User:Djrobgordon/sandbox2

This is an Please update the page as needed, or discuss it on the talk page .

One of the most common dictums tossed around in Requests for adminship is that "we need more admins." This is supported by the fact that, at any given moment, a few administrator tasks will be backlogged. In fact, I became interested in adminship because of frustration over a backlog at Wikipedia:Requested moves. Yet, otherwise levelheaded users routinely invent arcane criteria which prevent this problem from being remedied. Using myself as an example, I will illustrate the ways in which an experienced and, dare I say, valuable editor might be denied the ability to perform tasks necessary to the success of this project. Just to be clear, I, User:Djrobgordon, have never been nominated for, and therefore have never been denied, adminship. This essay explores the reasons I believe I would be denied if I were nominated. It is, in fact, much ado about nothing.

Disclaimer

I am not your girlfriend, who asks if she looks fat in her halter top, just so you'll tell her she doesn't. This is not me passive-aggressively begging for a nomination. If I were to be nominated, and the nominator were to mention this essay, I would have to decline, as such a request would border on disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point. If anything, I suspect this essay will always be a point of contention, should I earn a legitimate nomination. Even if it's never been read to that point, it will surely come out of the woodwork.

The "Oppose" votes

• Oppose No need for the tools.

I wouldn't give Pete Doherty a 15th century Swiss longsword, because he has no need for it. The two pertinent differences between these scenarios are that: 1) Pete Doherty's a fucking nut, and is liable to impale someone on a longsword, and 2) a 15th century Swiss longsword is a priceless antique that should be in a museum. Adminship can be dangerous, but, like the proverbial greatest gift, costs nothing. No time, effort, or funds are necessary to make an admin. Therefore, giving it to a user not likely to abuse it is more akin to giving Pete Doherty a toothbrush. If he chooses to use it, the world is a slightly, but nonetheless quantifiably, better place. If not, nothing has been lost.

• Oppose User has long periods of inactivity.^[1]

Adminship is not the numbers from Lost. If I don't do an administrator task every 108 minutes, the world will not end. There is not a finite number of adminships, so I'm not using a position someone else could be using better. If I don't close an AfD for a month, that doesn't erase the ones I closed the month before.

• Oppose 5500 edits just isn't enough for me. Try again in three month, and I'll support.

Actually, 5500 probably is enough for most people, but the only reason I have that many edits is that I started using AutoWikiBrowser this month. Before that, I was under 3,000, a count a number of voters would find low. Was I a significantly weaker candidate then? Maybe, but not because I hadn't yet learned how to use software to rack up quick, semi-automated edits.

• Oppose Not enough experience with (fill in voter's pet task here).

When I first started editing Wikipedia, I was amazed by the fact that any user could nominate an article he didn't deem valuable for deletion. I quickly and carelessly read some policy, then nominated

List of songs that have been considered among the worst ever for deletion. I promptly got slaughtered in the ensuing discussion and learned two valuable lessons: 1) When nominating an article for deletion, always check the talk page to make sure someone else didn't do the same thing a week earlier, and 2) learn the policy behind a task thoroughly before engaging in it. I always follow both of those rules, which is why I'm not likely to grossly screw up a task, just because I'm not familiar with it yet. Put another way, if a user doesn't edit like Charles Bronson in Death Wish

, he probably won't admin like one.