User:JavaTenor/Admin coaching

Are you ready to wield the mop?

Standard RFA questions

Here are the standard RFA questions. Remember that questions are optional, but answering is recommended because it gives !voters a good reflection of your ability.

1. What admin areas do you intend to work in?

   I've spent a fair amount of time around various deletion processes, both through new page patrolling and through the dead-end pages project, which often contains a number of pages meriting proposed or speedy deletion. I think I'd be helpful in clearing out the speedy deletion backlog and closing AFDs, as I believe I have a good grasp of community consensus on deletion-related issues. I've also spent enough time dealing with vandalism that I think I could make myself useful at AIV when necessary. My weakest area is probably image-related policy; I've had little experience in that sphere, so I'd wait to gain more before dealing with any image issues.

2. What do you believe are your best contributions?

   I don't have any featured articles under my belt, but I think I have done a decent job of improving a number of articles from "unacceptable" to "acceptable stub" level, and I generally attempt to perform some due diligence to find sources for articles which have none listed. A few article improvement examples (with before/after diffs) might include Laura Chenel[1], Crispin Porter + Bogusky[2], Barrington Irving (was initially speedied), among various others. I've also done a fair amount of general wikification through the dead-end pages project, and created a few articles when I notice that a subject I'm interested in has no coverage.

3. Have you been in any situation or conflict that's given you stress? How have you handled them?

   There's a particular IP editor (at least, I assume it's the same person, has used multiple IPs) who has an axe to grind against a particular Bay Area sports personality, and really, really, doesn't appreciate my attempts to keep the article compliant with our biographies of living persons and |neutral point of view policies. Pretty standard online flamewar stuff, I suppose, and I just handled it through normal channels and didn't lose my cool (it eventually got annoying reverting my talk page waiting for a block, though). Otherwise, I have certainly engaged in discussion in some wikipolitical spaces which have gotten pretty heated, but I generally attempt to be a voice of reason and calm whenever possible, and I will disengage if I feel the discussion's reached a counterproductive level of rancor.

Checklist

Your answers were pretty good. Usually it's best to be specific and to mention the most notable events or articles. Now here's a checklist that you might want to run thorough considering your experience. Have you:

• Requested a vandal to be blocked at WP:AIV?

  Yes, a number of times - [3], [4], [5],

[6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16]

• Requested protection at WP:RPP?

  Only twice: [17], [18]

• Given a third opinion or otherwise helped to act as a neutral party in a dispute?

  I don't believe I have done so in any formal capacity, but I will keep an eye open for opportunities to do so.

• !voted in an WP:RFA?

  Yes, quite a few - I can provide diffs if that would be helpful.

• Reviewed an editor at WP:ER?

  No.

• Had an editor review?

  No.

• Welcomed a user?

  Not with welcome templates, although I've made some attempts to help new users who appear to have some misunderstandings about Wikipedia - see [19] for an example, as well as [20] and [21] - I sometimes worry that we are too WP:BITEy as a community..

• Taken a look at any Wikipedia philosophies?

  I've enjoyed reading through the various philosophy pages on meta. I generally consider myself to be a moderate on the inclusion/deletion spectrum, in that I will generally make efforts to improve an article up for AFD if I believe it to be a poor article on an encyclopedically valid topic.

• Participated in a discussion at WP:AN or WP:ANI?

  Yes, whenever I feel my contribution will be helpful.

• Contributed to the Reference desk?

  I've only ever posed one question there, but it seems like a place I could make myself useful.

• Read the Signpost?

  I have it delivered to my userpage, although I don't read every issue.

• Used any .js tools or installed any editing helpers (e.g. TWINKLE, popups, etc.)

  I use Twinkle extensively, for new pages and vandalism patrolling.

If you haven't tried these, you might want to consider giving them a whirl. I'd like to know which ones you've done and which ones you might want to work on or interest you. These will all help you gain experience as to how to be a better admin. bibliomaniac15 01:56, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

More questions

Thanks for the diffs. It's a good habit to add diffs to your statement. Now here's some common questions that you might see pop up in RFAs.

1. How would you apply IAR to your contributions? How would you apply it if you were made an admin?

   WP:IAR needs to be invoked sparingly, in my opinion; there's a reason the community has developed its policies and guidelines, and it's a mistake to blithely disregard them whenever they seem inconvenient. I would state that an administrative IAR action, in my opinion, ought only to be taken in a situation in which the administrator believes that their action reflects consensus and in which the administrator is fully willing to justify the action afterward.

2. Would you place yourself on Category:Administrators open to recall?

   Yes - I believe administrators should remain accountable to the community. I think the recall process needs some fleshing out and formalization, though, as it's currently a bit vague for my tastes.

3. What are your personal criteria for a potential admin?

   Experience with and knowledge of various areas of the encyclopedia, a willingness to discuss and examine multiple sides of various issues, communicativeness, evenhandedness, helpfulness, and a willingness and desire to continue learning. It's also important that an admin knows what he or she doesn't know - that is, be able to honestly assess the limitations of his or her knowledge and expertise, and when to defer to others if necessary.

I also forgot to ask about your experience with images. You don't need to be very experienced at all, since it's a very grueling subject, but you should be at least knowledgable in fair use. bibliomaniac15 06:01, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I've never uploaded an image, but I'm generally familiar with our policies on when fair use is acceptable: when an image serves an important encyclopedic purpose and no free image could be reasonably obtained as a replacement. It's important that Wikipedia retain as high a proportion of free content as possible.

Editing patterns

I'd like to know what your editing patterns are. Do you check your watchlist first, or do you head for Recent Changes first? Where do you tend to put effort, both in mainspace and in wiki-space? If we can identify how you edit, it would be easier to see what your strengths are and where you need improvement. bibliomaniac15 21:49, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Generally, my watchlist is my first order of business - I have a number of guideline and policy pages watchlisted so I can comment on any debates there, as well as a number of encyclopedia articles I'm interested in. After that, there are a number of areas I'll look at, depending on my available time and what I happen to feel like doing that day:

• If I want to do some patrolling, I'll usually go to new pages, then recent changes
• If I want to do some more involved cleanup, wikification, and/or searching for sources, I go to the dead-end pages project and try to help with pages there
• I generally try to skim AFD every few days to see if there are any debates in which my input would be helpful
• As I notice topics I'm interested in that don't yet have articles, I'll work on creating those articles (only when I have a fair amount of spare time, as even stub-creation requires more focused effort than the items above).
• If none of the above interests me, I'll look at various other cleanup-related projects.

Are you in any WikiProjects? bibliomaniac15 01:43, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I have added my name to the membership lists for several WikiProjects that interest me (including San Francisco Bay Area, musical theatre, and video games, but I haven't been especially active in any of them. JavaTenor (talk) 08:52, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

What-if questions

Now we're getting to the good stuff. These are the questions that users will very likely ask you on an RFA. If you can display your knowledge of policy and show that you can act in such a manner, you'll be able to win support for yourself.

• You described your best contributions, but what do you believe are your weaknesses? If you were made an admin, what tasks would you have to read up on? What tasks do you feel you would totally avoid?
  • As mentioned, I'm probably weak in the area of image-related policy, as I've never uploaded an image before or dealt with much image-related discussion. I would probably leave any major image-related tasks to other admins until I've had more of an opportunity to familiarize myself with that aspect of the encyclopedia.
• If you could change one policy without any fear of opposition or reversion, what would it be? What changes would you make?
  • This has been suggested before by others, and I believe it may be a good idea (although it would have to be monitored for WP:CREEP): splitting speedy deletion. There are some pages tagged for speedy deletion which fall into the "absolutely needs to go right now" category: attack pages, blatant copyright violation, etc., but there are others which are obvious speedy candidates but which would not harm the encyclopedia (or anyone else) if allowed to remain for an extra twenty minutes (average non-notable garage band, for example). This would allow the speedy deletion backlog to be organized by priority. (Again, though, we'd need to make sure this didn't add unnecessary complexity)
• When do you feel it is appropriate to decline a request in WP:AIV?
  • A number of situations: no warnings given to user, no vandalism since final warning, no recent activity. A request should also be declined, of course, if the edits being reported aren't actually vandalism.
• A user requests semi-protection of an article, but you fully protect it. Why?
  • Semi-protection is appropriate to prevent vandalism from anonymous editors; protection is appropriate if an article is undergoing an edit war and the parties involved aren't discussing the changes on the article's talk page. In this circumstance, it seems as if the user making the request may have misrepresented or misinterpreted the situation on the article - perhaps the recent edit pattern is more complex than simple IP vandalism. Alternately, major WP:BLP problems can also require full-protection while the issue is resolved.
• An administrator speedy deleted an article under G11. Later, you notice that an newcomer has recreated the article. Should you delete the article under G1, G4, both, or do something else? How would you "break the news" to the newbie?
  • G4 doesn't apply in this circumstance; it's reserved for recreated pages which had previously been deleted as the result of a deletion discussion. G1 is also unlikely to apply, unless the page is both nonsense and an advertisement. If G11 still applied (the newcomer recreated the article without improving it), it would be appropriate to delete it again under G11. I would then attempt to convey the rationale for the deletion to the newcomer; if he/she is communicative, I would offer some ideas on how to avoid similar deletion issues in the future and, if I believe the article to be potentially salvageable, perhaps suggest that the newcomer spend some time working on a new version in a userspace sandbox.

Assignment

This is just a little optional thing. Essays are a big part of Wikipedian culture. They give us valuable tips and outlooks on policy. The assignment is to write an essay of your own. It could be about anything: your reflections on a policy, a tip for how to stay cool and assume good faith, or just some humorous, tongue-in-cheek interpretation of a policy. bibliomaniac15 19:31, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure, I'll give this some thought. I may provide my own take on WP:BITE, which I think is too often disregarded.

Moving along

Here's a few more questions that have popped up in RFAs recently:

• Where do you see Wikipedia in the next 3 years?
  • This is an interesting one, as the web changes rapidly (and 3 years ago, Wikipedia was a very different place). I think we're likely to see some sort of flagged revisions/stable versions implemented to reduce the incentive to vandalize (and the risk of major BLP problems). I will be curious to see if any of the competitors/alternatives will have succeeded to a greater extent than they have thus far (Google's knol initiative has received quite a bit of press of late, of course). On a more sobering note, I think it possible that we'll need to consider implementing advertising or some other revenue stream if the current fundraiser model doesn't meet the Foundation's needs in the future. On the whole, though, I think the outlook is pretty bright, and I think it likely that Wikipedia will remain a strong free-content resource and an invaluable reference work in years to come.
• What is the difference between banning and an indefinite block?
  • In general, a ban is a restriction on an editor, while a block is a restriction on an account. Bans need not be indefinite (limited-duration bans are possible) or global (topic bans are possible). Conversely, an indefinite block of an account does not necessarily imply that its owner is unwelcome to contribute under another account; for instance, users with accounts indefinitely blocked for violating the username policy are often allowed to choose a more appropriate name and create a new account.
• How would you deal with an extreme POV-pusher who has not vandalized?
  • In general, one should pursue the steps outlined in the dispute resolution policy. If the user is extraordinarily disruptive, that can be escalated more rapidly to a discussion on WP:AN/I or another relevant noticeboard, of course.
• Have you used or do you still use alternate accounts?
  • Other than perhaps a few IP edits I've made when I forget to log in, no.

More questions

• Why is wheel-warring a bad thing, and how can you prevent it?
  • Wheel-warring is a bad thing for many of the same reasons that edit-warring is a bad thing - it creates confusion, disruption, and potential strife. To prevent it, it's important to seek consensus, to discuss the underlying issue calmly, and to be aware when your action is reverting another administrator's action and be explicit about what you're doing and why (and of course, not starting a wheel war if someone else reverts you!).
• How would you deal with uncited edits in a biography of a living person?
  • The biographies of living persons policy is clear on this issue: unreferenced contentious information in such articles should be removed, and not replaced until a suitable source can be found. Even in the presence of sources, contentious information must be handled carefully to ensure that it isn't given undue weight.
• Do you ever believe that biting the newcomers is a bad thing, and how would you avoid it?
  • It's certainly a bad thing: we were all newbies once, and Wikipedia can be an unwelcoming place at times, especially to people who aren't well-versed in its policies and practices. One good way to avoid this problem is to assume good faith, and attempt to converse rationally with new editors who are having problems contributing constructively. Often, a newbie's first experience with Wikipedia will be having their first article tagged with a speedy tag, and it's essential to be calm and pleasant in explaining to them why their chosen subject might not be suitable, and to help them develop the article in userspace if appropriate. It's also important to avoid using various inscrutable acronyms in dealing with newcomers; too often I see people using messages like "This article needs WP:RS to satisfy WP:V and WP:N", which of course comes across quite poorly. In general, if we help our newcomers understand how to get around here, Wikipedia will be a richer place for it.

End?

I think you have shown yourself to be a capable user and that we can stop admin coaching, but I would like to wait until you reach 3000+ edits before nominating you for adminship. I don't want you to be failed just because some people decide to judge you solely on your edits. That said, I really think you've shown yourself to be a user in good standing. Keep up the good work, and I would recommend you to

1. Take an editor review to clear up anything else you might need to improve.
2. Participate in RFAs and note the questions that come up.
3. Take an active look at the administrative noticeboards.

If you feel that you have some questions that are unresolved or anything, just ask me. bibliomaniac15 02:20, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good, thanks. I'll let you know when wannabe kate tells me I'm over 3000ish. JavaTenor (talk) 22:23, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I just noticed that I'm listed under "inactive requests" on the coaching page. Should I just remove myself there, or put myself in "matched requests", or something else? JavaTenor (talk) 23:27, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I think you can move to matched and say that your coaching is complete. bibliomaniac15 23:39, 2 January 2008 (UTC)