Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 17:32, 31 July 2012

Mr. Stradivarius

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (27/0/0); Scheduled to end 11:30, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Nomination

Mr. Stradivarius (talk · contribs) – It's not often that I come across a user and I'm genuinely surprised that they are not an administrator. Mr. Stradivarius, however, definitely fits into that category. Although he's been editing solidly for over 18 months, I only noticed Mr. Stradivarius when he helped to steer the mediation of WP:V to an actual conclusion. A thankless task, staying neutral despite the strength of opinion behind the groups, yet he managed it. Once it was over, he wandered straight out and started again.

Such skill in dispute resolution and mediation would be enough for me to nominate an editor, but Mr. Stradivarius has far more to offer. He's the top contributor to the dispute resolution noticeboard, has an excellent looking CSD log, spends time at articles for deletion and even finds time to write about teaching and learning foreign languages.

Mr. Stradivarius has an excellent combination of knowledge and demeanour, helps out all over the place and knows how to handle difficult situations. I cannot recommend this candidate strongly enough. Worm(talk) 10:01, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Co-nomination by Steven Zhang

Hi all - I'm happy to offer a co-nomination for Mr. Straidvarius. Worm that Turned has left me very little to say that's not already been said. Mr. Stradivarius has all the qualities I look for in a potential administrator - excellent knowledge of policy, broad participation in all areas of Misplaced Pages, quality contributions to articles, and most importantly, excellent performance in dispute resolution. The way he handled the verifiability mediation and the fact that as a result of his efforts a workable conclusion was brought to the dispute is monumental. I admire his dedication to the project and know that he will do a superb job as an administrator. I wish him my support and the best of luck. Steven Zhang 11:05, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept. — Mr. Stradivarius 11:25, 31 July 2012 (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 out with CSD work and closing AfD discussions, the two administrative areas in which I have spent the most time. After I have gained more experience I intend to branch out into other areas as well, for example helping at Misplaced Pages:Requests for page protection and answering some of the requests for closure at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure. Eventually I would like to help with a broad range of admin tasks, but I plan on going slowly and asking for help with anything that I am new at. The extra buttons that admins get have the potential to cause some serious grief if used badly, so I plan on taking my time.

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

A: I'm a language teacher by trade, and my main area of focus when writing articles is language education and second-language acquisition. Probably my best article is Silent Way, about a method of language teaching, followed by Second-language acquisition, which I have been a major contributor to. I am also quite fond of the Natural approach article, and of Interaction hypothesis, both of which I wrote from scratch. I was first drawn to Misplaced Pages when I noticed the choppy coverage of foreign language education, and it gives me a great sense of accomplishment to see that I am doing a small part to correct that imbalance.

I have also written a few articles as a result of my experiences at AfD and doing new page patrol. I expanded Armada 2526 from a two-sentence stub after it was kept at AfD, and I started New York University Abu Dhabi after a related article popped up at Special:NewPages. The idea for writing Performance calligraphy came after I noticed the Shodo Girls article while doing new page patrol, and I thought that it was an interesting gap in our coverage that could be filled. Then there are the other stubs that I have written as a result of new page patrolling, which are nothing special content-wise, but which I hope have helped to make the experience of our new contributors a little bit less confusing. For example, I wrote Nicklaus Design to create a redirect target for this page, and I expanded Enable Scotland from this version to save it from speedy deletion.

Recently I have been spending time working with templates, particularly the speedy deletion templates and notices. My contribution here with the most impact must be my rewrite of {{db-notice-multiple}}, which solved a long-standing problem with pages nominated for speedy deletion under multiple criteria. Previously, editors who had their articles deleted under multiple criteria just saw a generic warning message on their user talk page, which didn't really give the author much idea of what they might have done wrong. With the update users get advice on how to deal with each specific reason for deletion, which hopefully has saved a few new editors from leaving the project. I also wrote {{NewDRNsubmission}}, the old template for submitting disputes at the dispute resolution noticeboard, and {{csdcheck}}, to help other authors of speedy deletion templates.

Having said all of this, my best overall contributions to Misplaced Pages are probably in the area of dispute resolution. I am a volunteer at the dispute resolution noticeboard and have managed to rack up over 650 edits there. I was also one of the coordinators at the Mediation Cabal (before it recently shut down), and in May this year I became a member of the Mediation Committee. I've lost count of the number of disputes I've helped to deal with, but this link might give people a rough idea. A couple of the more memorable disputes from DRN were the Lotus E20 dispute and the Flag of Western Sahara dispute (plus accompanying RfC). If I had to name one dispute which I was the most proud of being involved with, however, I would choose the MedCab mediation of Misplaced Pages:Verifiability and the resulting RfC which was closed yesterday (July 30). That is the biggest dispute I have dealt with, and I am very pleased that there is finally some consensus on the issue. Also, dealing with a mediation this big has taught me a lot, and hopefully should stand me in good stead for my next project.

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 haven't been in any disputes for a good long while now. Language education is a very quiet corner of Misplaced Pages, and it is rare enough to see another editor there, let alone get in a dispute with them. I do have to deal with angry or distressed users from time to time as part of new page patrolling (for example here and here), but nothing that I would call an actual dispute. The last time I got into an actual dispute was at Radioactive contamination from the Rocky Flats Plant in September 2011, and before that at Chinaman (term) in June 2011. In both those cases I managed to remain calm, and they were both resolved with help from dispute resolution processes - the first from a third opinion and the second at a dispute resolution noticeboard thread. With my work in dispute resolution I've become pretty good at being patient and negotiating solutions, and I know Misplaced Pages's dispute resolution system very well now. If I get into any disputes in the future, I'll just apply this knowledge and get outside input if it seems necessary.

General comments

• Links for Mr. Stradivarius: Mr. Stradivarius (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
• Edit summary usage for Mr. Stradivarius can be found here.
• Stats posted on talk page. Armbrust, B.Ed. _{The Undertaker 20–0} 11:41, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

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

Discussion

Support

1. As co-nominator. Steven Zhang 11:29, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
2. Support. Exceptional work on the WP:V policy revision demonstrating exceptional patience and ability to get the best from widely differing ranges of community opinion. Leaky Caldron 11:35, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
3. Obvious. Worm(talk) 11:36, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
4. Support; this transparent attempt to wilfully cause another unanimous promotion! His impressive work at Misplaced Pages:Mediation Cabal/Cases/27 February 2012/Wikipedia:Verifiability alone would have convinced me to support. — Coren  11:37, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
5. Support In the often-fraught world of Misplaced Pages editing, admins who can smoothly handle complex disputes are an absolute necessity. Mr Stradivarius fits the bill; handing him the toolset would be to everyone's advantage. Yunshui 雲‍水 11:40, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
6. Support; previous encounters with Mr Stadivarius (usually around DR) have left me with the imrpession that they'd be a net positive as an admin. The editors above say just what I wanted to say, but more eloquently. bobrayner (talk) 11:43, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
7. Support. Content creation isn't great, but otherwise, Mr. Stradivarius is a fine candidate. Axl ¤ 11:57, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
8. Support Obvious The ultimate diplomat, civil person, careful person, strong credentials and track record dealing with disputes. North8000 (talk) 12:20, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
9. Looks sound to me. GiantSnowman 12:26, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
10. Support per Leaky's comments about WP:V, per Yunshui's observations, Coren's faith, and my own experience and confidence that Mr. Stradivarius will use the tools wisely and with the full trust of the community. This appears to be Misplaced Pages's "Summer of Love" at RfA, and I am quite pleased that so many truly exceptional candidates have offered to serve the community. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 12:36, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
11. Support We've crossed paths and in a good way. Excellent demeanor. Also, he talked about some template work he'd done but didn't mention how good he is at it. I fulfilled a bunch of complicated requests for him, that he could have used the tools to do himself.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk)
12. Support - Has done great work at Misplaced Pages:V. On the other hand, I have seen him work and was pretty impressed myself thus I see no reason why not to support. Another example of a candidate for adminship who is so close to be perfect. TheSpecialUser  13:15, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
13. Support, with the very, very highest of enthusiasm. I've just spent a few months working with the candidate at the WP:V discussions, and I've seen his work first-hand. This is a truly great member of the Misplaced Pages community – intelligent, articulate, clueful, careful with people's feelings. I cannot imagine anyone whom I would trust more with the tools. --Tryptofish (talk) 13:22, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
14. Support per many of the above. Fully qualified candidate. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:23, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
15. Support Per all of the above. Darkness Shines (talk) 13:37, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
16. Support I've seen him around and always found him to be a good editor. He has great strength in his nominators and his strength at mediating is exactly what is needed for an administrator. Ryan Vesey 13:41, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
17. Easy. Another thought-he-was-already in a pleasingly long list of late. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:38, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
18. Trustworthy and competent. Unreserved support. AGK 14:42, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
19. Support (for Brad;). I've seen useful and clueful comments from this user, so no worries.  Br'erRabbit  14:51, 31 July 2012 (UTC) ← Street-Legal Sockpuppet. — Br'er Rabbit (talk) 14:51, 31 July 2012 (UTC) (nb)
20. No reason to oppose this candidate, and every reason to support him. His fantastic work with dispute resolution and mediation shows he has exactly the right attitude and temperament to deal with the more challenging areas of adminship, and I have no doubts that he will use the tools well. ItsZippy 14:52, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
21. I had seen Mr. Stradivarius around AfD in the past, so I specifically took a longer look at his AfD work. I saw familiarity with our our policies and precedents, even-handed application, common sense, a willingness to actually dig into sourcing questions in depth, and a willingness to turn around his opinion based on new evidence when appropriate. I imagine that many of these qualities are present in the other areas he chooses to work in, and they will serve him well as an admin. --j⚛e decker 14:59, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
22. Support -- Wagino 20100516 (talk) 15:18, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
23. Support - looks fine to me. Deb (talk) 15:22, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
24. Support--Morning Sunshine (talk) 15:25, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
25. Support, seems level-headed and clueful. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:31, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
26. Support - I admit to a bit of bias here but I always consider experience at MEDCAB to be very useful for prospective admins, as dispute resolution is a core part of what we're asked to do. There's plenty of experience in other admin-related areas as well, and I'm familiar with Mr. Stradivarius from places on the project and happily support his candidacy. -- Atama頭 17:09, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
27. Support - Always a pleasure to work with on wiki! Yes, please! :) SarahStierch (talk) 17:31, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral