Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Kathryn NicDhàna

Kathryn NicDhàna

Voice your opinion (talk page) (0/0/0); Scheduled to end 02:47, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Kathryn NicDhàna (talk · contribs) - My fellow Wikipedians, I offer you Kathryn NicDhàna, as my ninth candidate for adminship.

Kathryn NicDhàna has been contributing to Wikipedia since July 2005. Since that time, she has made over 5600 edits, with over 2700 to the mainspace, 460 to the Wikipedia-space, plus 1300 to user talk, and editing roughly 1900 pages in all. Located in those numbers, Kathryn NicDhàna is a good article-writer, and has improved pages such as Jim Morrison, Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism, Samhain, Patricia Kennealy-Morrison, and Polytheistic reconstructionism. As well as article writing, she is also an effective vandal-fighter: giving accurate reports to AIV.

When it comes to Kathryn NicDhàna’s behavior, I have found her to be an extremely polite user, both on and off-Wikipedia. My observations of her interactions with other users and myself have been positive, and I also admire her patience. She has E-mail enabled, so if users need to contact her privately for whatever reason, they’ll be able to.

In all, I believe that Kathryn NicDhàna is a very experienced editor with a high knowledge of policy. I am certain that she will not abuse the tools if they are given to her, and Wikipedia will gain from her being a sysop. Acalamari 02:47, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: Oh, ok, you talked me into it. Thank you for your kind words, and your nomination. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 04:29, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Optional candidate statement:

With the possible upcoming change to allow IPs to create new pages, it looks like we need more admins. I’ve been putting off an RfA for a while, largely because I’ve been rather busy off-Wiki. However, the possibility of further backlogs at CSD, AIV, and possible angry responses when new users have their nn pages speedied, has made me decide to go ahead and see if folks want me to help out via the extra buttons. I already do some admin-related work (vandal fighting, policy discussions, informal mediation on content disputes and WikiProjects), so I think I’m pretty clear on how to wield the mop (as well as when not to). There are a handful of admins I work with regularly, so I know where to look for help if something is outside the range of what I’ve dealt with before. So, if you want me to help lighten the load, I’m here.

(Note – If we do proceed with enabling Anonymous page creation, I think this should help: Wikipedia:Article wizard)

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: I am most familiar with AIV and CSD, and could help with backlogs there. After having to ask for page protection on heavily vandalized articles (Halloween on Halloween of 2006 was a notable example), I understand the need for protecting pages, as well as dealing with the vandals or POV-pushers that lead to protection being needed. I am one of those people who has stayed up far too late some nights because there were backlogs and no one had gotten around to protecting or semi-protecting a page that was being hard-hit, so I have a lot of sympathy for that now.

I already get requests for help with some of these things via e-mail and my talk page, so I anticipate a significant amount of my work coming in that way.

Helping Pigman and other admins gather evidence for the Starwood arbitration gave me experience in tracking and stopping sockpuppets. Since then I have helped out informally on some sockpuppet investigations, usually by observing editing patterns, gathering diffs, IPs and other evidence to help the admins running the checks. Being able to view deleted contribs and deleted pages would help with identifying the sort of editing patterns we often have to rely on in these investigations, so would make my work in that area more effective.

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

A: I consider myself a well-rounded Wikipedian. I have contributed in many different areas across the project, from writing, sourcing and copyediting articles, to image creation, template creation, vandal-fighting, XFD, informal mediation and helping new users. I feel my main strengths are as a writer, researcher and editor. I value WP and the WP community, and am committed to helping protect the ‘pedia.

I have written a number of small articles (Kevin Danaher, Helena Moloney), and contributed significantly to one Good Article (Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism). However, I feel my best, and most satisfying, work has been salvaging mid-size articles by rewriting, expanding and sourcing them, sometimes on my own, other times with one or two collaborators. Some of these are high profile articles (sections of Scottish people, like this one), while others pertain to more specialized fields such as Celtic Mythology and folklore, such as Cailleach, which looked like this when I found it. Or Geis which still needs a lot of work, but which looked this this before I tackled it. I also like improving and sourcing established articles, such as these additions to Hogmany.

I do a fair amount of wikignoming (mostly copyediting) and a bit of template work. I’ve made a few simple templates (Gaelic Festivals is one), and I helped Jossi proof and update Celts and Celtic mythology.

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: The events leading up to the surreal and draining Starwood arbitration were not fun. After weighing in on my very first AfDs and RfCs (on a slew of spammy, nn articles), I suddenly became targeted for harassment by a now-banned, virulent sock drawer. Being lied about, insulted and wiki-stalked was stressful, especially when I had no idea why most of it was happening, and when colleagues of mine and articles they work on were also being attacked.

However, it was largely because of those attacks that I learned about WP dispute resolutions processes, WP:AN/I, AfDs, RfCs, and numerous other admin-relevant sides of WP. Prior to being attacked, I had just written articles and patrolled RC for vandals. Once he filed the arbitration, I helped Pigman and others gather evidence on the sockpuppetry and policy violations. This gave me a lot of experience in learning to spot socks and what to do when they’re found.

Though I would have preferred to learn about things like Arbcom by less-stressful means, I’m glad for what I learned. Were it all to happen now, I would handle it completely differently, and I don’t think it would particularly stress me at all. I think that with earlier use of checkuser and more stringent application of policy by helpful admins (which would have resulted in sanctions and blocking of the sockdrawer before so much damage was done) it could have avoided going to Arbcom. It was stressful at the time because I didn’t know how to find help on WP or how to get policies enforced in a prompt manner; now I do. It also made me realize how important it is to help less-experienced editors who become targeted by trolls.

Other situations that could have been stressful but weren’t were when I helped resolve a somewhat contentious debate about the Irish People graphic, and some differing opinions about images on the Neopaganism article. It struck me during those discussions that the events leading to the Starwood Arb could have gone similarly well, if only the people involved had been respectful and civil with one another.

Disclosure: Like most of us, when I first came to WP I knew nothing about WP policies. Even before I discovered that it is against the WP:AUTOBIO guideline, I knew instinctively that it’s bad form to write about oneself. At the express request of other Wikipedians, I did contribute fairly extensively to the Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism article. At the time I began working on it, I was not mentioned in the article, and it had not occurred to me that I ever would be. But as the article expanded I wound up being briefly mentioned, and some of my work in the field is now cited in the sources.

The article is now classed as a Good Article, and I am proud that it is very thoroughly sourced with third-party, WP:V sources. However, once I was named and cited in it, even though I was contributing as an “expert” and was always open about my identity, I realized it would be best if I scale back my participation in the article for WP:COI reasons. Though I would like to expand the article somewhat, I now do my best to limit myself to the talk page, and even stay away from that when it looks like it could get stressful. The only recent exceptions to this have been when I’ve added third-party sources, corrected serious misinformation or vandalism, or agreed to do a bit of collaborative addition of text and sources in direct response to a specific request from an admin or other experienced editor.

General comments

• Links for Kathryn NicDhàna: Kathryn NicDhàna (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)

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