Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Ali

The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a request for adminship that did not succeed. Please do not modify it.

Ali

Final: 0/3/0 Ended 23:27, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Ali (talk · contribs) - I have been using Wikipedia for over two years, and editing it for about half a year now, and amassed about 2000 edits under my name. My contributions to Wikipedia have mainly been involved with fighting vandalism, helping out fellow editors, editing articles myself when I have anything to contribute, and taking part in AfD discussions. I pledge my full support and devotion to Wikipedia's missions and policies, and I assure my fellow editors that I can be entrusted with the administrator tools. Ali 21:03, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I withdraw my nomination --Ali 23:21, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. What admin work, if any, do you intend to take part in?

A: If granted the tools, my work would mainly involve grunt-work such as closing PRODs and AfDs, restricting editing privileges for those who vandalize after being sufficiently warned, and helping out at

WP:AN

. I have long faced the inability to combat vandalism because the occasional lack of active administrators - and if granted the tools I will help ensure that it will not be a problem for other users.

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

A: I believe that my best contributions involve fighting vandalism - the majority of my edits on this encyclopedia have been devoted to that goal. I have also reviewed and copyedited various articles on Wikipedia for correct English usage and accuracy and added information whenever possible.

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 have been civil and neutral throughout the majority of my editing - and therefore I have never been in any serious editing conflicts. If any problem does arise with my editing, I always provide my rationale, based on Wikipedia guidelines and policy, and wait until consensus is reached to take action. Of course, I have been under fire for my vandalism-fighting efforts (from the vandals themselves, of course) and my userpage has been subjected to a variety of insults and profanity, but I keep a level head, and continue with my efforts.

Optional question by Shirahadasha

4. Could you provide specific examples of mainspace articles you've done significant work on which shows how you interpret and apply core policies and guidelines such as

WP:RS? --Shirahadasha 23:08, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply

]

A:

General comments

See Ali's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool. For the edit count, see the talk page.

Please keep criticism constructive and polite. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review Special:Contributions/Ali before commenting.

Discussion

Good work so far, but I think you need a little more experience (under this username). You state your goal is fighting vandalism - well, thanks for that, vandal fighting is helpful, but you should work on the actual encyclopedia more. Are there any articles you are proud of working on? Majorly (hot!) 21:45, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're right - and I promise you that I will contribute more to actual Wikipedia content in the future. So far, I would have to say that the best article that I have created (under one of my old usernames
Cacorsair) would be Branham High School, but I plan on creating more and improving the existing articles that I have already created. However, if I am not mistaken - administrator work mainly deals with more technical work in Wikipedia - with a lesser emphasis on article creation and development. --Ali 21:53, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply
]

Correct, it does. However, I am concerned. Just today you refer to an AfD comment as a vote. It's supposed to be a discussion, and I'm worried giving you powers to close AfDs when you might vote count (even though you don't specify you want to close them, you may decide to). Good work on the article so far, it is however
original research - you should add some references and cite your sources. Majorly (hot!) 22:00, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply
]

Majorly, I understand your concern, but I assure you that I realize that Wikipedia is
not a democracy and I understand that AfDs, as well as all other debates on Wikipedia, are discussions used to understand editor consensus. Check this edit I made yesterday to the talk page of Seung-Hui Cho for an example - I specifically stated to an editor who sought to obtain a majority vote that debates are not for counting votes - but merely for determining a consensus of opinion. I mainly used "AfD vote" in my edit summaries to be concise - but I understand how that might raise your concern. --Ali 22:11, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply
]

Your article with the most edits,
WP:RS? --Shirahadasha 22:10, 22 April 2007 (UTC) Your article with the second most edits is Branham High School. It also doesn't appear to contain any independent sources. One of the edits you made was a claim that a recent drop in AP scores was caused by a new open enrollment policy. How do you know that there was a drop in AP scores? How do you know that there was an open enrollment policy? And finally, how are you are able to tell that the open enrollment policy caused the drop in AP scores? Best, --Shirahadasha 22:16, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply
]

The edit you are referring to in the
original research because I was unable to find sources for it and I removed it. Those articles are both still works-in-progress, and I am currently in the process of finding sources for each one of them. --Ali 22:25, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply
]

You're right! You subsequently reverted your edit and removed this material. I've withdrawn this part of my comments. --Shirahadasha 22:35, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, you have my assurance the articles I have created will be adequately sourced and will fully address your concerns given several days time, or I will personally nominate them for deletion. --Ali 22:28, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support

Oppose

Oppose, I'm afraid. Candidate does not exhibit sufficient experience in wiki-space, in addition to the concerns raised above. Xoloz 22:14, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. See my comments in discussion above. Suggest you gain more experience in article editing, particularly in interpreting and applying core policies as part of your editing, as well as greater participation in a variety of project space areas. Don't worry if people feel you're not quite ready yet; you're welcome to come back with a little more experience under your belt and taking the feedback you get here. Lots of people (myself included) didn't succeed at the first RfA. After getting some more experience, suggest you get an editor review first and get some feedback before proceeding to your next RfA. Good luck! --Shirahadasha 22:27, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Open to reconsidering if above question is adequately addressed. Best, --Shirahadasha 22:40, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Ali's most-edited article is AIM Ad Hack, which he edited 25 times, and it's not a bad article. But one thing really bothers me. In February, User:N Shar prodded the article, which contained only the first paragraph of what's now there. Ali removed the tag and continued to edit without giving an explanation in the edit summary or elsewhere. Even now, N Shar's claim of lack of notability has not been adequately addressed. Granted that this happened two months ago, but until I see an indication of experience with deletion process, I don't want Ali to make decisions about whether to delete articles. YechielMan 22:35, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to see Talk:AIM Ad Hack, I expressed my concerns and N Shar agreed before I deleted the prod notice, N Shar also let me know on my talk page that I was free to delete it. --Ali 22:41, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

The above adminship discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.