouldn't underestimate the interest for, and devotion to, list articles. And AFAICR I haven't nominated any since then.

Additional question from an unregistered (yet) user 41.190.36.250 (talk) 19:22, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

5. Do you think it's appropriate for any editor, let alone an administrator-to-be, to routinely provoke other users by appending unnecessarily inflammatory statements to your messages to them? You may find the following examples of things you said on your user page over the last month helpful as you formulate your answer:

• "Do you have a decent honest job or do you spam Misplaced Pages for a living?" diff from 12 Nov 2014

• "Oh, and by all means feel free to report me to "the main admin", whoever that would be (...)" diff from 25 Sep 2014

• "So follow the links I gave you above, and read what it says there, before making any more edits, or you'll get warned again (...)" diff from 25 Sep 2014

• "No, there's nothing to discuss, not for the time being at least," in response to a request by another user to discuss something rather than repeatedly reverting the user's edits. Clearly there was something to discuss, or else the user wouldn't have proposed discussion... wouldn't you say that saying "there's nothing to discuss" in such a situation can be seen as inflammatory, regardless of who was in the right? diff from 12 Nov 2014

A follow-up question, do you agree with Bishonen's comment that "Passive-aggressive sneers hurt the project ambience worse than four-letter words?" Do you believe it was okay for the IP user to be punished for his/her "passive-aggressive sneers" while you were allowed to get off scot-free with yours? See User_talk:Thomas.W#Do_you_have_a_job.3F for context.

General comments

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

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

Discussion

Support

1. As nom. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:29, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
2. No concerns. Have run into this editor frequently around the place, doing good work and being friendly and helpful. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:42, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
3. Support. I see no issues. Deb (talk) 15:48, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
4. Support Perhaps the only editor I know of who was blocked mistakenly by JamesBWatson. Brilliant positive to the project. Will be quite beneficial as an administrator. Wifione 17:07, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
5. Candidate has earned the community's trust and giving him the mop would be beneficial. Mellowed Fillmore (talk) 17:19, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
6. Support precious: chasing vandals --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:27, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
7. Wait, you're not an admin? Well, this is a surprise. → Call me Hahc21 17:44, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral