Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 19:55, 13 September 2015

Oshwah

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (0/0/1); Scheduled to end 19:00, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Nomination

Oshwah (talk · contribs) – Oshwah may not be the most prolific content creator here on WP. Frankly, I don't believe that content creation is an important part of adminship, whereas the AFD process is and should be valued more highly by users. However he has done exemplary work in CSD, image copyvios, ACC, and much more. He has also done excellent work in keeping vandals and trolls off the wiki. Therefore, I believe he is ready to become an admin. Eat me, I'm a red bean (talk | contribs) test 00:49, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Co-nom

It is my pleasure to co-nom Oshwah for the mop. He has edited Misplaced Pages for seven years; although there is a huge inactivity gap between 2009-2013, this still leaves him with nearly two years of active editing, also racking up nearly 24,000 edits. He primarily fights vandals, tags articles for speedy deletion, and creates accounts. Although he probably only wants to work in these two narrow areas (account creation doesn't need admin), more importantly, he does what he does best well, showing excellent knowledge and skill. He has a whopping 6,000 vandalism reversions with more than 300 AIV reports and about 800 CSD taggings with a negligible 1-2% error rate (which is actually barely heard of these days). I therefore believe that Oshwah would make a great addition to the admin corps. Esquivalience 01:56, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I happily and humbly will accept the nomination. Eat me, I'm a red bean, Esquivalience - Thank you. I appreciate not only the time you spent to write such kind words, but the fact that trust me enough to put your names forward like this. I'll try not to let you down :-) ~Oshwah~ 18:46, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Misplaced Pages as an administrator. Please answer these questions to provide guidance for participants:

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

A: The admin tools are a Swiss army knife; you don't just get a blade on one day and then get the tweezers on another. You're given all of the functionality that it comes with and you have to be trusted to hold and use them properly and when the time is appropriate. Just like being an admin, having a knife is no big deal, but using it inappropriately where it causes harm (even accidentally and in good faith) is absolutely a big deal.

Analogies aside and with that being said, I intend to use a subset of the tools at the beginning, and then slowly expand my tool use as I become proficient with the role. I will begin by using the tools to expand my role in vandal fighting. I will continue to revert vandalism and tag articles as before, but I will also be able to extend how I counter vandalism by performing blocks when appropriate, performing revision deletion on extreme and gross violations (according to criteria of course), assisting with the AIV and WP:UAA noticeboards, as well evaluate and process page protection and protection reduction reqests.

Once I'm absolutely comfortable with this increase in responsibilities, I'll branch out into the administrative backlog; I'll start by evaluating CSD and page move requests, and eventually become proficient in keeping the administrative backlog as caught-up as possible. I will eventually branch out into the AFD category and assist in closing discussions there, but after I've completely familiarized myself with the basic areas first.

It's important to share exactly what I'll be using the tools for (you obviously need to demonstrate the need for them), but also address the fact that the admin role enables many different tools and responsibilities that absolutely must be used with care. It's easy to say "Hey, look at all the things I'll do!"; it's crucial to also share where I plan to start, how I plan to familiarize myself and become proficient with the responsibilities, and what areas I'll expand to as I transition into this role. Quality over quantity.

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

A: Most of my contributions to Misplaced Pages have been WikiGnome-based. I've reverted a lot of vandalism over the years that I've volunteered to the project, as well as created many reports to AIV and UAA, tagged many articles for speedy deletion for advertising, spam, and copyright violations, and kept an eye out for sockpuppetry symptoms, conflicts of interest, and BLP violations and edits that require oversighting or revision deletion.

I've also contributed extensively in the ACC process. To date, I've created exactly 700 accounts and denied 328 requests. By best contribution to the ACC project was the complete overhauls that I made to the ACC Guide, the ACC project page, and the Username Policy template. Before these edits, the ACC Guide was ambiguous, disorganized, and very hard to follow. It made a lot of new tool users afraid to participate due to the way that the guide was formatted, and it allowed for potential mistakes to occur that could have been very high-risk. I uploaded a new flow chart image for tool users to follow when addressing requests for usernames that were similar to others, and eliminated the ambiguity that was present before. I also redesigned the ACC project page and template to reduce the many requests that we'd receive that were not supposed to be filed there, as well as answered more common questions and addressed more situations in advance so that the team could process more requests with less time spent addressing problematic ones.

I also contributed to some of our backlogs, one if which being CAT:SHADOW. I've performed file moves in order to address the issue of file names existing in Misplaced Pages that have the same name as a different file that exists in the Wikimedia Commons. These moves allowed for the local images to continue to exist, while allowing for images that belong on the Wikimedia Commons to be used in articles here. I've also contributed to the AFD backlog, and it's a place that I need to (and plan to) participate more in.

My talk page has also expanded exponentially over the years with questions about Misplaced Pages policies and proper edits and expansion to Misplaced Pages articles, as well as requests for assistance. In the past, I've been able to get away with archiving my old discussions by year; lately I've been having archive them by month. It's been an absolute pleasure to meet the many different people that I have, address conflicts, answer their questions, and (most importantly) help new users in ways that will encourage them to become long-term contributors here (which over the years has been on the decline).

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: Absolutely. Reverting the amount of vandalism that I do typically generates questions and heated replies on my talk page almost daily (minus all the threats, insults, and vandalism that is made to my user and talk space as a result). I've always responded by treating everyone with respect, answering their questions so that they can contribute positively, and offering my assistance to help fix the article if they feel that they're still not sure how to address their concerns. The concept that many editors fail to remember is that IP's are people too, they deserve the same respect and courtesy as registered users do, and I've done my best to do just that. It's important to know that you just can't solve every problem. Not even administrators can. When you're in a conflict with another editor, you just need to recognize that there are some will just never get the point no matter how many different ways you try to explain. You should always assume good faith, explain the issue and cite relevant policies and guidelines, and (most importantly) offer to help - but you should also know when it's time to walk away. Don't worry; if they're going to continue to be disruptive or violate policy without care, they'll most certainly be back.

Edits in the past have certainly caused some stress. In fact, a typical situation that can be somewhat annoying occurred just the other day. An IP was causing vandalism to BLP articles, reverting my edits to restore the vandalism back, and it kept going for over half an hour and it occurred often enough that I had to keep a tab open on the IP and repeatedly press F5 so that I could rollback the next edit as soon as it came in. Was it annoying? Sure. You're tapping your shoe waiting for the AIV to get processed, or hoping for an administrator to stumble into what is happening and block the IP, and you're having to focus your almost-complete attention to that IP while you wait. It occurs somewhat frequently, but that's what comes with fighting vandalism and I'm happy to take on that task instead of having someone else suffer. As an experienced editor, I try my best to emphasize that I'm here to serve you. And I'm happy to take on that pain for you so that you can have fun and contribute to Misplaced Pages wherever you want to.

How do I deal with such stress? Take a break and do something else for awhile. When I start thinking, "okay, this is starting to not be fun anymore", I'll go somewhere else for a bit. I'll create some accounts, move some files, or participate in some editor help requests or noticeboard discussions. It's most important, above all else, to remain neutral and absolutely keep your cool. Once you leave the realm and start getting sucked into a heated issue or debate and resort to incivility or heated responses, you have just shown them your belly and you have lost any credibility that you've worked to establish with them. It will not solve the issue at hand, and it almost always make the issue continue, if not worse than it was before. Upon taking the role of an administrator, you not only have to have extensively demonstrated professionalism in this area, you now have to take that professionalism and lead by example.

Additional questions from User:DESiegel

4. What is your view of Process is important?

A:

5. How strictly should the literal wording of the speedy deletion criteria be applied?

A:

6. What sort of thing constitutes a "claim of significance" in assessing an A7 or A9 speedy deletion? Can you give some examples of things that do or don't qualify?

A:

7. What is the place of WP:IAR in carrying out administrative actions?

A:

8. An admin is often expected or requested to help others, particularly new users, and to aid in calming disputes, either resolving them or pointing the participants to proper venues for resolution. How do you see yourself in this aspect of an Admin's role?

A:

Discussion

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

Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review his contributions before commenting.

Support

Oppose

Neutral

1. I almost opposed outright due to the nominator saying "I don't believe that content creation is an important part of adminship". It isn't your place to decide what others judge to be important, and the arrogance in which you show in your nominating statement is foolhardy, as a good number of people DO consider some form of content creation to be important, at least to a degree. I will look around closer before I decide to support or oppose, but wanted to be clear that the nominating statement was one of the most foolish noms I've ever seen, and since the candidate choose you to nominate him, it brings his judgement into question. At the very least, you just shot your candidate in the foot. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:53, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

General comments