Final (56/12/3); Ended Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:09:51 UTC
FT2 ( talk · contribs) – I came across FT2 only a few weeks ago, while collaborating on a policy page. It was one of these cases in which you find a Wikipedian that cares about the project, does not mince words, is proactive in finding common ground with others, does not hesitate to give credit to his fellow editors when due, and you wish you could came across more like him.
It picked my curiosity and checked FT2's work in our project and was quite impressed. I would say that with over 14K edits and almost 2K edits in the Wikipedia namespace, this user is not only a well-rounded editor, but one that understand policy and helps shape it.
FT2 has an excellent grasp of our dispute resolution process and is not shy in getting his hands dirty and jumping in to lend a hand in controversial articles (those that many editors avoid like a plague.) See his list of project contributions. FT2 is also a member of the Wikipedia:Neutrality_Project.
A Wikipedian since July 2004, FT2 deserves the support of the community to become a sysop.
Note: FT2 withdrew a self-nomination back on June 20, 2006, given concerns expressed about lack of use of edit summaries, an issue that he took to heart since then. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:03, 12 January 2007 (UTC) reply
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia in this capacity. Please take the time to answer a few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:
A: My main interest is to help the project run smoothly. That means, from an editors' point of view that if some tools are limited in access, then requests for help get attended to quickly when asked. As
mentioned to the nominator:
I'd anticipate helping with dispute and disruption type chores, the kind which frustrate well-meaning editors and provoke spiralling problems - 3RR, vandalism, RFPP, deletion type matters such as CSD and AFD, things like persistent personal attacks that sometimes happen in edit warring where level headed calmness can often help calm things down, and so on. I've been helping with such chores as far as my current access allows, in general with good results. I've also spent considerable time cleaning up after vandal socks of blocked users and had to pass the mop to others on the follow-up actions. Additionally, checking the admin backlog, I'd definitely wish to be accessible to editors looking for admin help over possible sock issues, as thats something that is often messy, very disruptive, heavily discourages good editors, is instrumental in many conflicts, and which I've got a lot of experience at doing already. (Note: Some cases might not be possible to fully check out without further RFCU, an access which isn't widely available for good reasons.) I might well watchlist that page for requests. Is there a "suspected sock page patrol"? Separately, I don't know how genuine the need is, but if approved, count me in on Wikipedia:Admins willing to make difficult blocks; I don't know how much it's a genuine problem, but if it is, then I'm on the list on principle to discuss/lay out/action such matters carefully and neutrally as needed -- and draw a line on (un)acceptable conduct where needed. There's nothing as wrong as causing well-intending people to be apprehensive of doing the Right Thing.) Last, although not strictly a sysop chore, I asked a while back if theres a need for clerk work since this is often messy "backroom" stuff that doesn't get any glamor but does need doing; it's again all about cleanup of mess so others can get on with their stuff better. |
A: My activities are summarized and linked from my
user page. There's a number of them and that's probably the best place to review my contributions. I keep two separate subpages, for the times I've made significant
article contributions and
project contributions. Some of the feedback from other editors is on my
user page.
It's hard to pin down "most pleased", but the ones that tend to please me are those which were in some way an achievement. Reorganizing or writing an article to resolve a dispute is satisfying, but some articles feel more like achievements. The ones that come to mind include... well, I look at the list, and think that's just the articles with major work done... it's a haul to read through it. I'm going to just pick project contributions because that's easier, and just one or two article areas.
|
A:
In the last couple of months I've had to deal with COI based conflicts on Farmers Insurance Group, potential policy change conflict on WP:COI (where Jossi and I met), a POV vandal (semi-protection obtained), and a new editor who was incensed at the explicit content within the canine reproduction article's copulation section, which to him was "venial", "crap", "garbage" and "smut". I explained, and let others explain, then posted RFC rather than get into revert warring, to ask for further help explaining, when it became clear he wasn't interested in listening. Overall, there's no real good reasons or need for being hot headed over words and issues. I didn't become a hothead over this, which went on viciously non-stop for almost a year, or any other case to date, so I doubt that's in my crystal ball. A partial list of dispute work is available at Project contributions#Disputes and dispute resolution, and comments by editors whose disputes I've helped sort out is available at User:FT2#Feedback: Life in the hot seat. |
Discussion
Support
Oppose
Neutral
Comment by candidate
With the RfA coming towards an end shortly (and I have to head out now), and most of the comments probably made, I figure it's appropriate whatever happens in the last few hours, for me to try and reflect on the positives and negatives that have come out. I felt it more important during the RfA to listen, than talk myself much (one's either appropriate or not for a role, and others are the best judge). RfA is a pretty good way to find what your friends and others really think. The positives, I appreciate. It's good to know that others feel that way. Two negatives came up. The one with "Tie and tease" - now that it's clarified what went on, it's clear the mistake was mine. I think that explaining and checking when a bad edit was perceived, would have cleared it up faster, but I'm glad it was sorted out in the end.
COI, I think is more a case of perspective, and perhaps in retrospect it should have been discussed even though no change of the actual COI requirements was actually made. In retrospect the two "sides" were - 1/ COI should be left as it traditionally started, as addressing self/organizational-promotion only (WP:COI began life as a guideline on vanity articles), and my concern which was: 2/ COI is a term that others look at and have expectation what it should cover. Wikipedia regularly comes under fire for alleged questionable self-regulation and admin power-tripping, by third party commentators, and those comments sometimes end up in the media where others will read and believe them. A media article that reports Wikipedia has strong coherent internal COI will reflect well on us, and one that notes them as apparently absent or minimized may reflect badly. So it's worth referrencing in WP:COI that Wikipedia does have policies related to all forms of COI, since that's what the title implies to readers. Wikipedia is neither small nor marginal any more, so (as with all large undertakings) poor communication and flaws will be noted. People notice apparent flaws in major things more than minor ones.
A significant part of my project work has been cleaning up and authoring project documents which help establish Wikipedia as more credible, more transparent and better explained (WP:ABOUT, Reliability of Wikipedia, Wikipedia:Editorial oversight and control, cleanup of WP:NPOV, and so on). In this area, most contributions have been accepted and adopted; the discussion on COI has become more mild now that the issues of concern are clearer, and hopefully that will be sorted out too some time soon. Apologies if I pushed a bit hard, but it didn't seem very controversial to add to the main page covering COI, the information that we had other policies and guidelines seriously addressing COI too. I accept the correction - espcially from Mangojuice and Audacity and a couple of others - that this and a couple of other projectspace edits were possibly a bit hasty. It's a fair comment.
As there are lessons for me, there are lessons for others too, I think. Both the above were made worse by needless assumptions of bad faith [28] ("smells of a rather insidious attempt", "sneaking in", "these people") and [29], where it could easily have been asked directly what the motive was, rather than assume. The other were two worrying comments on WP:COI that implied that editing a guideline might have been out of order specifically because the contributor was not an admin, or that it was 'not unreasonable' because the contributor was on Request for Adminship at the time [30] [31]. Although admins have more experience, all editors seem to be considered of equal standing in respect of mainspace and project-space work [32]; hence adminship as a basic janitorial service. Comments like that fuel arguments, and also fuel the impression that admins consider themselves "higher", and expect to write the rules for "others", and that's got to be a mis-impression that's not allowed to be given.
That said, whatever the outcome, thank you to all who put in time and thought to give me this feedback. I appreciate it. If anyone still has concerns, advice, or suggestions for improvement, even after the RfA, please let me know, even if the RfA is already over. I've tried to address the main ones here. Thank you. FT2 ( Talk | email) 14:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC) reply
Final (56/12/3); Ended Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:09:51 UTC
FT2 ( talk · contribs) – I came across FT2 only a few weeks ago, while collaborating on a policy page. It was one of these cases in which you find a Wikipedian that cares about the project, does not mince words, is proactive in finding common ground with others, does not hesitate to give credit to his fellow editors when due, and you wish you could came across more like him.
It picked my curiosity and checked FT2's work in our project and was quite impressed. I would say that with over 14K edits and almost 2K edits in the Wikipedia namespace, this user is not only a well-rounded editor, but one that understand policy and helps shape it.
FT2 has an excellent grasp of our dispute resolution process and is not shy in getting his hands dirty and jumping in to lend a hand in controversial articles (those that many editors avoid like a plague.) See his list of project contributions. FT2 is also a member of the Wikipedia:Neutrality_Project.
A Wikipedian since July 2004, FT2 deserves the support of the community to become a sysop.
Note: FT2 withdrew a self-nomination back on June 20, 2006, given concerns expressed about lack of use of edit summaries, an issue that he took to heart since then. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:03, 12 January 2007 (UTC) reply
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia in this capacity. Please take the time to answer a few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:
A: My main interest is to help the project run smoothly. That means, from an editors' point of view that if some tools are limited in access, then requests for help get attended to quickly when asked. As
mentioned to the nominator:
I'd anticipate helping with dispute and disruption type chores, the kind which frustrate well-meaning editors and provoke spiralling problems - 3RR, vandalism, RFPP, deletion type matters such as CSD and AFD, things like persistent personal attacks that sometimes happen in edit warring where level headed calmness can often help calm things down, and so on. I've been helping with such chores as far as my current access allows, in general with good results. I've also spent considerable time cleaning up after vandal socks of blocked users and had to pass the mop to others on the follow-up actions. Additionally, checking the admin backlog, I'd definitely wish to be accessible to editors looking for admin help over possible sock issues, as thats something that is often messy, very disruptive, heavily discourages good editors, is instrumental in many conflicts, and which I've got a lot of experience at doing already. (Note: Some cases might not be possible to fully check out without further RFCU, an access which isn't widely available for good reasons.) I might well watchlist that page for requests. Is there a "suspected sock page patrol"? Separately, I don't know how genuine the need is, but if approved, count me in on Wikipedia:Admins willing to make difficult blocks; I don't know how much it's a genuine problem, but if it is, then I'm on the list on principle to discuss/lay out/action such matters carefully and neutrally as needed -- and draw a line on (un)acceptable conduct where needed. There's nothing as wrong as causing well-intending people to be apprehensive of doing the Right Thing.) Last, although not strictly a sysop chore, I asked a while back if theres a need for clerk work since this is often messy "backroom" stuff that doesn't get any glamor but does need doing; it's again all about cleanup of mess so others can get on with their stuff better. |
A: My activities are summarized and linked from my
user page. There's a number of them and that's probably the best place to review my contributions. I keep two separate subpages, for the times I've made significant
article contributions and
project contributions. Some of the feedback from other editors is on my
user page.
It's hard to pin down "most pleased", but the ones that tend to please me are those which were in some way an achievement. Reorganizing or writing an article to resolve a dispute is satisfying, but some articles feel more like achievements. The ones that come to mind include... well, I look at the list, and think that's just the articles with major work done... it's a haul to read through it. I'm going to just pick project contributions because that's easier, and just one or two article areas.
|
A:
In the last couple of months I've had to deal with COI based conflicts on Farmers Insurance Group, potential policy change conflict on WP:COI (where Jossi and I met), a POV vandal (semi-protection obtained), and a new editor who was incensed at the explicit content within the canine reproduction article's copulation section, which to him was "venial", "crap", "garbage" and "smut". I explained, and let others explain, then posted RFC rather than get into revert warring, to ask for further help explaining, when it became clear he wasn't interested in listening. Overall, there's no real good reasons or need for being hot headed over words and issues. I didn't become a hothead over this, which went on viciously non-stop for almost a year, or any other case to date, so I doubt that's in my crystal ball. A partial list of dispute work is available at Project contributions#Disputes and dispute resolution, and comments by editors whose disputes I've helped sort out is available at User:FT2#Feedback: Life in the hot seat. |
Discussion
Support
Oppose
Neutral
Comment by candidate
With the RfA coming towards an end shortly (and I have to head out now), and most of the comments probably made, I figure it's appropriate whatever happens in the last few hours, for me to try and reflect on the positives and negatives that have come out. I felt it more important during the RfA to listen, than talk myself much (one's either appropriate or not for a role, and others are the best judge). RfA is a pretty good way to find what your friends and others really think. The positives, I appreciate. It's good to know that others feel that way. Two negatives came up. The one with "Tie and tease" - now that it's clarified what went on, it's clear the mistake was mine. I think that explaining and checking when a bad edit was perceived, would have cleared it up faster, but I'm glad it was sorted out in the end.
COI, I think is more a case of perspective, and perhaps in retrospect it should have been discussed even though no change of the actual COI requirements was actually made. In retrospect the two "sides" were - 1/ COI should be left as it traditionally started, as addressing self/organizational-promotion only (WP:COI began life as a guideline on vanity articles), and my concern which was: 2/ COI is a term that others look at and have expectation what it should cover. Wikipedia regularly comes under fire for alleged questionable self-regulation and admin power-tripping, by third party commentators, and those comments sometimes end up in the media where others will read and believe them. A media article that reports Wikipedia has strong coherent internal COI will reflect well on us, and one that notes them as apparently absent or minimized may reflect badly. So it's worth referrencing in WP:COI that Wikipedia does have policies related to all forms of COI, since that's what the title implies to readers. Wikipedia is neither small nor marginal any more, so (as with all large undertakings) poor communication and flaws will be noted. People notice apparent flaws in major things more than minor ones.
A significant part of my project work has been cleaning up and authoring project documents which help establish Wikipedia as more credible, more transparent and better explained (WP:ABOUT, Reliability of Wikipedia, Wikipedia:Editorial oversight and control, cleanup of WP:NPOV, and so on). In this area, most contributions have been accepted and adopted; the discussion on COI has become more mild now that the issues of concern are clearer, and hopefully that will be sorted out too some time soon. Apologies if I pushed a bit hard, but it didn't seem very controversial to add to the main page covering COI, the information that we had other policies and guidelines seriously addressing COI too. I accept the correction - espcially from Mangojuice and Audacity and a couple of others - that this and a couple of other projectspace edits were possibly a bit hasty. It's a fair comment.
As there are lessons for me, there are lessons for others too, I think. Both the above were made worse by needless assumptions of bad faith [28] ("smells of a rather insidious attempt", "sneaking in", "these people") and [29], where it could easily have been asked directly what the motive was, rather than assume. The other were two worrying comments on WP:COI that implied that editing a guideline might have been out of order specifically because the contributor was not an admin, or that it was 'not unreasonable' because the contributor was on Request for Adminship at the time [30] [31]. Although admins have more experience, all editors seem to be considered of equal standing in respect of mainspace and project-space work [32]; hence adminship as a basic janitorial service. Comments like that fuel arguments, and also fuel the impression that admins consider themselves "higher", and expect to write the rules for "others", and that's got to be a mis-impression that's not allowed to be given.
That said, whatever the outcome, thank you to all who put in time and thought to give me this feedback. I appreciate it. If anyone still has concerns, advice, or suggestions for improvement, even after the RfA, please let me know, even if the RfA is already over. I've tried to address the main ones here. Thank you. FT2 ( Talk | email) 14:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC) reply