Final (10/7/0) ended 02:03, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Grandmasterka ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
I accept my self-nomination. Well, in trying to please everyone, it seems I have pleased hardly anyone. I said the system works fine, but then I propose all sorts of changes to it. Sigh... I withdraw.
Grand
master
ka 02:03, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I am Grandmasterka, and I have been an admin since July 14th of last year, and an active participant in RfA since somewhere around my 300th edit. I believe I have been, for the most part, a good citizen, contributor and admin for Wikipedia. I have made some painfully embarrassing mistakes I can name that all occurred within the first two months of my adminship, but I believe I now have the maturity and experience necessary for this position.
There has, off and on, been discussion about a possible desire for a new bureaucrat; in a recent thread on RfA talk, User:Redux expressed the sentiment that, while the need for bureaucrats is not urgent, any qualified and willing candidate should run, and User:Essjay agreed that "'we don't need any' shouldn't be a valid reason for opposition". (Both users are bureaucrats themselves.) In light of this, and in the spirit expressed through the five recently failed requests for bureaucratship (excluding the one who mainly wanted to do bot flagging,) as well as several other threads on RfA talk expressing a desire for more bureaucrats or bemoaning the lack of support given to new bureaucrat candidates, and mainly due to my belief that I can bring a fresh and beneficial new philosophy to the bureaucrat staff on hand (see below,) I urge you to carefully consider my RfB even if I might not meet your time of service requirements for a bureaucrat.
The bulk of this comment shows my main views on our current RfA process. I have never been much of an RfA reformist, although I had supported suggestions that would introduce more constructive discussion into the process. Then, after reading all the archives, I found Wikipedia:Discussions for adminship, which was discussed to death and failed, as well as a mountain of other reform proposals that all died a very hard death. It's either quite humorous, or quite sad. The point is, adminship is, and always must be, a subjective process, and therefore subject to the whims of the members of a growing and changing community which leaves older contributors feeling more apprehensive about the current process, in my observation. There will never be a User:Bureaucrat Bot for automatic adminship, like some people seem to want, <cheapshot>although that will only be because it forgot to accept its nomination.</cheapshot> Defining what is and isn't an ideal admin seems simple on the surface, but the various failed reform proposals taking up many megabytes of space on RfA talk in all the archives (again, yes, I've read every single one of them) and on policy pages shows that it is a very complicated issue, with a solution similar to how one would define pornography. (And, incidentally, adminship is A Big Deal™.) Thus, I believe our current system works okay, because it generates enough admins to do the job, though we could always use more (although "enough" is highly subjective as well) and because the number of de-sysopping incidents and problems we have is very low for the number of admins we have (also subjective.) I'm quite proud of our admin force as a whole.
However, I will listen to all serious reform proposals and weigh in on them if asked. More importantly, I am running in this RfB on a platform of strict adherence to almost exclusively giving full weight to arguments that reflect criteria in the current revision of Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship#What RfA contributors look for and Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship#What RfA contributors look for and hope not to see, with the following changes:
When it comes to RfA, the burden of proof should fall more on the opposition to prove that the candidate should not be an admin in any given candidacy, than on the supporters to prove that the candidate should be an admin, because the opposition is automatically given more weight in RfA. For this reason, oppose !votes will be much more heavily scrutinized for the guidelines I've laid out above. By applying my own strict guidelines and taking a more active role with the community, I believe I can help influence the culture of RfA to reduce the "frivolous" oppose !votes and/or editcountitis that RfA reformists often complain about, and partially acheive a more informed RfA populous that will make everyone happier. (I think "partially" is all we can ever hope for.) Note that I would only be an umpire of this process as bureaucrat; I would just happen to have a smaller strike zone than the other umpires. (Pardon the bad sports analogy.)
I have some experience closing AfDs which are the closest thing an admin can do to deciding consensus in an RfA, in my opinion. Please have a look at THIS. This is the sort of in-depth analysis you can expect from me as bureaucrat given a similarly controversial decision. (I only wish I had known that one of the "keep" opinions was the sockpuppet of a banned user, although it probably would not have affected the outcome.) You can find a brief rundown of my take on past controversial RfA decisions in my answer to Q1.
Please note that I fully intend to continue in all the roles I fulfill now, as an admin who checks WP:ANI and C:CSD regularly, and a user who fixes articles a lot and writes articles a little. Whether or not I become bureaucrat, I have a new year's resolution to become more involved in article namespace again, here and/or in another language. I do not believe that being a bureaucrat should hinder these things that much. I reserve the right to nominate users and participate directly in RfAs, and I will not close these no matter how lopsided the result is. In addition to RfA, I would of course lend a hand at Wikipedia:Changing username, but I won't do any bot flagging, at least at first. Wikipedia has literally played a big role in teaching me a new language, I don't see why I couldn't eventually learn all about bots as well. :-)
Questions for the candidate
A few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:
Comments
Support
Oppose
Neutral
Final (10/7/0) ended 02:03, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Grandmasterka ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
I accept my self-nomination. Well, in trying to please everyone, it seems I have pleased hardly anyone. I said the system works fine, but then I propose all sorts of changes to it. Sigh... I withdraw.
Grand
master
ka 02:03, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I am Grandmasterka, and I have been an admin since July 14th of last year, and an active participant in RfA since somewhere around my 300th edit. I believe I have been, for the most part, a good citizen, contributor and admin for Wikipedia. I have made some painfully embarrassing mistakes I can name that all occurred within the first two months of my adminship, but I believe I now have the maturity and experience necessary for this position.
There has, off and on, been discussion about a possible desire for a new bureaucrat; in a recent thread on RfA talk, User:Redux expressed the sentiment that, while the need for bureaucrats is not urgent, any qualified and willing candidate should run, and User:Essjay agreed that "'we don't need any' shouldn't be a valid reason for opposition". (Both users are bureaucrats themselves.) In light of this, and in the spirit expressed through the five recently failed requests for bureaucratship (excluding the one who mainly wanted to do bot flagging,) as well as several other threads on RfA talk expressing a desire for more bureaucrats or bemoaning the lack of support given to new bureaucrat candidates, and mainly due to my belief that I can bring a fresh and beneficial new philosophy to the bureaucrat staff on hand (see below,) I urge you to carefully consider my RfB even if I might not meet your time of service requirements for a bureaucrat.
The bulk of this comment shows my main views on our current RfA process. I have never been much of an RfA reformist, although I had supported suggestions that would introduce more constructive discussion into the process. Then, after reading all the archives, I found Wikipedia:Discussions for adminship, which was discussed to death and failed, as well as a mountain of other reform proposals that all died a very hard death. It's either quite humorous, or quite sad. The point is, adminship is, and always must be, a subjective process, and therefore subject to the whims of the members of a growing and changing community which leaves older contributors feeling more apprehensive about the current process, in my observation. There will never be a User:Bureaucrat Bot for automatic adminship, like some people seem to want, <cheapshot>although that will only be because it forgot to accept its nomination.</cheapshot> Defining what is and isn't an ideal admin seems simple on the surface, but the various failed reform proposals taking up many megabytes of space on RfA talk in all the archives (again, yes, I've read every single one of them) and on policy pages shows that it is a very complicated issue, with a solution similar to how one would define pornography. (And, incidentally, adminship is A Big Deal™.) Thus, I believe our current system works okay, because it generates enough admins to do the job, though we could always use more (although "enough" is highly subjective as well) and because the number of de-sysopping incidents and problems we have is very low for the number of admins we have (also subjective.) I'm quite proud of our admin force as a whole.
However, I will listen to all serious reform proposals and weigh in on them if asked. More importantly, I am running in this RfB on a platform of strict adherence to almost exclusively giving full weight to arguments that reflect criteria in the current revision of Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship#What RfA contributors look for and Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship#What RfA contributors look for and hope not to see, with the following changes:
When it comes to RfA, the burden of proof should fall more on the opposition to prove that the candidate should not be an admin in any given candidacy, than on the supporters to prove that the candidate should be an admin, because the opposition is automatically given more weight in RfA. For this reason, oppose !votes will be much more heavily scrutinized for the guidelines I've laid out above. By applying my own strict guidelines and taking a more active role with the community, I believe I can help influence the culture of RfA to reduce the "frivolous" oppose !votes and/or editcountitis that RfA reformists often complain about, and partially acheive a more informed RfA populous that will make everyone happier. (I think "partially" is all we can ever hope for.) Note that I would only be an umpire of this process as bureaucrat; I would just happen to have a smaller strike zone than the other umpires. (Pardon the bad sports analogy.)
I have some experience closing AfDs which are the closest thing an admin can do to deciding consensus in an RfA, in my opinion. Please have a look at THIS. This is the sort of in-depth analysis you can expect from me as bureaucrat given a similarly controversial decision. (I only wish I had known that one of the "keep" opinions was the sockpuppet of a banned user, although it probably would not have affected the outcome.) You can find a brief rundown of my take on past controversial RfA decisions in my answer to Q1.
Please note that I fully intend to continue in all the roles I fulfill now, as an admin who checks WP:ANI and C:CSD regularly, and a user who fixes articles a lot and writes articles a little. Whether or not I become bureaucrat, I have a new year's resolution to become more involved in article namespace again, here and/or in another language. I do not believe that being a bureaucrat should hinder these things that much. I reserve the right to nominate users and participate directly in RfAs, and I will not close these no matter how lopsided the result is. In addition to RfA, I would of course lend a hand at Wikipedia:Changing username, but I won't do any bot flagging, at least at first. Wikipedia has literally played a big role in teaching me a new language, I don't see why I couldn't eventually learn all about bots as well. :-)
Questions for the candidate
A few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:
Comments
Support
Oppose
Neutral