Wikipedia:Requests for bureaucratship/Avraham 2

Avraham

Voice your opinion (talk page) (4/0/0); Scheduled to end 04:57, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Avraham (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

This past February, we saw an influx of candidates submitting requests for bureaucratship as a response to a perceived community need for more bureaucrats. As one of the respondents, Wikipedia:Requests for bureaucratship/Avraham, I was fortunate enough to receive excellent constructive criticism from the project, and I appreciate all of responses, questions, and suggestions I received—both from those who supported my request as well as from those who opposed.

The overriding point that was clearly stated by the community was their concern as to an apparent lack of recent interaction and vocal participation in the request for adminship process. This brings to mind the words of the great philosopher, George Santayana, who is oft-misquoted but who said: “Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness.…Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The project is consistent in its requirements, and I had the same basic issue as Redux, one of our bureaucrats.

Taking the project's advice to heart, I have resumed being significantly active opining on both WP:RFA and WT:RFA in line with my general thoughts about requests for administratorship and bureaucratship as encapsulated on my user page as the essay User:Avraham/RfA-B. Further in line with this, I have nominated a successful candidate for adminship, with another soon-to-follow—hopefully. I believe over these past couple of months that I have provided the wikipedia project members a significant body of evidence from which they can judge my approach to RfA…as an editor.

Should I have earned your collective trust enough for you to feel that my services as a bureaucrat for the English Wikipedia would be a benefit to the project, I would not approach closures as an editor. Rather, I believe that requests for bureaucratship are, at their heart, a project-wide referendum on the judgment of the candidate, and whether or not that judgment would be properly used, in accordance with wikipedia policy and guideline, to determine consensus in requests for adminiship, flagging bots, and changing usernames. To serve as a bureaucrat requires a demonstrated understanding of policies and guidelines, especially vis-a-vis sysops, current familiarity with the RfA process, and a demonstrated understanding of consensus. A bureaucrat must be open, willing to discuss difficult issues, and willing to admit to errors in the rare event they occur. Lastly, a bureaucrat must be cordial and civil, as failed RfA's hurt, whether or not adminship is a "big deal".

Specifically regarding RfA's, we do not need bureaucrats an RfA's candidacy is 22% or 98%; we need them for the cases when the statistics are in that 70% to 80% range, when it is the bureaucrat's job not to decide upon the candidate's status, but to carefully peruse the arguments and statements posed, and decide on what the community's consensus is vis-a-vis the candidate in question. The recent statistical discussion on WT:RFA, besides being a lot of fun and a learning experience for me, also demonstrates that no matter how rigorous a system is conceived; there will be times when human judgment is required, and that is the function of bureaucrats—to determine consensus if it does exist and to determine when consensus does not exist.

About me as a wikipedian, I have been a registered wikipedia editor for almost three years, since July of 2005, in which time I have amassed over 23,000 edits. I was fortunate to have earned the community's trust to become a sysop almost two years ago in July of 2006. I have been afforded the trust of the WikiCommons community as a sysop, and I am also a volunteer for the m:OTRS ticket system. I have acted as both a formal and an informal mentor for wikipedians who have requested or required it as well. I have done my best to remain civil, cordial, and polite even during heated discussions, although, of course, I am not perfect.

I appreciate your time in considering my application, I hope that I have earned your trust over the past ~3 years, and I look forward, once again, to any and all constructive criticism that you may have.

Thank you very much.

-- Avi (talk) 04:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:

Self-nomnination -- Avi (talk) 04:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as a Bureaucrat. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. Have you read the discussions on when to promote and not promote? What do you understand the criteria for promotion to be?

A. My answer to this question is the same as when I first submitted a candidacy. Yes, I have read the discussions. The criteria for promotion is community consensus. As stated on Wikipedia:Bureaucrats: “They are bound by policy and consensus to grant administrator or bureaucrat access only when doing so reflects the wishes of the community, usually after a successful request at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship.” This is what requires us to have a human bureaucrat as opposed to bot that can perform long division or the calculation of the incomplete beta function (see here). It is not for the times when the consensus is obvious one way or the other, it is for the gray zone. Common practice is that over around 80% is clear, and under around 70% is clear, but that zone in-between is where the community relies on the judgment of its bureaucrats to best "tease-out" what its consensus is.

2. How would you deal with contentious nominations where a decision to promote or not promote might be criticized?

A. My answer to this question is also the same as when I first submitted a candidacy. My optimal policy would be to be able to discuss it with fellow bureaucrats, on an open page, where the bureaucratic consensus as to the community consensus can be followed and understood by all. In those situations there is bound to be those that will argue with whatever decision is reached. When there is an open process and discussion, then at the very least, the final decision is understandable—which leads to much more acceptance. In the event I would be the only bureaucrat available to make this decision, I would do so with a detailed explanation of my thought process and which policies and guidelines were used to best capture the community's consensus, for the same reasons.

3. Wikipedians expect bureaucrats to adhere to high standards of fairness, knowledge of policy and the ability to engage others in the community. Why do you feel you meet those standards?

A. I have been an administrator on the English wikipedia for here for over 22 months. I have been considered worthy of trust on the Commons as well. I have been trusted enough to be approached to mentor cases of editors as their last resort before community sanctions, and have been considered fair enough to be approached as such about editors whose issues deal with among our most difficult ones, such as the Palestinan-Israeli issues. Also, I have been considered trustworthy, fair, and discrete enough to be allowed to volunteer on the m:OTRS list, where the most difficult and contentious issues that affect all Wikimedia projects, and are bound by the policies and guidelines of all of our projects, not just Wikipedia, are dealt with. I have done my best to both follow, as well as uphold, wikipedia policies and guidelines—both those that deal with article content as well as those that deal with inter-editor communications.

4. Do you have the time and do you have the desire to visit WP:RFA, WP:B/RFA, and/or WP:CHU on a regular basis to attend to those requests?

A. Yes I do, and I shall do my best, as I have tried to demonstrate at WP:RFA and WT:RFA in the months since my last candidacy.

Optional question from Gonzo fan2007:

5. With the increasing controversy with the amount of questions posed at WP:RFAs, what is your opinion on the amount of questions asked, what types of questions should be asked, and whether it is a bureaucrats job to keep an RFA "clean?"

A.Is this an optional question about the appropriateness of optional questions? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? My personal opinion as an editor is that the proliferation of questions has become too pervasive; my own RfA only had one additional question, for example, although that was near two years ago. As an editor I try to judge the candidate less on how they answer one particular question under the "bright lights" of the RfA, and more by looking at their history of, hopefully, thousands of edits over months, if not years. As a candidate for bureaucratship, however, I do not believe it is the bureaucrats' role to "clean" the RfA. Their role is to close it, and to determine the consensus of opinion, should it exist. Thank you for taking the time to participate! -- Avi (talk) 05:28, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

General comments

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Please keep discussion constructive and civil.

Discussion

Support

1. Proud to. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 05:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
2. Easiest decision tonight « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 05:06, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
3. Support as last time. This user has exceptional judgment, and there is a clear need for more 'crats at the moment. GlassCobra 05:09, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
4. Support - I find everything this editor says at WP:RFA and WT:RFA to be insightful and thought provoking. I can trust him to make proper judgment calls involving consensus for hair-splitting situations. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 05:11, 5 May 2008 (UTC)