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Revision as of 03:08, 21 June 2009

Wtmitchell

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (42/1/1); Scheduled to end 04:35, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Nomination

I initially left this section blank, but it has been suggested that I provide some info here.

This is a self-nomination by User:Wtmitchell. I have been around since November of 2004, and have been editing regularly since June of 2006. I currently have a bit over 20,000 edits, about 60% of which are mainspace article edits. My RFA grows out of recent activity as a vandalism and new page patroller using WP:Huggle. That activity generates requests for speedy deletion and some vandal reports on users. I think it would be better for me to do the deletions myself as I see obvious candidates rather than add to the workload of others. With that beginning, I expect that I will gradually pick up other admin tasks. I can be trusted not to abuse admin privileges, I think.

Wtmitchell (talk · contribs) – Self Boracay Bill (talk) 04:35, 19 June 2009 (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: Initially, just using the tools to do simple admin tasks directly which I have, lacking admin privileges, been asking others to do. Lately I have been doing a lot of vandal patrolling with WP:Huggle, and I just added new page patrolling to that. I am seeing a lot of new pages which are obvious speedy delete candidates, and I'll start by doing deletions of those as I see them rather than asking other admins to do that work. I'll probably add servicing speedy delete requests by others to that fairly quickly, and gradually add other admin tasks.

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

A: I have an interest area in Philippine history and in topics relating to the Philippines in general. I've contributed to many of the articles in that area, some quite heavily. I think my contributions have had a positive impact.

I have another interest area in improving supporting source citation in articles—both in supplying needed citations and in formatting citations so that they are useful. I am a long time member of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Citation cleanup , and quite a lot of my edits are citation cleanups.

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: I can't think of any conflicts. The one incident which I recall that might be described as stressful was my requested move of the article named Libingan ng mga Bayani to an alternative name of Cemetery of the Heroes which I thought a more appropriate name in the English Misplaced Pages. That was discussed here, here, here, and I didn't handle my exchanges with User:Sky_Harbor particularly well in that case. I introduced unnecessary stress there, probably growing out of stress which I was experiencing outside of Misplaced Pages at the time.

Optional questions from Dlohcierekim. Hello, Wtmitchell. Thank you for submitting your RFA.

4.In reviewing new articles, is it better to delete an article that meets WP:CSD on sight, or to search for verifiable information with reliable sourcing that would show the subject to be notable? Does it make a difference as to which criteria the article meets?

A: It depends. If the article is patent nonsense or if it is a biography along the lines of "'John Smith is the best person in the world", it merits deletion on sight. I've seen quite a few of those.

5. You are RCPatrolling. You see an article has been edited by an anon. The page history indicates the previous entries were by a Bot reverting page blanks by the same anon, with progressive warnings on the anon's talk page. In the current version of the article the anon has replaced the content with, "THE ARTICLE IS A COPY AND PASTE COPYVIO FORM ANOTHER SITE” What do you do?

A: On the copyvio question, if the source of the alleged copyvio'd text is not identified by the anon, I'd probably google a bit for snippets from the deleted text to see what I could find. If I came up empty, I'd probably restore the deleted text with an edit summary asking that the copyvio'd source be identified. If I was able to identify that the article appears to be a substantial copy from another source which is not a WP mirror, I might prune the article back to a stub with an edit summary pointing to a talk page section where I identify the source of the removed text, mention WP:COPY and WP:Plagarism, and suggests that the article content be restated in wording which does not duplicate work elsewhere and with proper credit being given to work elsewhere which is used in the article via citations of supporting sources.

If I dug into it far enough to make a judgment about this, and if it looks to me as if this is not a case of repeated vandalism by the anon, I would probably report the situation on the bot's talk page.

6. Is there ever a time you would block a user who had not received a full set of warning templates?

A:I'm sure there is. One extreme example might be a user who authors an edit containing a death threat against POTUS.

7. Would there ever be a time you would remove a vandal warning and caution the user that gave it?

A:Yes. I have made mistaken vandal notifications and received such cautions myself. That is a Good Thing™.

8. What was up with this fairly recent edit war concern?

A:In a nutshell, see this.

Optional question from Keepscases

9. Do you believe it is acceptable for an administrator to have a signature that is completely different from his or her username?

A:The question has occurred to me, but I haven't thought about it. Another question which has occurred to me is whether or not it is a good idea to do normal editing from an account having admin privileges (sort of like doing normal work on a unix system while logged in as root). The correct answer in both cases is probably that it is a Bad Idea™.

Optional question from Toddst1

10.I see you've had almost no activity on any of the administrators' noticeboards. In all that time and with the fair amount of vandal patrolling you do, I would have expected at least a few posts or maybe a reply or two. Can you speak to this please?

A:My focus has been on editing articles as a normal user and, lately, doing some patrolling with Huggle. Huggle handles the user-control part of that on its own by escalating warning severity and eventually reporting users with a history of troublesome activity. As I develop a pattern of activity as an admin, I wouldn't expect an activist user control focus to be a big part of it.

Additional optional questions from S Marshall

11. When should you remove reliably-sourced, verifiable information from a biography of a living person?

A: That is a judgment call, with judgment rooted in WP:BLP. I don't see myself as being activist in that area either. One example situation might be where the material represented unbalanced negative overstatement about an aspect of the person's life which has little or no relationship to the subject's notability. One case illustrating a technique for handling that example situation might be Mel Gibson#Allegations of anti-Semitism, where the main BLP article mentions two specific examples in passing, not overstating them in relation to the emphasis placed on other topic areas discussed in that article, and points to separate articles which deal with them in more depth.

Additional optional questions from Groomtech

12. Do you believe that Wikipedians have rights? If so, what will you do to uphold them?

A: —Preceding unsigned comment added by Groomtech (talk • contribs) 19:07, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

General comments

• Requests for adminship/Wtmitchell

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

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

Discussion

User:Neurolysis/Counters.js

Support

1. Support. 20,000 edits, mostly to article space? Communicative when you need to be, remain civil from everything I can tell? Smart user, plenty of clue, around for 4 years without getting involved in the drama of this place? A simple, direct self-nomination? How refreshing. Absolutely I support. Keeper | 76 05:50, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Support You'll get a load of flak for the empty nom, but I've seen him work on Vietnam War and related articles, and from his use of sources, it's clear he understands NPOV, especially with that article continually being used by POV pushers YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 06:39, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Support 60% mainspace edits out of 20,000+ edits is quite impressive. You obviously know your way around Misplaced Pages, and you've been here long enough to see what is right on Misplaced Pages and what is wrong. I gladly support this RfA. Neu_tralle 12:30, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Support No problems here. Good luck! Pastor Theo (talk) 14:13, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Support. Looks good. The edit warring question 8 above is a bit strange; the candidate's only contribution to that "edit war" was this edit, which I think anyone would agree is an appropriate removal of - well, whatever that material is. Tan | 39 14:31, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Support; long-time, trustworthy contributor. –Juliancolton |  15:46, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Support as I see no reasons not to and as usual more admins are necessary. --candle•wicke 16:04, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Yep! - Support per Keeper76 and BL Nguyen. Very strong candidate. AdjustShift (talk) 16:18, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Strong Support Looks to be highly qualified. It's wonderful to have a candidate that makes substantial article contributions. This is what the encyclopedia is all about and we need more Admins with this kind of experience! ChildofMidnight (talk) 16:19, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
10. Support. No reason to oppose. OtisJimmyOne 16:22, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
11. Support User has been around since Nov 2004 and 1st RFA clearly shows the user is not after tools and is seeking them only after gaining the necessary experience and as per track the project will only gain with the user getting tools.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 16:56, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
12. Support — long history of working with free content, well aligned with fundamental WP principles, good wiki interaction skills. — Charles Stewart (talk) 17:04, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
13. Support Excellent user, experienced in many areas. Triplestop (talk) 18:56, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
14. Oppose, not enough drama ;) Jozal 19:19, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Support Solid project and article work. Trustworthy, imo.--Koji† 19:21, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
16. Solid support. Wtmitchell is an excellent editor and a great contributor, and I see nothing which leads me to believe the tools would be abused. ···日本穣 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:24, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
17. Support - Long-time, diligent, experienced contributor seeking the tools? Absolutely. Wisdom89 _{(T / )} 19:44, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
18. I'd like to see some more involvement in admin-type areas but you should be fine. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 20:13, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
19. Support I can not recall where I encountered or saw him. However I've got a good impression that he is a sensible and responsive editor with a warm heart, so I have no reason to think that he would abuse his tool.--Caspian blue 22:23, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
20. Support The automated edit percentage is a bit high, and involvement in admin-related areas is a bit low, but I have seen no indication Wtmitchell would misuse the tools. Timmeh 23:58, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
21. Support — Mitchell's nomination and record speak for themselves. I can't see a single thing anybody would oppose over that would have any relevance to adminship. Master&Expert (Talk) 00:29, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
22. Support this clueful candidate.—S Marshall /_Cont 01:26, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
23. Support Wtmitchell has a clear will to help the project and should be given the tools to make that job a little easier. ERK 03:27, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
24. Support has cared for a long time and is very trusted. Won't do anything thoughtless like delete the main page. Royalbroil 04:27, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
25. Support No qualms here. hmwithτ 04:48, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
26. Support Level-headed, been around the block, knows policy well, as shown by (self-deprecating) comments on noticeboards like WP:RS/N and policy pages.John Z (talk) 05:33, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
27. Support Automated edits don't worry me. In fact I don't really care about that at all. WP:WTHN Aditya _ß 08:00, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
28. Support An excellent user. --Siva1979 12:14, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
29. Support Review shows an excellent user ready or an adminship.

    • Amenable to reason and helpful.
    • Also: Owns errors and apologizes for mistakes.
    • Stands firm when correct.
    • A Huggler whose talk page was not littered with multiple pleas to slow down or complaints of overzealous Huggling or CSD tagging is a sign of readiness for greater responsibility. Dlohcierekim (talk) 13:50, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

30. Support This user has met my standards, a) Having significant content contributions and b) Having experience in an adminly area (vandal patrol). Best of luck! Meetare Shappy 13:58, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
31. Support Why not? America69 (talk) 15:31, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
32. Support - mainspace experience coupled with experience in admin-related areas and evident knowledge of policy. Coldmachine 16:35, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
33. I'm Mailer Diablo and I approve this message! - 17:32, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
34. Support Looks great. Ray 17:44, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
35. Support Clean block log, long term civil editor with clue. I disagree with you on question 9 as I think that admins should be ordinary users who can wield a mop when needed without the faff of logging in and out of different accounts. Your deleted edits look pretty good, though I think that this (admins only I'm afraid, so have a look at it when this RFA has ended) merited a {{db-attack}} rather than the {{db-bio}} you flagged it with. Good luck ϢereSpielChequers 18:36, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
36. Support per User:A_Nobody#RfA_Standards as candidate has four barnstars on userpage and zero blocks. Sincerely, --A Nobody 18:47, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
37. Support. Good contributions. Good answers. Axl ¤ 18:56, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
38. Support: why not? South Bay (talk) 20:18, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
39. Support for a mature and valued contributor. Graham Colm 22:25, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
40. Support Great work at the village pump and anti-vandalism. Noticeboard work is not a must. -download ׀ sign! 22:38, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
41. Support – (iMatthew • talk) at 02:26, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
42. Support 20,000+ edits! Although I've only checked a few contibs I can't really find an obvious reason to oppose. With the Opposes being so convincing :) Aaroncrick 02:40, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose 'Cause you gotta have at least 1. ;] - ALLST✰R▼ _{wuz here @} 21:16, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

   May I indent this vote? –Juliancolton |  21:26, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

   Not if it makes Oppose = 0. Otherwise, sure. - ALLST✰R▼ _{wuz here @} 21:44, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

   This joke oppose creates a misleading tally, which is extremely unfair to the candidate. –Juliancolton |  21:45, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

   I agree with Julian completely. Put yourself in the neutral column if you want to jokingly object to the candidate. Otherwise, I'm going to remove this. Wisdom89 _{(T / )} 21:53, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

   How is this less of a valid reason than "why not"? It's not misleading, it's an oppose vote. If you want to discuss it with the editor, you're welcome to do so here or (as I would suggest) on their talk page. ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:37, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

   It's not valid simply because the editor in question isn't being serious. It's not like we're talking about mystifying stuff here. All supports, even moral ones serve a purpose and have a meaning. This one does not. Wisdom89 _{(T / )} 22:42, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

   Those who monitor these elections know to ignore votes such as this, and a "1" in the oppose column is actually a very good message to the candidate. It says, there's no good reason to oppose you, as evidenced by the silly vote. The best reply to such as vote it simply, "Thank you for your vote". -GTBacchus 22:57, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

   Wisdom, I have found your name to be appropriate, but in this particular case I'm uncomfortable with your acting as judge and jury on which votes have "meaning". I understand your concern, and I am sympathetic to the case made for objective standards, as in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for an objective standard of "beauty", but I think we have to let some things go. ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:15, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

   I lol'd. It's just harmless humor, you guys. Worse things have happened to better people. It's a little dickish to do if the guy's got a clean oppose section, but it's not worth a drama-fest.--Koji† 23:27, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

   I had a single oppose vote, and it was ridiculous. I didn't find it dickish at all, in that I'm proud of it. A single ridiculous oppose vote is a better indication of my fitness than any 30 support votes. -GTBacchus 00:33, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

   Let the record reflect that GTBacchus has a master's in new math. ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:00, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Geez, didn't realize it was that big of a deal. Just to note, no one is 100% perfect so even in that thought, 1 oppose is certainly warranted. If it makes anyone feel better, I'll state such next to the oppose !vote. - ALLST✰R▼ _{wuz here @} 01:02, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm in ur rfa's, fixing ur tallies. Syn 01:44, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Zactly. - ALLST✰R▼ _{wuz here @} 01:51, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

1. Oppose This RfA is going to pass, but I just want to go on the record as saying I think it's important for administators' signatures to match their official usernames. Keepscases (talk) 03:08, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Neutral: Lack of audited experience on the noticeboards and the vague issues and judgement calls required with dealing with issues on them. Solid contributor and vandal fighter for sure. Toddst1 (talk) 02:22, 20 June 2009 (UTC)