| Revision as of 04:51, 9 December 2008 editBalloonman (talk | contribs)25,417 edits →Re: Point 1: past votes← Previous edit | Revision as of 06:00, 9 December 2008 edit undo122.57.210.58 (talk) →Re: Point 1Next edit → | ||
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| ==What do you say to a 4 year old== | ==What do you say to a 4 year old== | ||
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| Who killed your 10 year old ] by putting it into the freezer?---''']''' '']'' 07:26, 8 December 2008 (UTC) | Who killed your 10 year old ] by putting it into the freezer?---''']''' '']'' 07:26, 8 December 2008 (UTC) | ||
| :I'd imagine there's not a lot you could say without becoming overly expressive of your feelings. Sorry to hear of your loss B'man. —''']''' (] · ] · ]) 18:01, 8 December 2008 (UTC) | :I'd imagine there's not a lot you could say without becoming overly expressive of your feelings. Sorry to hear of your loss B'man. —''']''' (] · ] · ]) 18:01, 8 December 2008 (UTC) | ||
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| :I disagree that learning policy is guaranteed to get one policy knowledge. While I definitely agree that building the encyclopdia is necessary. But your premise is faulty. Exploring different areas of the project is not by definition taking away from building the project. In fact, many of the people who go through coaching don't ''build'' the encyclopedia to begin with. When they go through my coaching process, I insist on building the project (but I'm liberal in how that is interpretted.) So for some people, coaching might be their first exposure to building the project. Thus, the premise that coaching detracts from writing articles is false. Second, your notion that you can learn all the policies via article building is erroneous. There are areas of the project that you can't learn via article writing. You don't learn what acceptable names are via article writing, nor do you gain exposure to XfDs, or blocking. Article building is ONE component of the project, but without the other areas (ones that you and I don't like) the project would collapse under its own weight. There are tons of areas that ''need'' people to work, and we need people who know the intricacies of these areas. Getting exposure to different areas is never a bad thing, the project has enough areas to work in, that it is impossible to know all of the areas. Working solely in the article space may give you a superficial understanding of the different areas, but not the depth. One of the reasons why I encourage ''establishing footprints'' in different areas (as compared to drive by coaching) is because it allows others to provide input into the development of the coachee. As for the talk header, I removed the header stuff today because of the first post.---''']''' '']'' 04:49, 9 December 2008 (UTC)PS you will often note my !votes will be to the effect of, "candidate is already an admin, we are just making it official." This is because they are an admin.---''']''' '']'' 04:51, 9 December 2008 (UTC) | :I disagree that learning policy is guaranteed to get one policy knowledge. While I definitely agree that building the encyclopdia is necessary. But your premise is faulty. Exploring different areas of the project is not by definition taking away from building the project. In fact, many of the people who go through coaching don't ''build'' the encyclopedia to begin with. When they go through my coaching process, I insist on building the project (but I'm liberal in how that is interpretted.) So for some people, coaching might be their first exposure to building the project. Thus, the premise that coaching detracts from writing articles is false. Second, your notion that you can learn all the policies via article building is erroneous. There are areas of the project that you can't learn via article writing. You don't learn what acceptable names are via article writing, nor do you gain exposure to XfDs, or blocking. Article building is ONE component of the project, but without the other areas (ones that you and I don't like) the project would collapse under its own weight. There are tons of areas that ''need'' people to work, and we need people who know the intricacies of these areas. Getting exposure to different areas is never a bad thing, the project has enough areas to work in, that it is impossible to know all of the areas. Working solely in the article space may give you a superficial understanding of the different areas, but not the depth. One of the reasons why I encourage ''establishing footprints'' in different areas (as compared to drive by coaching) is because it allows others to provide input into the development of the coachee. As for the talk header, I removed the header stuff today because of the first post.---''']''' '']'' 04:49, 9 December 2008 (UTC)PS you will often note my !votes will be to the effect of, "candidate is already an admin, we are just making it official." This is because they are an admin.---''']''' '']'' 04:51, 9 December 2008 (UTC) | ||
| ::I think your essay is pretty insulting to be honest. You could same the same thing about quite a few different classes of vandalism fighters that fall under the exact same classifications as people who clean up the site so it's not turned into a disgusting wasteland of 12 year olds writing about themselves and companies advertising. I think you're jealous that no one lets you CSD articles :( Cheer up, bud. 06:00, 9 December 2008 (UTC) | |||
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What do you say to a 4 year old
Who killed your 10 year old wedding present by putting it into the freezer?---Balloonman 07:26, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
- I'd imagine there's not a lot you could say without becoming overly expressive of your feelings. Sorry to hear of your loss B'man. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 18:01, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
BN comments
Are you jokingly repeating my last two lines? I don't get it. Mind you, I've been generally a bit thick today, so it's no real surprise! --Dweller (talk) 16:16, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, the rephrasing of the question, for question number 4 is a legit question. It is a different scenario... would the name "Doctor of Love" matter if the user were some teenager wanting to make some juvenille claim as compared to an actual authority in that arena. Personally, if the name "Doctor of Love" came up, as phrased in question 4, it wouldn't bother me---but in the scenario presented in your question 3, where it is a person working in love and romance, that would change my answer. It ceases to be some dumb user name and becomes a claim to authority. The RfB meme v RfB question---I didn't even notice you had said it. So, my paraphrasing your comment there, was my stupidity---not yours. If you look above, I didn't get much sleep last night---or (if you've seen my other posts) the last several nights have been somewhat sleep free as well.---Balloonman 16:24, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
- I bid us both a good night. Sadly, my bed is still some hours away... lol. --Dweller (talk) 16:34, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
- I just woke up a few hours ago... so... argh... but I NEED sleep! <---I would fix the typo, but I tried 3 times, and couldn't! That's how tired I am right now.---Balloonman 17:02, 8 December 2008 (UTC)EDIT: Somebody fixed my typos!!!---Balloonman 21:16, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
- I bid us both a good night. Sadly, my bed is still some hours away... lol. --Dweller (talk) 16:34, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Re: Point 1
Hi Balloonman! Indeed, I completely misinterpreted what you meant by point #1 in the original essay. After the elaboration (I'm flattered that you wrote it to clarify our small dispute), it is clear that we agree on this point.
However, I think the heading 'act like an admin' is inappropriate for the subject matter—IMO, it should be more like, as you said, 'act like a decent human being'. You don't need to be an admin or 'admin hopeful' to be loyal to the project, mature, responsible and help other users. As they always say in the army's various command courses, never forget that before you are a commander, you are a soldier, and before that you are a human being. I think that if any regular Misplaced Pages contributor doesn't follow that principle, we have a problem, regardless of RfA status. To take that one step further, I believe that if a Wikipedian doesn't do at least most of the things you outlined in 'act like an admin', they should never (within reason) be an admin. Admin coaching can't change a human being into being more mature, more civil, or more helpful—and if it does, the change is likely artificial and only reflects the user's desire to become an admin—which is one of the main reasons I oppose the very concept of admin coaching.
In the specific case of Dendodge, there are just so many problems that I don't know where to begin. I won't write an essay on why I think he should not be an admin (and this is phenomenal in itself—for all previous RfA candidates I've opposed, the concerns were specific and could be addressed reasonably quickly—I did not actually think they were unfit for adminship), but will try to explain a bit more when I'm coming from. Basically, Dendodge reminds me of myself at the time of the first RfA in June 2006. It's not that I was a bad user, unhelpful, incivil, or disloyal to the encyclopedia. I actually displayed very clearly all the qualities you talk about in 'act like an admin', and had (for the time) a very good record of article contributions. However, I really wanted to become an admin and tried very hard, despite often having no actual interest or clue in the things I was doing. A good example is the help desk, in which I too was active. The other glaring similarity is replying and arguing oppose !votes. The third similarity is an opinionated user page and a shaky record of upholding one of Misplaced Pages's core policies (BLP for Dendodge, copyrights for me). I was rightfully denied adminship at that time, but this does not mean I would've abused the tools; it was just a clue to stop trying so hard and start contributing more to the non-admin areas, which I will talk about in the next paragraph (hope you're still with me ;)). Of course, aside from the above, Dendodge has a plethora of issues which were outlined in the opposes. But you don't need to look very far to see the quote on his userpage saying "This page looks rubbish in Internet Explorer - it's not my fault, it's Microsoft's for making such a useless browser. Get Firefox - it's free, and better in every way!", which strikes me as a particularly immature comment.
About article writing vs. 'admin areas': I never said that working in 'admin areas' was bad, just that it was bad when done at the expense of article writing, and this unfortunate trait is easy to see in many of today's RfA candidates (many of whom were admin-coached). My understanding is that, while it is possible to gain policy understanding by working mostly in admin areas, when you work mostly on articles for a long time, policy understanding is guaranteed. I talked about this a bit in my recent RfA (follow-up to A1).
- Actually moving 100 articles gives you a much better understanding of when and why articles should be moved than participating in WP:RM discussions, because someone who only participates in WP:RM might not have even read WP:NC, which cannot be the case for someone who made 100 non-housekeeping moves (unless those moves were all reverted ;)).
- Writing articles and participating in talk discussions really gives you a perspective on notability and what should go in and stay out of Misplaced Pages; participating in AfDs only, without the earlier, gives a general picture of the current deletion trends at best. AfD-mania among admin-hopefuls is, IMO, one of the reasons why AfDs are slowly turning into empty straw polls, and many are now using '!vote' instead of 'vote' just to be politically correct, not because they understand what it's supposed to mean.
- Making small content contributions to 1,000 articles/subjects you have some idea about and keeping them on your watchlist is, believe me, a much more effective way of vandal-fighting (especially subtle vandalism) than patrolling recent changes or participating in WP:AIV.
So yeah, sorry for the elaborate pseudo-rant, just that this 'working in admin areas and admin coaching to pass RfA' business frustrates me very much since I got semi-interested in the process again after my recent go (to be honest, both the nom and the success came as a great suprise). Hope I didn't bore you to death, assuming you read all that! Cheers, Ynhockey 03:11, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
P.S. This page doesn't have a link to your talk archives, is this on purpose? Just letting you know. -- Ynhockey 04:24, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
- I disagree that learning policy is guaranteed to get one policy knowledge. While I definitely agree that building the encyclopdia is necessary. But your premise is faulty. Exploring different areas of the project is not by definition taking away from building the project. In fact, many of the people who go through coaching don't build the encyclopedia to begin with. When they go through my coaching process, I insist on building the project (but I'm liberal in how that is interpretted.) So for some people, coaching might be their first exposure to building the project. Thus, the premise that coaching detracts from writing articles is false. Second, your notion that you can learn all the policies via article building is erroneous. There are areas of the project that you can't learn via article writing. You don't learn what acceptable names are via article writing, nor do you gain exposure to XfDs, or blocking. Article building is ONE component of the project, but without the other areas (ones that you and I don't like) the project would collapse under its own weight. There are tons of areas that need people to work, and we need people who know the intricacies of these areas. Getting exposure to different areas is never a bad thing, the project has enough areas to work in, that it is impossible to know all of the areas. Working solely in the article space may give you a superficial understanding of the different areas, but not the depth. One of the reasons why I encourage establishing footprints in different areas (as compared to drive by coaching) is because it allows others to provide input into the development of the coachee. As for the talk header, I removed the header stuff today because of the first post.---Balloonman 04:49, 9 December 2008 (UTC)PS you will often note my !votes will be to the effect of, "candidate is already an admin, we are just making it official." This is because they are an admin.---Balloonman 04:51, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
- I think your essay is pretty insulting to be honest. You could same the same thing about quite a few different classes of vandalism fighters that fall under the exact same classifications as people who clean up the site so it's not turned into a disgusting wasteland of 12 year olds writing about themselves and companies advertising. I think you're jealous that no one lets you CSD articles :( Cheer up, bud. 06:00, 9 December 2008 (UTC)