Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/PrestonH

PrestonH

Voice your opinion (talk page) (10/7/0); Scheduled to end 07:18, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

PrestonH (talk · contribs) – I would like to nominate PrestonH for adminship. He is an excellent user with over 8,000 edits. He is best known for fighting vandals and reporting them to the administrators' noticeboard if need calls for it. In his extra time on Wikipedia, he mainly changes spelling and grammar to the articles so they make more sense. As an administrator, he could work much faster on chasing away vandals by blocking their account usernames/IP addresses by himself instead of reporting them to the noticeboard. AL2TB Gab or Tab 06:49, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:

I accept humbly. PrestonH 07:13, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate
A few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:

1. What would you to do with the administrator tools to make beneficial to Wikipedia?

A. Well since I'm a potential vandal fighter, I would more likely lurk around at the AIV. I will usually check if they have a final warning before I block them. In relation to the AIV, I will also patrol UAA and Special:Log/newusers where I try my best to warn and block the offending user name. If the username ws created in good faith, I will try to convince them to rename theirs according to the username policy. If it is in bad faith, I will block immediately and put a {{subst:uw-ublock}} if appropriate. In my spare time, I will lurk around at Category:Requests for unblock and RFPP. I will delete frivioulus unblock requests and protect any articles with high amounts of vandalism (lots of vandalism a day and a high proportion is vandalism).

2. How do you normally greet users when they come to your user talk page?

A. I patrol at Special:Log/newusers for a list of new accounts created. Normally, I welcome users who contributed at least once in good faith. I use the {{welcome}} for the newcomers and I try to encourage them to contribute to the encyclopedia. If they want me as an adopter, I will gladly accept.

3. You seem to be a potent vandal fighter. Have you reported any vandals to the Administrators' noticeboard?

A. As a vandal fighter, I report some of the vandals to the noticeboard. Out of all the vandals in bad faith reverted, only 5-10% vandals are reported in the noticeboard because only persistant vandals (not people who are in a dispute) who were warned 3 or 4 times should be reported there. Well, my rough estimate is I report at least 30-40 vandals at the AIV, and I will examine their contributions if it is really vandalism or a content dispute.

4. It seems apparent that you have talked to users who planned to leave Wikipedia. What kind of action do you normally conduct in response to those situations?

A. If they leave out of sincerely (the funness of Wikipedia ran out, real-life issues, etc.), I would say to them good luck in real life and tell them your contributions of Wikipedia were valuable. If the leave insincerely (out of anger due to content dispute, accused sockpuppetry, etc.), then I tell them good luck in real life, and I give them tips to cheer them up and help them if they ever wish to return (examples include User:Artisol2345).

Optional question from — Rudget _speak.work

5. What did you feel like when you were acused here of being a sockpuppet? And since that was over a year ago, how would you respond as an admin to that situation today, given your experience?

A. Well, I was highly disappointed of being accused as a sockpuppet back then becuase I try to convince my friends to join Wikipedia the wrong way. I didn't leave Wikipedia though, becuase I knew that my name will be eventually cleared up by someone. As an admin candidate today, I realize that userboxes and convincing that your friends that Wikipedia is a social network friend is bad, and I will try to be forgiving to a new user who does the same mistakes as I used toyou over a year ago (unless they do this repeatedly).

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

• Links for PrestonH: PrestonH (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/PrestonH before commenting.

Discussion

• AL2TB would you please stop formatting the comments and !votes of other people? Some people (like me) leave off the bolding of Oppose or leave out the word altogether. Your incorrect formatting changes (including indenting votes erroneously) force other people to review each of your edits, or return to this page after voting to ensure that their comments haven't been altered. Avruch^Talk 19:12, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this is the first nomination for someone to be a potential admin. I was not sure that you were able to leave out your Oppose heading. My formatting is never perfect, so it's not like I was able to do the whole thing correctly. I also make a lot of silly mistakes from my edits, and often find myself correcting them. From now on, I'll leave the formats out to the other editors who knows how to manage RfA's. AL2TB Gab or Tab 19:18, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Support

1. Beat the nom support great user. Maser ^(Talk!) 08:53, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
2. Support Nice user. King Lopez ^Contribs 10:35, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
3. Support Meets my standards. Answers are consistent with understanding the tools. Talk page shows no evidence of incivility. We have had teenage admins before, and I'm afraid I do not understand opposes based on ageism. I do recall reading conversations where the ability of the nom rather than the age of the nom was to be the determining factor. Please correct me if I've missed something, like an age limit being agreed upon. Dlohcierekim 14:31, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
4. Support - Hmm... I like the response to my question, but it could have been a bit longer. The user meets my standards and their edits don't seem to show incivility. Their is a good edit count and there is a good understanding of policy. I don't personally believe age should be a restriction for an admin, but this is just one opinion. Best of luck, — Rudget _speak.work 15:38, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
5. Support Seems experienced enough. Epbr123 (talk) 16:55, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
6. Support. No evidence teh editor will abuse the tools. Good luck. Malinaccier (talk) 17:27, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
7. Support A proud vandal fighter. Evidently, he wants to keep Wikipedia a clean, safe community. Keep up the good work, Preston! AL2TB Gab or Tab 17:49, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
8. Support: good, consistent gnomework; plenty of vandal warning and reporting, no evidence of incivility or conflict. Age is a minor problem, but is it the only one? Yes, therefore support. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 18:06, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
9. Support – All of my interactions with this user have been positive. —Animum (talk) 21:04, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
10. My observations of this user have been positive. Acalamari 21:47, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
11. Good experiences with Preston. J-ſtan^Talk_Contribs 21:53, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose. It's nothing personal, but I do not think that the responsibility and stress of an admin job is appropriate for thirteen year olds, particularly since your user page already displays a wikibreak/wikistress notice. Also, vandal-whacking is only part of an administrator's job, and I see little involvement on your part in other admin-type tasks such as XfDs. Please do keep up your good work and try again later. Sandstein (talk) 09:30, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
2. Oppose Age is a concern imo when it comes to different things like e.g. the ability to see deleted pages. This in itself wouldn't be sufficient reason to oppose, but in conjunction with an autograph book, I personally have serious doubts whether the necessary level of maturity has been reached. Disclaimer: Since this reasoning is based on my personal floccinaucinihilipilification of autograph pages, I cannot and don't expect anyone to follow my logic. But still. I dorftrottel I talk I 11:46, December 9, 2007

   Btw: The fact that the nominating account was registered on December 5 doesn't exactly bode well for this RfA, either. I dorftrottel I talk I 18:39, December 9, 2007

   He is not a newcomer at all, he registered his account a few days ago. He said in real life that he viewed most of the policies for months before he created his account, mostly guided by User:Artisol2345 (with minor exceptions). CHeck his contributions closely and you might see where I'm going with this. PrestonH 19:57, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

3. Oppose This user has not sufficiently demonstrated their ability to apply discretion and make decisions in situations where the decision isn't as clear as "yes, I'll revert this" or "no, I won't"/"yes, that's a typo" or "no, that's not a typo". Administrators need to be able to make good, educated, thoughtful, discretionary decisions and unfortunately this candidate hasn't displayed enough experience in doing so for me to be able to support. Daniel 11:51, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

   Furthermore, the deficiency in meaningful edits to mainspace means that this user lacks the understanding which is so crucial when applying administrator actions to/as a direct result of/in accordance with mainspace and mainspace-talk incidents. Daniel 11:55, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

   Comment In my opinion, I don't believe that age should matter when comes to becoming an admin. It's rather the amount knowledge of Wikipedia that a user has, and the ability to follow the standards and keep Wikipedia as clean as possible. If he is able to revert vandalism like many other vandal fighters, I don't see why age should be regarded as a concern. (And Preston, I think none of this would have happened if you never mentioned your age. :D ) AL2TB Gab or Tab 17:54, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

   Note: I didn't mention age or maturity at all. Please retract your statement that I was influenced by age, as I find it to be an insult to my character. Daniel 22:32, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

   Daniel, perhaps he meant it for another user, or was just making the comment generally? Redrocketboy 22:56, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

4. Oppose I feel that the concerns raised above are strong. Although you are a good user, I suggest that you give this a bit more time. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 12:47, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
5. Oppose, user appears to be on a wikibreak, or attempting one. Maybe come back when you aren't so busy. Thanks (by the way, I don't care much for the age oppose above - it's edits not age that really matters - a fully mature adult can be a complete imbecile, and an 11 year old can be a genius.) Redrocketboy 12:55, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

   Comment You do raise a point. Why would a user put a sign on his userpage saying he's on wikibreak? Well, he probably has reasons, but it doesn't matter if you check his contributions and the fact that he still comes back and revert vandalism. AL2TB Gab or Tab 17:56, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

6. Oppose - Agree with Daniel above --Jeanenawhitney (talk) 13:36, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
7. Great contributor, but I don't think 13 year olds in general have the ability for complex decision making that is required of admins (particularly in XfD, dispute mediation, handling AN/I issues etc.) This isn't necessarily hard and fast, but PrestonH doesn't have the past history in these situations to overcome my general concerns. A lot of experience in these areas and a track record of solid decision making would change my vote to support in a future RfA. Avruch^Talk 18:59, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Comment Holy spelling fixes, Batman. Is that the bulk of all your edits? Avruch^Talk 19:05, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Comment Spelling fixs and other gnomework are needed in the project. We have had admins in the past who were young who funcioned fine. Maturity as an admin attribute is seen in one's interaction with others. If recollection serves, we even have or had a a crat. Frankly, I feel the sarcasm rather weakens your argument. Cheers, (User:Dlohcierekim, but I'm at work, so) Cheers, :) MikeReichold 21:06, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Mmm, I wasn't being sarcastic. Spelling fixes and gnomework are important, but if that is the bulk of what someone does, it makes it hard to evaluate them for adminship. Maturity is hard to evaluate, as well, in the absence of evidence either way. Tanks, Avruch^Talk 21:39, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

1. Oppose — I can't support this user. Users with editing patterns such as PrestonH's (lots of vandal-fighting and copyediting; little in the way of actual new content) tend to develop a fortress mentality that is not a desirable trait in an administrator. While the kind of work PrestonH does is necessary, and I have no problem in general with those who do mainly that, I don't want them being administrators. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 22:57, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Neutral