User:Aren't I Obscure?/RFA Test

RandyWang

Voice your opinion! Ending 13:17, 2006-08-29 (UTC)

RandyWang (talk · contribs) – I've been active at Wikipedia for a little under five months now, although I've been registered since May 2005. In my time here, I've developed a strong involvement in a number of projects, particularly WikiProject CVG (most importantly, maintaining the list of CVG deletions, and contributing to those debates), NewPage Patrolling and, recently, responding to all new requests for Editor Review in the most helpful way that I can.

I've yet to produce an FA-class article, sadly, but I'm working on that. My involvement at articles such as Personal computer game (an ongoing attempt at improvement) and cleanup of Digital Rights Management are examples of major contributions I've made, and I believe they demonstrate a level of competence in editing articles, and my two Editor reviews (the most recent of which can be found here) are the result of my eagerness to improve.

The majority of my activity is in CVG-related projects, and NewPage Patrolling. Because of my specific involvement in these two activities, I would appreciate the ability to clear backlogs at CAT:CSD and close debates at WP:AFD; I'd certainly like to take a bite into those tasks, rather than simply palming the work off to someone else. RandyWang (^chat/_patch) 12:38, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept, of course. RandyWang (^chat/_patch) 13:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia in this capacity. Please take the time to answer a few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:

1. What sysop chores, if any, would you anticipate helping with? Please check out Category:Wikipedia backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.

A: As mentioned in my introduction above, I would mainly like to help with clearing deletion backlogs, especially at CAT:CSD. I spend a large amount of my free time adding to other peoples' workloads by tagging new articles for speedy deletion, so I would definitely appreciate the ability to cut into the backlogs that I've helped to create in the past.

Moreover, my experience with WP:AFD debates has increased my interest in closing AfDs, since I've developed a good knowledge of Wikipedia policy as it relates to the inclusion of articles. I'd like to involve myself in closing these debates, rather than simply voting on them, especially in cases that appear to approach WP:SNOW and the like - that is, where a clear consensus has already been developed.

Finally, I am a quick and eager learner, so would happily involve myself in any other activites needing particular attention at Category:Wikipedia backlog.

2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?

A: I'm quite happy with a number of my contributions to Wikipedia, especially in my work at articles such as Personal computer game (which is currently ongoing, with a number of major changes pending on the talk page), Digital Rights Management through my involvement with the Cleanup Task Force, and "minor" articles such as Point of information and Comedy debate.

Aside from those contributions, I'm very happy to help out in giving reviews (and posting editing statistics) for users at WP:ER, largely because it gives me a chance to promote valuable activities such as recent change patrolling that new and inexperienced users tend to neglect. I'm happy that I've been able to remain civil throughout my dealings with users under review, and always try to present suggestions as a means of improvement, rather than as a criticism, and with an appropriate level of explanation.

3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

A: Oh, of course I have. Indeed, when I first came to Wikipedia ("for reals," this previous May) I came almost immediately into a conflict with User:Xino, which persisted for a number of weeks. My involvement in the dispute prompted me to check out Wikipedia's various Dispute Resolution processes, leading first to a request for a third opinion (responded to by the sadly-departed admin, Katefan0), and eventually to a Request for Arbitration. Xino was blocked shortly thereafter, although I'd have preferred for him to simply continue editing in a moderated way (he did contribute useful content, after all).

This very first conflict taught me a lot about the way we deal with disputes at Wikipedia. Since then, I have always attempted to disassociate myself from conflicts, in the sense that I keep in them perspective - they're disputes on a website, not personal attacks from close friends. With that mindset, I find that it's fairly easy to prevent myself from becoming offended by other users', and always try to walk away from conflicts when I realise that I've acted in error. I have done so in the past, and will continue to do so in the future: with a sense of perspective, I find that editing Wikipedia has remained consistently enjoyable throughout various conflicts during my time here.

Optional Question from Yanksox

4. Two Parts

Part A:You are an admin on NPP, and you encounter 5 pages which are:

- - This
  - This
  - This
  - This
  - This

What do you do with each page and why?

Part B: Do you believe that the critea at WP:CSD is the only critea that should exist for speedy deletion? Why or why not?

Thank you, Yank sox 17:06, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Comments

See RandyWang's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool.
My current editing statistics, according to Flcelloguy's tool. RandyWang (^chat/_patch) 13:17, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Statistics for: RandyWang
(Permissions: N/A)
- Total: 3070 -
Main: 1179
Talk: 316
User: 268
User talk: 439
Wikipedia: 755
Wikipedia talk: 55
Image: 36
Image talk: 3
Template: 11
Template talk: 1
Category: 5
Portal: 2
-------------------
Total edits: 3070
w/ edit summary: 2946 (95.96%*)
w/ manual edit summary: 2816 (91.72%*)
Minor edits: 1003 (32.67%*)
First known edit: May 22, 2005
-------------------
* - percentages are rounded down to the nearest hundredth.
-------------------

Support

Support --Ter e nce Ong _{(T | C)} 13:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Weak support - I've been consistently impressed with all that I've seen this user do: his knowledge of policy, civility, and kindness are exemplary. His answers to the questions are also very good. Srose (talk) 13:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC) Update - changed to weak support in lieu of CrazyRussian's concern, although it doesn't trouble me too much - I've seen articles tagged within a minute of creation. Srose (talk) 14:27, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Support User:Bunchofgrapes (talk)
Vote added by 205.188.116.67 (talk · contribs). - CrazyRussian talk/email 14:05, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Weak support, apparently a hard-working editor, but needs to be a bit more careful with the speedy tags. Kusma (討論) 14:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Support good answers, oppose reasons currently seem rather trivial in my view.--Andeh 15:08, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
switch to Weak support after edit conflict per Kusma. Of course, the times he was right do not show up in his contribs. :) Dlohcierekim 15:17, 22 August 2006 (UTC)Further rationale-- In his talk pages, he seems knowledgeable and articulate. I think the Xino affair shows he can handle conflict constructively. I believe if he takes a little more time to think things through he will make the right decisions. Also, with the delay between the time an article is tagged for speedy deletion and the time he'll get to it, the editor of the article will have been able to improve it out CSD criteria. A lot of new articles look like gibberrish. It is not practical when checking new articles to leave an article and then come back to it. If the creator can fix it before the admin deletes it or intends to, there is always the "hang on" tag. As an admin, he can compare the tagged version with the current one and then decide. :) Dlohcierekim 19:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Support Rama's arrow 15:36, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
support «ct» (t|e) 16:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Support - RandyWang does a great job as an editor reviewer. --Alex ^{talk here} 18:55, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

Oppose. Began a review of contributions, found this from earlier this morning. Unacceptable laxity - and biting to boot. - CrazyRussian talk/email 13:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not ready to make a final determination, but this was a speedy deletion nomination on an article that was only 3 minutes old, and he did not try to contact the author who is a newbie. One of my pet peeves and a red flag for me. Thatcher131 (talk) 14:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
People just need to remember to do new page patrol from the bottom. The top only needs to be checked for WP:CSD#A6 pages, everything else violates WP:BITE. I don't disagree with the speedy tag on the article in question, though. It is about a player who plays in a club that we don't even have an article about. Kusma (討論) 14:06, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
It's the 3 minutes and lack of talk contact that bother me, not the article content in this specific case. Thatcher131 (talk) 14:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Have you ever actually done newpage patrol? There are thousands of new articles every few hours... we can't really keep up with them even under the current practice, if we were required to wait for a reply from the creator (owner?) of the article to do anything, things would be even worse. That said, the article clearly asserts importance (even if arguably dubious) and adding a speedy tag was not good. Newpage patrolling only works if you have a clear grasp of what can and can't be speedied. We're not just sweeping things under the rug. Not sure if the candidate should be opposed over one db-bio though. --W.marsh 14:29, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

He didn't know that in three minutes. It took me longer to find the links. Besides, Gaelic football turns out to be wildly underrepresented, but All-Ireland Senior Club Football Championship does say that Nemo Rangers won it in 02-03. - CrazyRussian talk/email 14:11, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
First, thanks for pointing that out - I hadn't realised I'd bitten a newbie, and I'll try to keep my wits about me for such transgressions in the future. I was careless with this one, especially in light of this subsequent edit by User:ERcheck, which I didn't see until now. I've left the user in question a note on his talk page about it, and will certainly take more care to communicate with such users in the future. RandyWang (^chat/_patch) 14:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
In fact, of the 8 most recent {{db}}'s I can find in your contributions, all of them were tagged 2 minutes or less after their first edit, with no user talk, and many were newbies. (In a couple of cases you talked with the author after s/he contested the speedy). I may continue this on the talk page. Thatcher131 (talk) 14:32, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Oppose for a few reasons. First, the diff provided by Crzrussian shows a lack of understanding of very basic notability policies. For those unfamiliar with Gaelic football and it's representation on Wikipedia, playing in the All-Ireland Cup is a very big deal. While the sport and its athletes are undercovered on Wikipedia, there are at least 100 articles on footballers and managers. What's more is that Seán O'Brien was already on Wikipedia as a redlink here. This is especially concerning if the user wants to use the admin buttons to deal with the CSD backlog and close AfD's. Also, half of the candidate's edits have been made in the past month. This leads me to believe that this RfA is a bit premature and the candidate would do well to have some more experience hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 14:15, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
The candidate also attempted to speedy Burger Geldenhuys, the most capped player on the Blue Bulls and Hashem Zaidan an international professional basketball player. All of these misplacements occured today. hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 15:02, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

~~Oppose~~ I keep running into instances where the speedy tag was misapplied in Randy's edits. I need an admin who understands speedy deletes better than I do. That way when I misapply a tag, they can remove it and tell where I went wrong instead of deleting the article. :) Dlohcierekim 14:27, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I would also like to see more AfD work. Cheers. :) Dlohcierekim 14:58, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Some difs of articles (that weren't speedied) would be helpful please.--Andeh 15:05, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Check out the articles I provided (as well as Nenagh Éire Óg GAA, which the candidate also attempted to speedy today). hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 15:11, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it was this revision which was tagged and I don't blame Randy for it. It looks copied and pasted from somewhere and also note this part "Burger Geldenhuys was a tough player but will probably always be remembered for punching the NZ Cavaliers captrain".--Andeh 15:15, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
About the tagging of Hashem Zaidan, he tagged the revision - "Qatari Center who is 6'10" and is a very good rebounder. He is considered to be the tallest player on Qatar's roster." I'm sorry but I've never heard of 'Qatar's Roster'. If the edit linked to the team or said they were are professional basket ball player then it would be describing their notability.--Andeh 15:22, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Tagging of Nenagh Éire Óg GAA looks fine to me.--Andeh 15:23, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
A club that plays in front of 60,000 fans regularly is non-notable? hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 15:45, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Where is that in the article?--Andeh 18:19, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The articles were pretty skimpy and hindsight is 20-20. :) Dlohcierekim 15:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
All the more reason to wait a few minutes and give users a chance to add content. Not everyone (including myself) creates full articles in their sandbox and then transfers them to mainspace. hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 15:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Oppose - we cannot bite the newbies for using progressive saves. New Pages Patrol is not Whack-a-mole. -- nae'blis 17:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Neutral

Neutral leading towards support. Some of the speedy deletion tags are used in articles which have some notable content in them. His lack of basic notablility policies is also a concern. But his civility and kindness is outstanding, which cannot be ignored. I also wish to state that users also learn from their mistakes as well (in reference to the speedy deletion tags). Might change to support in the future if this comes very close. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 17:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Neutral per Siva.--Kungfu Adam ^(talk) 18:19, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Neutral - Crzrussian has a point, but I really can't blame RandyWang for it. However, it is a self-nom, which although showing guts, requires higher standards. May change to weak support later, depending on his answers to Yanksox's questions and such. Good luck though, Zapptastic (talk) 20:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)