User:Basket of Puppies/admin

I am seriously considering a request for adminship. I think I can make a lot of valuable contributions if I had just a few more tools. I'd really enjoy to be involved in vandal fighting, new page patrolling and mediation. The use of additional tools, such deletion, would enable me to better serve Wikipedia and further its goals.

I hope to begin answering the "typical" admin questions here so that when I make my formal request I will be able to provide long thought and well written answers.

Chores I hope to be involved in

• New Page Patrolling-Speedy Deletion I hope to be able to further my involvement in new page patrolling by being able to delete pages which decidedly fell within the criteria for speedy deletion.

• Vandal Fighting-Blocking vandals After issuing the appropriate warnings, blocking vandal only accounts and issuing short term blocks for IPs. As well, I hope to be able to semi and fully protect pages from active and ongoing vandalism. (See below for more.)

• Edit warring-Page Protection I hope to sparringly use the protection features (Semi and Full) in order to help with edit wars. At the same time I will attempt to help mediate in order to solve the crux of the warring.

Some of my contributions to Wikipedia

I have only been on Wikipedia since Jan 1, 2009. Certainly that isn't a huge amount of time but since I've come on board I like to think I've made some contributions. Recently the article New Waveland Cafe and Clinic (which I started and heavily contributed to) became a Good Article. I have also been going through random articles and added references to those which need it. I also have been working hard at copy editing and generally tidying up articles.

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?

I do not believe I have had any major editing stresses or conflicts. In fact I have found it extremely easy to work collaboratively with users. I have chimed in on some AfD nominations for articles where there were passionate feelings. In those cases I read thoroughly and carefully the arguments each way and I only speak my voice when I have considered every point. I hope to continue doing things in this way and look forward to excellent collaboration! :)

Administrative Questions

Under what circumstances would you voluntarily give up your adminship/run for reconfirmation?

I firmly believe that the position of admin is one of great trust. At the same time it's no big deal. If the community feels that I have not lived up to the standards I would resign my mop.

You see that another administrator has blocked an editor and you disagree with the block. What would you do?

This is a loaded question! The answer is highly individualistic. It all depends on the reason for the block and the events leading up to it. If the block was done by an uninvolved administrator to someone who was being mildly or moderately disruptive then I would likely intercede in an attempt to mentor and counsel the editor from future issues. It the block was done by an involved administrator due to an edit war or personal attacks the both were involved in then I would certainly bring it up. I feel that administrators need to have open and frank discussions about their actions and should be accountable. If this latter case happened and I saw it I would call them out, but in a very kindly worded way. I believe in reducing drama and friction. You attract more bees with honey and reduce drama by wording things tactfully. However, no admin is above the law and a bad block must be immediately dealt with- up to and including reversing the block, along with trouting the blocking admin.

So how do you feel about cool-down blocks?

I think cool-down blocks are a really bad idea. I don't think they actually cool anyone down and only inflame the situation. If someone in the middle of vandalizing articles or uninterrupted personal attacks then I see no issue with a short preventive block to avoid further vandalism or attacks. However if there is a heated debate I am not in favor of cooldown blocks as they don't cool anything. I highly value dialogue and communication instead.

Did you ever vandalize wikipedia before coming a full time editor?

Nope :)! I am happy to say that I never vandalized Wikipedia. In fact I became an editor because I wanted to learn how to fight vandalism.

Write a sentence with less than 17 words summing yourself up as an admin?

A welcoming, kind, thoughtful administrator who edits and serves Wikipedia for the benefit of humanity.

An edit war breaks out, how do you deal with it? Please explore typical outcomes possible

Edit wars are incredibly common and an integral part of Wikipedia. If an edit war breaks out I hope to help mediate the issue. I would follow dispute resolution and try to get both sides communication directly, with me mediating. It is my hope that both sides can be included, provided they are neutrally written, are reliably sourced and verifiable. It is very likely that both opinion can be included in the article, providing they pass RS, V and NPOV, thus ending the edit war.

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

Yes! Every Wikipedian is welcome to edit and be free from harassment, personal attacks, wikistalking. Every Wikipedian should have an expectation of civility. Thus, I believe Wikipedians have rights.

BLP Questions

Please give a precise explanation of what you believe WP:BLP means. When should one ignore the policy?

BLP has been created in order to protect real people from the real consequences of false information. Wikipedia is an extremely popular site and is utilized as a major source of information by millions of people. Due to the fact that thousands upon thousands of notable living people have articles on Wikipedia there can be real consequences for them if there is false information spread about them. WP:BLP has been created to address these issues and, as a matter of policy, guide in the creation and maintenance of articles falling under the BLP category. All information in the BLPs must be neutrally written, have reliable sourcing and under no circumstances have original research. In the case of finding articles which violate these three tenants I would immediately remove the slanderous information. I would then proceed to rewrite the information following those three factors.

I do not believe that WP:BLP should be ignored. I would be extremely skeptical of any claim of WP:IAR being used to insert slanderous information, original research, tilting the balance of neutrality or lack of sourcing in a BLP.

You are patrolling CAT:CSD and find an unreferenced, new article tagged as {{db-attack}}. The article's first two sentences say, "XYZ is a governor in Estonia. He was thrown in jail for killing his wife and children." You do a Google search on this person, and you discover that XYZ is indeed a governor (and passes WP:BIO). However, you can find no sources to confirm whether or not he killed his family. The rest of the article consists of three sentences of neutral information about the governor's campaigns and his actions in office. Should the article be speedy deleted per WP:BLP?

WP:BLP is something that any editor or administrator who edits biographies should read carefully. In the case above it seems to me that BLP is clearly violated. However I do not think that it automatically qualifies for CSD as there may indeed be notability do the governmental position. If is no WP:RS indicating that this person has been accused or convicted of a crime. Moreover the way it is written is clearly not neutral. I would remove that sentence and only reinsert once reliable sources could be found and the issue could be written about in a neutral way, inline with WP:NPOV.

What is your view of the current BLP situation? Do you believe there is a problem or do you believe that we are doing a sufficient job in maintaining our BLPs and protecting the subjects of them? If the former, please explain how significant you feel the problem is.

BLPs need a lot of help and a lot of attention. There are so many BLP articles which are in need of immediate attention and not enough volunteers. This can change and I am dedicated to changing them. In regarding the issues such as Wikipedia:Flagged revisions requires a great deal of study and careful consideration. So much of Wikipedia is based upon people randomly getting involved. That's how I got here! If there is suddenly a huge gap between what is the general public is seeing- such as a flagged revision- and what active Wikipedia contributors can see then I can only imagine it will be just that much more difficult to get new volunteers. I certainly do see the benefits in having flagged revisions, however, in order to have "clean" versions of the page. I think, however, that the general public knows that vandalism to Wikipedia is built into the process and will refresh the page a few minute later when one of the bots or an editor has sorted it out.

For BLP AFDs resulting in "no consensus", do you believe it is better to default to keep or default to delete? Why?

I believe that the current convention of keep is the appropriate one. As long as the closing admin notes that there is a case (however weak or strong) for notability then I believe keeping the article is appropriate. However that only means the article needs to be carefully tended to in order to see if it can indeed be saved. I have no problem with a second nomination for deletion, as long as the article has had good attention and work.

Imagining you're an admin, you go to close a BLP AFD on a marginally notable individual. Reading through the comments, you see that the subject of the article (identity verified through OTRS) has voiced concerns about false claims that have been made in the article, and wants it to be deleted. How much consideration, if any, do you give to their argument?

I strongly believe in doing no harm. If the identity of someone has been confirmed through OTRS and the person is clearly indicating their article is faulty then I believe the information should be removed. Failing to remove this information might have consequences that could have been avoided quite easily. By doing no harm I feel I would be doing the right thing.