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Revision as of 12:16, 10 January 2010

Rlendog

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (35/0/2); Scheduled to end 16:34, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Nomination

Rlendog (talk · contribs) – Ladies and Gentleman of the community, I would like to present Rlendog for your consideration. With nearly 2 years of active editing, Rlendog has made over 22,000 edits. A very strong content creator, Rlendog has significantly contributed to 9 Good articles, 12 featured lists, and a staggering 120 Did you know's, along the way earning 5 Triple Crowns. He also has substantial edits to talk pages, clearly this is a user willing to work with others, a review of his conversations shows that he is a friendly and helpful user. Around 1500 of his edits are in the project space, showing a significant amount of input at WP:AFD, as well as further collaboration in various wikiprojects, along with peer reviews and featured list/article candidates discussions. When it comes to edits, most of his are done old school, without the use of tools, he was granted rollback several months ago which he uses accurately, giving a warning or message for each one. Finally, when it comes to general things, he has a sensible signature, clean block log and email is enabled. When it comes to the bit itself, I initially approached Rlendog in September, who asked for a few weeks due to other commitments. Unfortunately when Rlendog replied to say he was free I had lost regular access to the net and was only reminded of my offer this morning. In the 4 months since I made that offer not once has he come to me to pester me about my offer, clearly he is in no haste to receive the tools, which is an excellent attitude to have towards the role. Thank you for your time. Jac16888 03:20, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept.

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Misplaced Pages as an administrator. It is recommended that you answer these optional questions to provide guidance for participants:

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

A: Mostly, I would want to be able to help out users in need of assistance. For example, I edit a lot at WP:MAMMAL, and in the past User:UtherSRG was able to help out users in that area when needs arose and users didn't know which Wiki page to turn to, such as page protection. I also contacted him once to check out an article that was speedy deleted and, having worked with the then fairly inexperienced user who created it, I suspected the deletion must have been an error but couldn't confirm for myself. Lately UtherSRG has been inactive, and although there are some other admins in the area now, there aren't many and I think I could help out. There is also often a backlog at DYK, and I would like to be able help out more there as well. And of course I want to do everything I can to help fight vandalism.

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

A: I am certainly proud of my contributions to audited content, as I think the process resulted in some very useful articles on topics that I am interested in. Among the featured lists I was involved in, I think List of New York Yankees managers and List of San Francisco Giants managers are the best and most important. Among the GAs I contributed to, I think the articles on Costa Rican monkeys, White-headed Capuchin, Mantled Howler, Central American Squirrel Monkey and Geoffroy's Spider Monkey are pretty solid and are meaningful to me, and I think Mr. Tambourine Man and Sperm Whale are good too, although the latter gets its share of vandalism. Some of the non-audited content I have worked on that I am quite happy with are Kasakela chimpanzee community, List of NFC champions and It's All Over Now, Baby Blue. I also contributed to the Primate FA, although in a secondary role, and have been working with a group from the Dylan WikiProject to try to get Like a Rolling Stone to FA. And the first article I created, Brian Ostrosser, is of course important to me, and I think it is about as good as an article about a baseball player who never got a Major League hit can be.

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 had too many stressful conflicts here. Back in June I did get into a conflict with another editor when I commented that he appeared to be canvassing at AFD, and turned out to be mistaken. He was obviously upset with the comment, and I apologized and redacted it. I also tried to explain in a discussion on my talk page (it is in Archive 3 now) why I thought there might be canvassing and let him have the last word, although I am not sure he was molified. Since then and in the future I have been more careful in wording my comments, but if I did end up in a similar situation again I would probably handle it similarly.

Another incident which caused me a small amount of stress occurred in June 2008. I was involved in an edit war when one editor insisted on removing a helpful hatnote from Thylacoleonidae to make a point and several users, including me, reverted it. The other editor accused me of being a meatpuppet, and that was my introduction to WP:ANI. I tried explaining to the other user why the hatnote was needed, and in that case probably AGFed a bit too long, after the more experienced editors were calling him a troll - he turned out to be a sockpuppet of a banned user. I am not sure I would do much differently if such a situation arose in the future either. Perhaps this should have gone to ANI a little sooner - if I recall correctly there were a couple of 3RR violations during the process (although not by me), but AGF and discussions can only get you so far when one party is trying for disruption.

A final incident of a different sort that comes to mind occurred later in the summer of 2008, while I became overly addicted to ANI. An editor was accused of issues with DYK submissions, and as a result was topic banned from DYK. I was one of the editors who quickly supported the topic ban, but after taking a step back realized that there was less to the accusation than appeared at first glance - the incidents were either minor, isolated or several months old. I felt terrible and did what I could to support the editor, leaving her a supportive message on her talk page, nominating an appropriate article she had recently created for DYK (one of the conditions for lifting the ban was if several users nominated her creations) and engaged in discussions at AN and other involved editors, and I believe I did so appropriately. The ban was ultimately lifted when the closing admin saw that she requested my review on some fish articles she had just created, and has since been editing productively - I am not sure if the request was due to the message I had left her or she had noticed I had recently had some similar articles at DYK (or perhaps both). I don't think I would have done anything differently post-ban, but the initial incident taught me to be careful about jumping in too quickly when incidents like this are raised before thoroughly investigating.

Additional optional questions from Phantomsteve

4. Could you please answer the following questions related to CSDs:

a. In your own words, could you explain the difference between CSD A1 and CSD A3?

A. A3, no content, would apply to an article that has no informative content whatsoever. Any text that may be in the article is a link or category or the title itself or some other form of non-informative text. A1, no context, would apply to an article that has some (perhaps a minimal amount of) informative text but no identification of what the text applies to. So an article that just states "It is green" would be A1, since stating that something is green is informative text, but it doesn't identify what is green.

b. In your own words, could you explain what would cause you to decline a request for a speedy deletion using criteria A7?

A. Obviously, a subject that meets notability guidelines would not be eligible for A7. But the threshold for A7 is much lower than notability, so that any credible claim of importance would necessitate declining speedy deletion under A7. So, for example, a statement that a person played minor league baseball would not satisfy notability, but would be enough to decline under A7. Similar for a statement that a person ran unsuccesfully for mayor of a small town. In addition, A7 only`applies to articles about people, organizations and specific animals, so many subjects are ineligble for A7 altogether. So a speedy deletion request under A7 for an article about, say, a song should be declined since the subject is not eligible for A7.

5. You have been editing an article Article-1, adding information, sorting out layout, etc. Another editor (editor-123) reverts some of your edits, with the edit summary "removing of unsourced information". How do you deal with this, which admin tools (page protection, page deletion, blocking, etc) or other methods you would use to deal with it, and which policies/guidelines/essays you would use in justification?

A. It is not appropriate to use admin tools in a content dispute. So I would deal with it the way would now, without tools. If there really were not sources, I may add back the content and add a reference. If there actually was a source provided, it would be a more difficult situation. I would probably restore the content once, with an edit summary pointing out that there is a source, but if it was reverted again I would try to engage in a discussion on the article talk page or the talk page of the other editor. Perhaps the dispute is over whether the source is reliable and could be resolved by discussion. If not, then further WP:DR steps may be needed, such as attempted to get a 3rd opinion from another editor, or if it appears that the other editor is just being disruptive seeking admin intervention.

6. In your own words, could you explain what the difference between a block and a ban is?

A. A block is an admin action taken to prevent a particular editor from editing, usually for a set period, in response to disruption or incivility in order to prevent continuation. A ban is a community decision that a particular editor's contributions are not wanted (either for a particular period or indefinitely), and any contributions can be reverted by any other editor. A ban does not have to be enforced by a block, although it can be. A ban might only apply to a partticular area of the project, while a block would prevent editing in any area (other than the user's talk page) for the duration. If an editor is indefinitely blocked and no admin is willing to unblock, the editoris effectively banned, so in that case the two overlap to an extent.

Questions from ArcAngel

7. Do you feel that pages can be moved without a discussion first to form consensus, and do you feel that WP:BOLD overrides that?

A.

8. Do you feel blocking a user who has vandalized your userpage is a conflict of interest? Why or why not?

A.

9. When should cool down blocks be used and why?

A. Never. They are against policy, and in any case I don't think that blocking someone who is already upset about something but has not engaged in disruptive behavior would be likely to have the effect of "cooling down" the situation - more likely it would compound the issue.

Additional question from Keepscases

10. You have a userbox that encourages others to say no to political correctness. What parts of Misplaced Pages's content or culture do you believe are overly politically correct? Why?

A:

Additional optional questions from Coffee

11. If you were to close an AFD, on a BLP, (such as this), where there is no easily determined consensus how would you close it?

A.

12. What is your opinion on the current BLP policy, and what work have you done (if any) with BLPs?

A.

13. What is your interpretation of IAR, and do you think that common sense should automatically overweigh policies in any area on Misplaced Pages?

A.

General comments

• Links for Rlendog: Rlendog (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
• Edit summary usage for Rlendog can be found here.

Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review Special:Contributions/Rlendog before commenting.

Discussion

• Editing stats posted to talk page. JamieS93 16:38, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks, figures I'd forget something--Jac16888 16:40, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Support

1. Support as nom--Jac16888 16:42, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
2. Support — Rlendog is obviously a thoughtful person from his answers to the questions, he seems to have very good reasons for having the tools (anti-vandalism is basically sysop work, and not having tons of edits to AIV or RFPP, in my opinion, does not mean that the particular person does not understand how things work there), and he has a desire to help out. Plus, his nominator has demonstrated good judgment many times in the past; I coudln't imagine him nominating somebody who wasn't suited for adminship. Master&Expert (Talk) 18:21, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

   I know you don't need tons of AIV edits to be a vandal-fighting admin, but don't you think nine edits in nearly a year and a half is a bit too little? JulieSpaulding (talk) 18:28, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

   I wouldn't say that, when I passed my RFA I only had 20, but plenty of vandalism reverting/warning same as Rlendog. All it means is that Rlendog encounters vandals who don't get far enough to be reported to AIV, as so many don't--Jac16888 18:42, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

   Only a portion of vandals merit blocking - not out of consideration for the vandals themselves, but due to the collateral damage caused to innocent users on the same network. A limited number of reports to AIV suggests a judicious use of the blocking tool. Jennifer500 (talk) 18:46, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

   You do have a point (Jac). Jennifer, a limited number of reports to AIV may also suggest a lack of activity in vandal fighting. I can't confirm this though - I can't look through thousands of contribs :) However, what do you think about responding to AfDs in the fashion that I highlighted in my neutral comment? They are all classics from the 'arguments to avoid in AfDs'. JulieSpaulding (talk) 18:48, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

   Much of the vandalism I encounter is by IPs, often with their first edits. So I leave a warning on their page, but I do not bring it to AIV until there are at least 3 recent warnings already. Most of my edits to IP talk pages are vandalism or test edit warnings, so if you want to review that is one way you can (generally) identify such edits. Rlendog (talk) 19:56, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

   Support Jennifer500 (talk) 18:37, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

   I've seen this said on other RfAs, so I'm going to dare to say it here: is there any reason why you 'support'? This is not a vote! JulieSpaulding (talk) 18:40, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

   In practice, RFA is basically a vote, with a bureaucrat deciding borderline cases. The assumption that any RFA vote unaccompanied by a stated rationale is frivolous reflects a failure to assume good faith. Instead, I would suggest a presumption that any editor who votes "support", without more, expresses a considered belief that the candidate would use the sysop tools in a manner beneficial to the project. Jennifer500 (talk) 18:57, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

   Supports are essentially endorsements of the nomination, so they don't generally need to prove in-depth rationales. –Juliancolton |  19:00, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

   OK, point taken. JulieSpaulding (talk) 19:01, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

   Indenting !vote of blocked user Jennifer500 (a sock of John254). -- Soap /_{Contributions} 04:11, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

3. Yep long overdue. Secret 18:54, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
4. User:Juliancolton/RfA rationale –Juliancolton |  18:59, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
5. Support of course, all looks good. Garibaldi Baconfat 19:05, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
6. Support. Why not? -FASTILY 19:07, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
7. Support Stats and edits look good, no major problems as far as I can see. Dayewalker (talk) 19:19, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
8. Support —Terrence and Phillip 19:26, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
9. Support pretty much per nom and above.--Coldplay Expért 19:55, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
10. Strong support. A font of nothing but positive contributions. A good collaborator who's competent in a variety of subject areas. We need many more editors just like him. --JayHenry (talk) 20:15, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
11. Support Have always been impressed by his strong content contributions and calm demeanor (at least from what I've seen). Dabomb87 (talk) 20:16, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
12. Support I can't find any reason not to.  fetchcomms☛ 20:19, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
13. Support I don't remember coming across this editor before, but I enjoyed reading their work, and I see from their contributions a nice mix of building the wiki and defending it. ϢereSpielChequers 20:26, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
14. Absolutely. I've found him to be easygoing and his contributions and temperament are stellar. ceranthor 20:29, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
15. Support Helpful and civil editor who has a strong record as an article writer. He seems to be less experienced in admin related areas but I am sure they will approach it in the same clueful way (for example, they have never compiled a DYK set but I am sure they will learn to do it easily and are able to ask for help if they need it). Regards SoWhy 20:39, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
16. Support, not because you're a Mets fan, though I am a fellow Mets fan. TheWeakWilled (T * G) 21:40, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
17. Support wow this user edits different parts of Misplaced Pages in general than me, on review they are pretty amazing... I am honestly surprised that they are not already an admin... RP459 (talk) 22:07, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
18. Support. We've crossed paths, and I'm impressed that this is a very capable contributor. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:30, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
19. Support. I'm sure some would argue that he does not "need" them, but I have no reason to believe that he would misuse the extra buttons, and therefore think it would be a net positive for him to have them. Model editor, good answers to questions - thus support. decltype (talk) 23:04, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
20. Support High quality and quantity of article work. The Good Articles and many DYKs impress me more than Featured Lists, but that's just my bias. No negative things that I can find. Not very much policy/administrative work, but what I see looks clueful. --Apoc2400 (talk) 23:21, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
21. Support The User is a outstanding content creator with high quality and quantity of article work.The Project will only gain with the user getting tools see no scope for misuse of tools through the user has not taken part lot of Admin/Policy work .Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 23:26, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
22. If this editor has been here for 2 years and have more than 20,000 edits, why not? –BuickCenturyDriver 23:35, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
23. Nothing there to indicate he can't handle the tools. ~DC _{Talk To Me} 00:05, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
24. Oh definitely. Calm, cool, and collected, and the nominator makes some very good points. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 00:13, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
25. Support for pretty much the same reasons as the three editors above me. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 00:45, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
26. Support Now only if we could nominate more outstanding people like you... Kevin Rutherford (talk) 02:05, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
27. Support Excellent contributions and level headed in dealings with others. Rasputin72 (talk) 03:50, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
28. Support I have no concerns, hopefully will be helping out with DYK backlogs. Royalbroil 04:47, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
29. Support - Looks fine to me! smithers - talk - sign! 05:02, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
30. Support. Although I'd like to see more extensive work in "admin areas", the real question at RfA is simply: Is the candidate trustworthy. I see nothing to make me doubt that he is. HJMitchell You rang? 06:05, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
31. Support Good question answers, no reason to oppose. Doc Quintana (talk) 07:03, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
32. Strong support. Excellent work, good answers - a great candidate. Less experience in admin areas than other candidates, but I'm confident he'll take it slowly. Ironholds (talk) 09:55, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
33. Support Seems to have a good empathy and understanding of our primary purpose. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:40, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
34. Good candidate. Fine for me. Pmlineditor ∞ 11:29, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
35. Support - I think you deserve a chance.Wiki Greek Basketball (talk) 12:16, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

1. Neutral I see very little activity in general "admin areas" (AfD, RFPP, CSD, etc.), noticeboard discussions (policy pages, for example), or anything else that would reflect your knowledge of policy. There's really not enough to judge whether you'd use the tools correctly. Aditya Ex Machina 22:40, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
2. Neutral leaning towards support—perfectly sound editor, and I have no reason to mistrust, but (as Aditya points out) there hasn't been much activity in the normal theatres of admin operation, and the answer to Q1 is a little vague; it isn't clear that Rlendog intends to do anything more than occasionally use the more peripheral admin tools. I'm open to persuasion, though! ╟─TreasuryTag►most serene─╢ 11:27, 10 January 2010 (UTC)