User:Tedder/RfA

starting a page for future RfA application (hopefully).

Statement

I've been on en.wikipedia since April 2005, though at a low velocity for a large amount of that time. I fell in love with Wikipedia while I spent 6 months traveling through Latin America by motorbike; I would cache about 100-200 pages, read them offline, then have another 100-200 pages queued up for the next time I found internet access (and power for the laptop!). In fact, I made a few dozen edits during this time period, and added some photos too.

I've spent some of my time working on antivandalism. However, I've done much more than hit the "vandalism" button: I also spend time cleaning up articles, adding infoboxes, and finding and verifying information.

When I'm bored or not tackling larger edits, I have spent time in the NewPages backlog. I made some early mistakes, but feel I have a decent handle on what is covered under the various speedy guidelines. I've learned to do more than simply mark for speedy or mark as patrolled: depending on how the article fits into Wikipedia, I'll tag the article for improvements, welcome the editor with Friendly, and (most importantly) add at least one WikiProject to the talk page. For instance, I proposed an article for deletion, added it to a project, and let the project know in case they were interested.

Thanks for your consideration.

Answers to questions

1. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?

My intent is to help with antivandal and article-building efforts through areas like AIV, RPP, and AFD. I have some experience in those areas as a user. I'd also like to get involved with the AbuseFilters, which is harder to do this without having access to the AbuseFilter bit.

There are certainly admin backlogs I could contribute to, such as RPP. I've seen articles come across my watchlist or EAR that could use some quick page protection to facilitate discussion and consensus.

Finally, being able to review deletions will help in me cases where an article has been recreated and I'm trying to investigate its history.

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

I've started a few articles. I'm proud of the article on Black Rage (book); it's something I knew little about, yet I was able to research it and immediately have an impressive (if short) article. I've also created articles for Oak Grove Hydroelectric Project, Cash4Gold.com, Friends of Coal (done while motorcycling and camping across the US, which explains the speedy nomination), Ladd Tower (and the great photos on that page), First Regiment Armory Annex (plus its main photo), as well as few small articles for the barely-alive WikiProject Motorcycling, and the start of a page on the ARC TF Juan Ricardo Oyola Vera (check it out- very unique vessel!).

I also have a talent for "lateral editing". For instance, I've cleaned up every existing high school entry in Oregon, plus some additional communities well outside of Oregon (like this and this). Now that I finished the cleanup, I've been creating redlinked high schools in Oregon- in the above list, it's pretty clear where I've left off.

This is part of the reason I want to wield the mop- to do things like noncontroversial speedy deletes for moves. I'm also proud that I got my first DYK for Clatskanie Middle/High School. I'm not a FA/GA creator, but I feel that I can make up for it with incremental improvements.

Finally, I'm happy with my "non-article" work, such as summarizing a longterm sock: Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Pioneercourthouse.

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?

Oh, certainly. I created a RFC/UC not long ago, and I should have represented myself better in the situation. There are also ongoing articles, like AGV Sports Group, which still isn't resolved. However, I've been able to deal with all of them in stride, never being blocked. I'll continue to deal with it as I have in the past- follow policies, contact the other user(s), then ask for a third opinion from another editor, a WikiProject, or a noticeboard as necessary.

Optional questions

Userspace note: the reason I have these listed here is to be familiar with answering optional questions. I certainly don't intend to paste these in to an RFA.

5. An editor asks you to mediate in a dispute that has gone from being a content dispute to an edit war (but not necessarily a revert war), with hostile language in edit summaries (that are not personal attacks). One involved party welcomes the involvement of an admin, but the other seems to ignore you. They have both rejected WP:RFC as they do not think it would solve anything. Just as you are about to approach the user ignoring you, another admin blocks them both for edit warring and sends the case to WP:RFAR as a third party. Would you respect the other admin's decisions, or would you continue to engage in conversation (over email or IRC) and submit a comment/statement to the RFAR? Let's say the ArbCom rejects the case. What would you do then?

Oh boy. This sounds like a lot of drama. There's no reason to wheel war with another admin, and there's no reason to take the conversation off-wiki either. This is a good example of "okay, what now?" The other admin made the blocking decision, ArbCom rejected it, so it's time to move forward. I'd try to come up with a good strategy with the other admin- get the users to discuss their own actions on their own talk pages, discuss the content-related issues in a central place.

6. If you could change any one thing about Wikipedia what would it be?

Most answers I have for this question revolve around the technical aspects: more RSS feeds, more control over visibility, "personal watchlist flagged revisions", and other aspects of personalization.

As far as policy is concerned, even with the problems of arguing based on notability, I'd love to see consensus on notability proposals, like WP:NLI and WP:SCH. The notability guidelines are applications of Wikipedia policies into specific topics, and serve as a good reference during proposed deletions and AFD discussions.

As an aside, I'm also disappointed about account unification, since I haven't been able to entirely unify my username.

7. Under what circumstances would you indefinitely block a user without any prior direction from Arb Com?

Per WP:BP and especially WP:INDEF, indefinite blocks are for significant disruption. It applies primarily to users, not IP addresses.

8. Suppose you are closing an AfD where it would be keep if one counted certain votes that you suspect are sockpuppets/meatpuppets and would be delete otherwise. The RCU returns inconclusive, what do you do? Is your answer any different if the two possibilities are between no consensus and delete?

In practical terms, the AfD is not a vote, so the total number of opinions does not matter. I'd attempt to determine consensus based on the arguments, not on the number of votes. If the sockpuppets/meatpuppets presented a convincing argument to keep, they don't appear to be "bad faith" attempts at gaming the system, and there are no clear reasons to delete (such as BLP), I'd close as inconclusive or keep. As WP:DGFA says, "When in doubt, don't delete."

9. Do you believe there is a minimum number of people who need to express their opinions in order to reasonably close an AfD? If so, what is that number? What about RfDs and CfDs?

In practical terms, AfD is not voting, so the total number of opinions don't matter. However, the number of opinions is shorthand for visibility of the page or visibility of the AfD. I think there should be at least three opinions given, but I'd be likely to relist anything that seems to be flying under the radar, according to WP:DGFA's "When in doubt, don't delete" mantra.

10. At times, administrators have experienced, or have been close to burnout due to a mixture of stress and conflict inherent in a collaborative web site of this nature. Do you feel able to justify yourself under pressure, and to not permit stress to become overwhelming and cause undesirable or confused behaviour?

I've certainly had stress on Wikipedia. The only time I lashed out was by being pointy by adding too many {{fact}} tags to a paragraph to prove to an editor what needed to be sourced. If I could remember what that article is/was, I'd go back and remove them. I'm embarrassed about that. Otherwise, stress? That's what wikibreaks and the big blue room are for.

11. Why do you want to be an administrator?

Done in my intro, so I don't expect this question to come up.

12. 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?

Care should certainly be taken to avoid biting newcomers with a speedy delete. I'm all for the speedy process- it's the low-impact way to keep unencyclopedic items off of Wikipedia. Having said that, the CSD criteria are fairly specific and narrow- for instance, the question about "notability" implies CSD A7, which says some implication towards notability should be made. If I had any suspicion an article was notable, I'd make the effort to search for it, or use something other than a CSD (such as a prod or {{notablility}}. There's no big harm in letting some articles sit around for improvement.

13. Is there any set of circumstances in which you would block a user without them having received a full set of warnings?

Definitely, but they would be for egregious issues, such as gross BLP violations or items in Wikipedia:BLOCK#Disruption-only.

14a. To gain a better understanding of your experience with content creation, could you provide a list of articles you've created or heavily edited?

Done in my intro, so I don't expect this question to come up.

14b. To gain a better understanding of your experience with content review, and having read your answer to 2a., could you enumerate which articles, if any, that you created or heavily edited have gone through a content review process such as DYK or AfD?

Done in my intro, so I don't expect this question to come up.

14c. To gain a better understanding of your experience with reviewing content created by others, could you describe your participation in content review areas such as DYK, GA, FA, or AfD?

I've participated in AfD. I don't troll the AfD pages and participate in every discussion, but I've nominated articles, and I follow a few categories I'm especially interested in and contribute to those. As I mentioned in my intro, I'm not good at creating GA/FA, so I also haven't gotten into reviewing them. I'm glad there are individuals who are good at that.

15. If a wikipedia page were made a a home page for a popular product (Ie an aggressive marketing campaign changes their website to redirect to wikipedias stub article). Under what conditions would you protect the page?

This sounds like the Skittles twitter gaffe. Since page protection isn't used pre-emptively, I would watch the page, protect as soon as there was a pattern of obvious vandalism from multiple editors/IPs. I'd also post to the talk page of the article to explain it has received significant coverage so others are aware of what is going on. It'd probably be worth having semi-protection, then upgrading to full protection if necessary.

16. Please define "start-class article" (in your own words).

In my own words, a start-class article is either one that is somewhat comprehensive without inlined reliable sources, or a minimal article with solid reliable sources, but in need of expansion. The criteria are at WP:ASSESS, but this is my own basic explanation of them.

5a. Would you please provide us with a list of all the account names you have ever used, or registered, on the English Wikipedia project, including any not in use currently?

Ah, the $64 question. This is my only account. I'll likely create another one for bot use eventually.

5b. If there are some names you feel you cannot disclose, why not?

I don't want to give away my IP address, as it's static and I don't use it for editing anyhow. It's easy enough to find me off wikipedia- I don't see any reason to make that easier.

5c. If the reasons are privacy related, will you be willing to disclose them to the Arbitration Committee before the +sysop bit is activated on your account, should you pass?

Of course, if they existed. I'll pass my IP on to ArbCom or offline to some existing sysops who can vouch for my statement above.

6. What are your views on WP:BLP as it stands today?

Oh boy. This is a loaded question, isn't it? I appreciate having a tighter rein on BLP-related content than the rest of Wikipedia. In some ways, I wish it were stronger- for instance, the guidelines about listing family (children, spouse, parents) could be clarified without WP:CREEP. Still, I'm generally a fan of following established guidelines, and tend to leave large policy discussions up to others.

7. What are your views on Flagged Revisions, keeping in mind that the beta trials for WP:BLP subjects after the numerous polls and surveys this year are coming apparently mid/late 2009?

I enjoy the patrolled pages feature of Special:NewPages. If Flagged Revisions makes life easier without changing the nature of Wikipedia, I'm happy.

8. Do you have any strongly held beliefs or affiliations, "In real life", and would you be willing to disclose those here? Would you be willing or able to permanently recuse from using your admin tools on those areas?

I think almost everyone has strongly held beliefs or affiliations. Among other beliefs, I consider myself a strong atheist. However, I have edited on religious articles, as I can evaluate the articles with an academic and neutral point of view. If my personal views were getting in the way of my editing and administration, I would (a) hope I could recognize it and take a break, (b) would definitely stop editing and discuss things on a talk page, and (c) recuse myself if necessary.

9. Are you going to be open to Administrative Recall? If so, why? If not, why?

Yes. An administrative recall is one of the methods giving oversight on administrators; it's important to be accountable.

10. Do you feel that admins should be subject to blocks, as if they were any other user?

Yes. I'd hope an admin wouldn't need to be blocked, but given admins are human, it can happen.

11. Chocolate, cake, beer, whiskey, drama--what is your poison?

My poison is motorcycling. I'm a nut about motorcycling. And we need much more help at Wikipedia:WikiProject Motorcycling.. join us!

16a. What policy areas have you contributed to?

TODO

16b. If you had the power to change a policy, which would you choose and what would you change and why?

TODO

16c. Do longstanding essays (WP:SNOW, WP:OUTCOMES, WP:ATA, for a few) have any weight in XFD debates?

TODO

16d. Can WikiProject policies widen or narrow community policies or guidelines for articles within the scope (two examples: can WikiProject FooSport determine that any competitor in FooSport at a particular level is notable? that no stubs of FooSport participants be permitted and any stubs must be redirected to team roster lists until something beyond a stub is written)?

TODO

Removed from intro

I think I've developed the wikimaturity to remain civil and focus on improving Wikipedia, rather than getting stuck in a flamewar. One example is this interchange, where a user, who was incredibly good at correcting grammar, was also removing large numbers of redlinks. After blindly giving him warning templates, we started a conversation, and the outcome was something I'm proud of.

Another, more recent, example was a couple of revert cycles to Raleigh, North Carolina. Before I made my first revert (marked AGF), I opened a discussion on the talk page and then noted that in the summary. It took a couple of reverts (1, 2), but with patience with a dose of AGF, the user agreed to create an entry for the person first. I'm proud of this because I was (hopefully) able to bring the user into our Wikipedia world, rather than frustrating him and driving him away.

In addition, the community was proud of the work I did to salvage Rentrak. In one sweep it went from an investor prospectus to something that an average human might be able to read. It isn't perfect, but it garnered some praise.

I've tried writing down the major issues to get two angry groups to find a middle ground.

One thing that has struck me is how handy the Admin reading list can be. I had at least visited many of the links on that list to understand things.

Other bits to note

(I plan on posting these, perhaps to the talk page of my eventual RfA)

Neutral (could be good or bad): a1 a2 b c
Good dialogue: a b
Mistake: a
Things I admire: giving rationale in an AFD
Using automated tools intelligently, to fight evil (in this case: mass removal of redlinks, edit tags, fact tags, stub tags, etc with absolutely no use of edit summary). See my contribs around 18:35, 14 June 2009.