Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/MBK004

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

MBK004

Final (37/2/2); Closed as successful by WjBscribe at 20:20, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking about a possible self-nom, but then came Rudget. I accept, -MBK₀₀₄ 20:07, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions for the candidate

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

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

A: Well, I plan to continue patrolling recent changes, keep an eye on

RFPP

. When watching for vandalism it is common for me to be the first or second user to warn a user or ip, but not the one to make the report to AIV, accordingly the number of reports I have there do not show the true amount of work I do in the area. Also note that while I do occasionally tag pages for speedy deletion, I do not intend to take part in the actual deletions of these pages and will only continue to tag these pages, images included. I also do not intend to take part in the deletion of pages from XfD. If I am unsure of what to do, I will either let another admin handle it entirely, or ask for a second opinion before doing anything from an experienced admin.

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

A: Other than the two article tagging/assessment drives for WP:SHIPS and WP:MILHIST during which I tagged/assessed 3100+ articles from September to December 2007.

• The co-nomination of USS Texas (BB-35) for Good Article status with the editor who authored a major expansion of the article: TomStar81 (talk · contribs) and expansion thereafter
  • I nominated this article in December 2007 based on a rewrite performed by TomStar81 in January 2007, and starting in January 2008, I personally began expanding the article again through another rewrite utilizing newly acquired sources. I plan on taking this article to Featured status before the end of this year.
• The expansion of USS Illinois (BB-65) from a stub to A-class
  • Unfortunately, the article's FAC failed, but the article was revamped by TomStar81 into a Featured Article.

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: A few, when I was inexperienced and in retrospect I must admit that I was out-of-line, over-stepped policy, and should have been issued a civility warning. The issues I am referring to are explained more fully in an editor review I held in September 2007, while the second issue was underway. In retrospect, the first issue I raised in the editor review was not a conflict but an editor making unconstructive edits that went against the MoS, not a content dispute. These incidents would not happen today because I now know the proper way to deal with these issues, namely through trying to mentor the first user to modify the contributions to an acceptable format. The second issue would not have happened at all now, because I have a much better grasp of what vandalism is and what it is not. Because of that, the issues of incivility and possible harassment allegations that arose from the false tagging of vandalism would not have happened.

• More recently, there have been a few things, but do not compare to what happened when I was inexperienced:

• I have been involved with a disagreement regarding a fair-use rationale for an image used in the article USS Kentucky (BB-66). These events are chronicled here. This disagreement ended amicably with the image in question being allowed via fair-use.
• I've also been involved with a minor scrape while tagging a sockpuppet account which eventually led to an established user retiring from wiki and also being indef-community blocked because of his actions. See [1] and Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive350#user:Sfacets.
• I was recently involved in a quasi dispute regarding my userpage. An IP posted a condescending note on my talk page, which I considered vandalism since I had just warned the IP for edit testing on a page. Because of this, I reverted the edit on my talk page. Then the same message was posted by a new account. I replied to the new account, to which I got a response which seemed even more incredulous. I responded to that reply and received what I believe to be a consensus to agree to disagree. In the interests of full disclosure, I did remove this incident from my talk page because I considered the exchange uncivil.

Questions from

4. What is the difference between a ban and a block?

• A block can be applied to an individual username or IP address by an admin to prevent an editor from editing for varying lengths of time up to indefinite. This action can be undone by another admin.
• A ban quite literally is banishment and will follow a person across all usernames and IP addresses that they may use to edit with. This action cannot be implemented by an admin alone, and is usually implemented after a decision by the Arbitration Committee, the Foundation itself, the community, or Jimbo.
• Also note that an indefinite block can evolve into a ban if the block is never reverted by an admin.

5. If another administrator removes material from an article and cites a BLP concern as the reason - but you believe the material does not violate

I would embark on either one of two options, bring it up at

WP:BLP/N or contact the admin who removed the material and enter a dialogue either via our talk pages or by email. I have experience with BLP concerns via the Tom Leykis

article, of which I reported it to the BLP noticeboard and the article was subsequently stubbed with a fresh history.

6. What is your opinion on administrator recall?

I've been waiting for this question. I would add myself to this category, even though I have misgivings about how previous recalls have been undertaken. Because of these concerns, I have begun to think about my own recall criteria:

• Five users who meet the following requirements must support the recall within 72 hours
  • All must have a minimum of 3000 edits (including 300 mainspace)
  • A minimum of three must be fellow administrators
• The process will be modified from what is proposed here as follows:
  • The recall would be undertaken on a dedicated user sub-page, with appointed clerks of my choosing. If the consensus was decided against me, I would resign the tools, and wait at least 3 months before undergoing another RfA.

I believe that this process will not be needed because I do not intend to take part in controversial decisions, wheel-warring, or content disputes and I plan to ask for a second opinion as stated above in both the nom and my answer to Q1.

Upon viewing the arguments of the opposers I have decided to revamp my recall criteria in an attempt to make the process seem less "convoluted", "complicated", and "absurd". I wish to assure those who question that my recall pledge is genuine, and my above criteria was an attempt to keep the recall process from being abused. My reconsidered criteria are as follows:

• After a valid request is received, a dedicated section in my yet-to-be-created admin policy user sub-page will be created. I will then appoint a clerk to oversee the recall process (Which would entail confirming the requirements are met and determining the eventual consensus.).
• Five registered users must support the recall within 72 hours as stated before.
  • To prevent SPAs, Meatpuppets, and Sockpuppets (unless they are a declared alternate accounts of an established user), there will be a 300 mainspace edit requirement.
• At the conclusion of the 72 hours, if consensus exists to sustain the recall, I will resign the tools and wait a minimum of 3 months before undergoing another RfA.

General comments

• See MBK004's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool. For the edit count, see the talk page.

• Links for MBK004: MBK004 (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
• Links for MBK-iPhone: MBK-iPhone (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)

Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review Special:Contributions/MBK004 before commenting.

Discussion

Support

1. Per my excellent nomination. :) Rudget. 20:08, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
2. Support I was about to offer to nominate him myself. Epbr123 (talk) 20:26, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
3. support. Contribs look good. Edit summary=100%. You seem to have your head on straight. Well deserving of the mop! Use it well. Good luck! Keeper | 76 20:49, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
4. Support - experienced, interesting, already has rollback rights, no concerns. Bearian (talk) 21:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Support for the simple reason that Rudget nominated him.--Phoenix-wiki 21:35, 17 January 2008 (UTC) Switching to oppose per recall question.--Phoenix-wiki 00:36, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

5. Support - Good candidate. Knows how Wikipedia works and is, most importantly, a calm contributor :-)
   Scarian^{Call me Pat} 23:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply
   ]
6. Support In part per Radiant, and otherwise based on answers to questions.
   talk 23:35, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply
   ]
7. Strong Support you will make a good admin. I know this because I was going to nominate you at the end of this week, but Rudget beat me to it :) TomStar81 (Talk) 00:14, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
8. Support meets my standards. Answer to question 3 was a little weak, but nom does not seem to be a hot head. With all due respect, Radiant!'s oppose is unconvincing. Dlohcierekim 01:01, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
9. Support. Good editor. Malinaccier (talk) 01:57, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
10. Support. The candidate seems to be a good, constructive contributor and understands policy. Majoreditor (talk) 02:54, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
11. Support I agree with the nom. Spencer^T♦C 03:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
12. Support -- seems like a good candidate and the Ships Wikiproject is one of the better one for "doing things right" -- a good place to learn. I appreciate your having thought through the recall process and not just saying "sure I'll sign up". You get bonus points for resisting the temptation to reply to Radiance's oppose comment below. --A. B. ^(talk) 04:44, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
13. Support - Works for Rudget, works for me! Also, good answers to questions. Gromlakh (talk) 05:29, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
14. Support; the candidate has a good body of work thus far, and I would have no reservations about their use of the tools. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 05:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
15. Support: I think this user will make a good administrator. Great job with your active participation in the WikiProjects; shows that you are here for the right reasons, and that is to write an encyclopedia. - Rjd0060 (talk) 05:39, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
16. Support. This user seems to be very well-rounded and experienced. No reason to think that he wouldn't make an excellent admin. Trusilver 18:41, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
17. Support no reason to oppose
    2010NHRHS2010 20:34, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply
    ]
18. Support — Rlevse • Talk • 23:27, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
19. Support Great editor, well-rounded. Midorihana^{~いいですね？} 00:18, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
20. Support - Per nom, give em' the mop. Tiptoety ^talk 04:39, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
21. east.718 at 09:27, January 19, 2008
22. No problems here. Acalamari 19:26, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
23. Support - All of my interactions with MBK004 in
    WikiProject Military history have shown him to be an excellent collaborative editor who is very dedicated to improving the project. I have zero concerns that he would abuse the tools. --Kralizec! (talk) 03:38, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply
    ]
24. Support Will be a fine admin. --
    Siva1979^{Talk to me} 12:10, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply
    ]
25. Support Seen this user around Ships and Milhist and think they would make a good admin. Woody (talk) 21:07, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
26. Support Seems like a great user and admin to me. Sumoeagle179 (talk) 23:16, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
27. Support per nom, excellent editor and will make a great admin. Postoak (talk) 04:02, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
28. Support This editor worked very hard on
    Tag & Assess 2007 and clearly has the best interests of wikipedia at heart. I saw nothing that would raise doubts in my mind about his suitability as an administrator. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 07:29, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply
    ]
29. Support. I'm only happy to add my support. Seems to be an excellent user, and all my interactions with MBK004 (though limited) have been positive. Will be an excellent admin. henrik•talk 14:15, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
30. Support - Great user who has shown he is trusted to have the admin bit. Ryan Postlethwaite 16:16, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Support -- good candidate and I just don't agree with the opposes based on his openness to recall. --A. B. ^(talk) 18:46, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Darn, I like him but not enough to vote twice ... see my earlier support comment above. --A. B. the feeble-minded 19:12, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

31. Support; you do great work! TomTheHand (talk) 21:23, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
32. STrong support. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 23:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
33. Support, certainly can be trusted as an admin. --Dual Freq (talk) 23:46, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
34. Support: --Bhadani (talk) 07:58, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
35. Support - bumped into this candidate's edits plenty of times in the past and he appears to be a solid contributor. His answers also show a good grasp of policy and an ability to learn from mistakes. I respect his commitment to accountability via recall although I personally think recall is a problematic notion. Gatoclass (talk) 19:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
36. Support, good answers, good editing history. Can be trusted with the mop.
    Dreadstar † 07:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply
    ]
37. Good recall criteria. EJF (talk) 17:42, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

1. The needlessly convoluted criteria you impose for the already nebulous recall process strike me as an vacuous promise - it is obvious from their wording that they are meaningless and would allow you to talk yourself out of any such request. I do not trust people who make empty promises. >Radiant< 23:32, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Aside from the spectacular failure of AGF here, you should take a look at

   talk 23:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply

   ]

   Yes, I'm aware that there are worse criteria out there. This one is still a needlessly bureaucratic and convoluted wording that doesn't in fact have meaningful content. Aside from that, have you heard the one about the

   WP:KETTLE? >Radiant< 23:47, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply

   ]

   The one where someone makes a meaningless oppose about a supposedly meaningless recall pledge? Nope, enlighten me.

   talk 23:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply

   ]

   See, those arguments usually work better when replying to meaningless opposition. I can't figure out why though...

   party) 06:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply

   ]

   Keep in mind that this RFA doesn't serve as a

   place of conflict. Refrain from making comments that do not help nor not help the candidate. Rudget. 16:18, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply

   ]

2. Recent incidents lead me to be distrustful of people that promise recall. Having such complicated criteria to me says that it will be difficult to carry out such a recall process, and the more difficult it is the more drama there will be and the more accusations there will be of avoiding keeping pledges. I would rather a candidate make recall straightforward, or not pledge recall at all. CordeliaHenrietta (talk) 21:03, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   I know it is with the best intentions that you wrote this, but doesn't the first sentence seem a bit generalised? We can't know for sure what MBK will be like as an administrator, although if we go by his current contributions, I'd say he'd make a good one. Administrators in that category change their criteria sometimes, it could be that MBK does the same. Rudget. 21:13, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   The recall process has been abused too much lately, and I mean by those asking for recall as well as admins, so I don't blame anyone for being apprehensive about it nor for not participating or withdrawing therefrom. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:46, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Personally, I feel that recall is just a tool used by people to make themselves look more accountable as admins. As the criteria can be changed and rejected at any time, it's a completely useless process and I am deeply distrustful of anyone who claims to have commited to it, especially when user subpages, clerks, 'consensus', etc are involved as previous recalls involving those have ended disasterously. CordeliaHenrietta (talk) 15:51, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Those are absurd recall criteria, especially the fact that 3 of the users must be admins and all of the must have 3000 edits. Some admins don't have that many yet! I mean, that's less transparent than not being on the recall category. I'm sure if any admin did something absurd I could pop over to there userpage and ask them to resign, and they would. I just can't support someone who has such criteria, allowing them to worm their way out of things.--Phoenix-wiki 00:42, 19 January 2008 (UTC) Not a valid argument anymore.--Phoenix-wiki 11:31, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

1. Neutral Judging from the Oppose votes, this user appears to be bureaucratic. I'll keep my vote a neutral for now. --Sharkface217 02:04, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
2. Neutral I just can't support after that recall answer.--Phoenix-wiki 11:35, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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.