Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Halibutt

Halibutt

Requests_for_adminship/Halibutt|action=edit}} Vote here (17/12/3) ending 05:47 0600, 23 November (UTC)

Halibutt (talk · contribs) – I have worked with Halibutt on Wiki for close to two years now and he has always been a reliable, friendly editor. He is one of our most active editors, contributor of countless articles, images and even voice samples, founder or co-founder of several WikiProjects and a person I respect and fully trust. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 05:47, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept the nomination. Thank you, Piotrus. Halibutt 07:19, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Support

1. Strong support. I am proud to be the first to support Halibutt. On the issues with which we have interacted (though I have not participated in the discussions mentioned below), I have seen him act as the mediator on a number of difficult topics, in addition to his skills as a researcher and map creator. Even when we have disagreed (as has happened occasionally) I have found him to be both reasonable and persuasive, and have learned a lot from his points. A great candidate for a mop. --Goodoldpolonius2 06:11, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
2. Support, as above. logologist 06:28, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
3. Cue I thought he was an admin support! I've never had the opportunity to interact with him, but I've been impressed with many of his edits. Should make a really good admin! SoLando (Talk) 07:58, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
4. Support.  Grue  08:21, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
5. Support Geoff/Gsl 08:59, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
6. Strong Support File:Poland flag large.png. Wikipedia potrzebuje więcej zdolnych biało-czerwonych adminów. - File:Poland flag large.png Darwinek 10:45, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   Oh yeah? Well, so's your mother! So there! — JIP | Talk 10:49, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   No need to list it at WP:PNT :) It's basically Wikipedia needs more of talented, red-and-white admins. Halibutt

   lol. Θrǎn e (t) (c) (e-mail) 21:54, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

7. Support, seems harmless enough. — JIP | Talk 10:49, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
8. Support Seems like he would make a good admin --Rogerd 13:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
9. Support—good contributor with a good sense of humour. —Michael Z. 2005-11-16 16:42 Z
10. Support. Critics have raised legitimate concerns and I feel Halibutt has responded to them adequately. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 18:27, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
11. Support I have no problems with this user and the fact that he has enemies doesnt change that fact. Admin is no big deal!Gator (talk) 18:50, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
12. Support. Being Polish nationalist and stubborn in some cases are not very serious arguments against adminship. In my experience, he respects serious arguments. IMO he is a pretty mature person and I don't expect him abusing the privileges, which are pretty much limited and accountable, by the way. mikka (t) 18:55, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
13. Support nobs 19:45, 16 November 2005 (UTC) An authority in his field of concentration.
14. Weak Support did not have to interact with him too much, but overall looks like knowlegeable user, I do feel some of his tendencies are not very good and infringe on other users, but I do not believe he will ever misuse the tools, or will he? –Gnomz⁰⁰⁷(?) 20:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
15. Support. Great contributor to Wikipedia. Appleseed 21:48, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
16. Support. The scale of the contributions by Halibutt is quite impressive. True, he has strong views on certain subjects and some of his actions were unconventional, but this should not exclude him from adminship. If we were as a rule to exclude admins who made controversial edits, we would be excluding many excellent Wikipedians. Balcer 22:04, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
17. Support. I do admit that Halibutt's statements and actions left me consternated at times (esp. in the context of the VfD against the "Polish Black Book" or in several naming disputes). However, that was mainly against the background of a solid body of undisputedly constructive edits, which easily qualifies him for adminship. --Thorsten1 23:02, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

    I think that's an excellent point which is easily forgotten. Surely, 16,000 excellent edits weigh up one or two bouts of being a stubborn idiot :) - Haukur Þorgeirsson 00:24, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

18. Support. There are times when Halibutt can be hard-headed during arguments, but he should make a fine admin (and if hard-headedness was a stumbling block for adminship, I'd have been de-adminned ages ago!) Grutness...wha? 00:20, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose. Sorry, but I don't think Halibutt is ready for adminship. He is a fierce Polish nationalist who takes pleasure in gratitiously bullying Russian editors. His Russophobic sentiments are too well known to enlarge upon it there. Just two days ago he declared that "if he speaks Russian, drinks vodka and sings Katyusha - he's a Russian" (see Talk:Russophobia). I don't think it's a proper way of admin's behavior. No need for further comments. --Ghirlandajo 14:04, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   What a way to take the quote out of context.  Grue  14:22, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   Indeed, I'm kind of puzzled that my comment there was understood wrongly and that Ghirlandajo took it out of context and used it against me. Anyway, sad as it is, I explained the matter a bit more at the appropriate talk page, hope Ghirlandajo reads it. Halibutt

   Of course, I consider myself a new wikipedian and still don't understand many things here, but in my 15,000+ edits I don't think I ever resorted to using Russian for my comments on talk pages or playing on nationalistic stereotypes. Halibutt, on the other hand, does it on regular basis. Check the revert war he instigated on Ostashkov back in August, when I attempted to expand a stub created by him [1]. --Ghirlandajo 15:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   Indeed, I already forgot of that case. As seen in the edit history and talk page, I had a problem not with your expansion of the article, but on your deletion of a paragraph that was there. I tried to avoid the revert war by using the talk page, but unfortunately you didn't join me there... Halibutt 15:53, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   Dear Halibutt, your memory fails you again. I moved your notice about alleged massacre to the article on Stolbnyi Island, where the camp was actually situated (see the article's history). But you decided that it should be present in the article on the nearby town of Ostashkov as well and started reverting, duplicating your notice here and there. --Ghirlandajo 16:16, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   I admit I can't really do much to change your mind, can I. However, just for our future contacts: as to the Ostashkov camp - all is explained in the talk page of the article, take a look at it. As to my contributions - check my user page for more articles I contributed to. If you find something wrong with the article on Lvov professors - state it at the relevant talk page. Halibutt 17:52, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

2. Oppose. Unfortunately, Halibutt does have nationalistic tendencies at times, if ever so slightly. I regret to not be able to support this otherwise productive contributor.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 14:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
3. Absolutely not. Has no respect for consensus, even when it's overwhelmingly against him. —Cryptic (talk) 15:34, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
   To be clear, my opposition stems entirely from the dispute over Template:Support, as mentioned below; I haven't encountered him in the main namespace. While I freely admit that my own handling of the situation wasn't ideal, Halibutt's continual re-creation of the template in the face of an 80%+ decision to delete on TFD shows that it wouldn't have made any difference. —Cryptic (talk) 16:41, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   I can't make you change your vote. However, please take note that I actually acted in good faith and I was really curious why so many people delete the page instead of replying to my comments at the talk page. Halibutt

   Considering the very first edit to the talk page, where you called the deletion an "abuse [of] his or hers admin rights" [2], they probably thought it would be futile. I know I did. —Cryptic (talk) 18:30, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   But they did not try, did they. Halibutt

4. Oppose. He's part of a group of Polish-nationalist POV pushers, of which the nominator Piotrus is himself a member. Note how Piotrus routinely unblocks his Polish comrade Molobo [3] - it was already a mistake to make him an admin, and with Halibutt we would see the same thing. As Ghirlandajo has mentioned below, they also frequently talk Polish with each other here on the English wiki, even though they all speak and understand English well enough. They all seem to have some paranoia that everyone is out after the Poles (see Halibutt's "How to deal with Poles"). An example of POV editing: Here he says that "Poland regained her independence" in 1989, as if Communist Poland wasn't independent. He also frequently calls opponents he's edit-warring with "vandals" (such as here where he tried to force an entirely repetitive infobox into the article). JohnSmith214 15:55, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   I'm sorry, but I don't really feel a member of some Polish conspiracy. Also, I am not the author of "How to deal with Poles" (which is a joke, BTW, and I find it quite funny) and I really believe that a country that is ruled by some other state (as Poland was ruled from Moscow mostly) is not independent. For me trying to preserve NPOV is not equal to not having my own oppinions at all. If that makes me unworthy of being an admin - too bad. As to the problem Gzornenplatz had with Template:Infobox biography and his spree to delete it from all articles it was used in - I can't really say why he did that, you should ask him. Note that I ended the dispute by expanding the article. Also, the dispute over the very template was ended by a failure of the TfD process (check the relevant talk page). Halibutt 17:48, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   It is perfectly obvious why he deleted the template, he said so repeatedly, and I just said so myself: because it was merely repeating info from the beginning of the article. This habit of "playing dumb" that you exhibit here again is just one more reason to oppose. The point here is that you repeatedly described your opponent in a normal edit war as a vandal. Do you agree that a vandal is someone who either removes valid information or adds non-information? Do you agree that neither was done in that edit war? Is it not logical to assume that, once you call someone a vandal, you would also block that "vandal" if you had admin powers, and that you would thus block your opponents in normal edit wars? JohnSmith214 20:45, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   I consider this sockpuppet entry a good support endorsment for Halibutt. Btw, shouldn't somebody finally ad the Polish Wikipedians conspiracy theory to the List of alleged conspiracy theories? :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 17:39, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   Can we stop edit warring about removing this user's vote? Simply pointing out that he has no edits except to this RFA should be sufficient. —Cryptic (talk) 20:49, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   It's not an issue of counting votes. When RfAs get long and contentious people normally start moving comments to the talk page - the discussion above seemed to me like a natural candidate for such moving. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 21:00, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

5. Oppose. The few times I've interacted with him, he's made the impression on me of being a stubborn nationalist, with a striking inability to recognize consensus. He was responsible a few months ago for bringing the Gdansk naming controversy to completely unrelated pages, such as Mainz, Aachen, Dresden, (see Talk pages) and even a large number of pages like Johannes Vermeer [4]. This was in June, but when he stopped, he did so with the threat of starting all over again ([5]), when the consensus was clearly against him. And then there's the Polish Wikipedian's Black Book, started by him, which was described by some (IMHO accurately) as a witch hunt. Eugene van der Pijll 15:58, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   Yowza, I didn't realize the whole Black Book thing came from Halibutt. I thought it was User:Witkacy's project (User:Witkacy/Black Book). I voted to delete it when it came to a vote there, and still oppose this in principle. Since it caused me so much consternation at the time, I would like to ask Halbutt whether he still thinks this approach will be a good idea when he is an administrator. --Goodoldpolonius2 16:10, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   I've looked at it some more, and to be fair, most of the problematic contributions to the black book came from Wiktacy; Halibutt's edits seem to indicate his intentions were good. I do still think a page like that is a bad idea, but I won't hold it against him too much. Eugene van der Pijll 16:24, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   The Black Book was Witkacy's idea. Halibutt moved it to his mainspace deciding that it could eventually be used as a tool for education, as even Jimbo himself suggested on one of the related talk pages (I don't have the time to find the exact page ATM). And all elements that could have been deemed a 'personal attack' have been deleted from this page long time ago.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 17:39, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   Indeed, the black book thingie was inspired by Witkacy at Wikipedia:Polish Wikipedians' notice board/Black Book. Nohat felt that it was offensive to him as it took notice of some of his remarks. He deleted the page repeatedly, and it seemed that he simply cannot stand Witkacy and the two will never reach any compromise. So, I joined the discussion, took the responsibility for starting the page (which was not actually true, but shhh, don't tell anyone) and tried to reach some compromise solution by mediating between him and Witkacy and trying to reach some conclusion ([6], [7], [8], [9]), after which Nohat left this comment at my talk page, moved the page to my namespace for further discussion and deleted the redirect. Since then long time has passed and I simply forgot about that page. Does anyone find this page offensive in any rate? If so, just let me know and I'll ask for its deletion, it's not needed nor used any more. And yes, initially I thought it was a good idea to avoid RfC and all that stuff. My stance was well-explained during the RfD process. Halibutt 18:16, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   Thanks for the clarification -- as I said in my support vote, my experience with you is as a mediator, which can be difficult in sensitive topics, so it is good to know how this actually went down. --Goodoldpolonius2 18:30, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   I joined the discussion, took the responsibility for starting the page (which was not actually true: You made the first edit of the page ([10]). Now it may have well been Witkacy's idea, but I cannot check that, as most discussion on the Polish Wikipedian's notice board is in Polish. However, I do not really find your version of the page (User:Halibutt/Black Book) offensive. User:Witkacy/Black Book on the other hand... Eugene van der Pijll 22:39, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   I changed my initiall "Witkacy made" into "Witkacy inspired", as I don't remember who actually started the page. However, the sad page in my user space does not tell the story well since the page (back when it was still at Polish Wikipedians' Notice Board, was deleted several times and re-created from what people had as a copy. It turns out that the final version (fifth out of six, if memory serves me right) was re-created by yours truly from the basic scheme created by me. It was not me however to fill it. Anyway, I'm glad that people do not find that thing offensive. As I said, initially I thought it was a good idea to actually avoid conflicts. However, what happened to the idea is clearly visible and noone is planning to use it any more, so it's not that important any more. If any of the admins here wishes to delete it - go ahead, I don't mind. That's also the reason why I never thought of deleting it. I don't mind, which in this case means I don't care for that page. Halibutt 00:04, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

6. Oppose. This user has an enormous amount of edits spread across the wiki, but in going over the Support Template thing I unfortunately must oppose. Re-creating any page six times (and never, apparently, going to VFU) shows very poor judgement. If there's one thing I can't stand it's calling vandalism that which isn't. This seems to be what the user did with the deleting admins who were looking at a valid G4 under CSD. I must also say the Polish Black Book is (ahem) idiotic. Marskell 16:01, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   I'm sorry, but you're wrong on this one. I did go to VfU once the people who deleted the template without any comment at the talk page whatsoever told me that the fact that the situation changed and that 3 months have passed is not enough to recreate it the easy way. Halibutt

   User did indeed go to VfU after the sixth re-creation. No vote change. He should have gone there after the first one. Marskell 17:48, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   Sorry. I thought that the talk page is the right place to discuss things. Apparently I was wrong. Halibutt 18:02, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   You're being grudging here is sort of confirming my oppose. As I say, re-creating a page six times is poor judgement. It just is, and I very much hesitate to give AfD closure and image deletion power to someone who would do that so recently and apparently unrepentently. Calling admins vandals and accusing of them of "malicious deletion" certainly doesn't help the case. Marskell 18:11, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   Too bad we won't reach a compromise here. Indeed, I overreacted a bit, but please take note that I had my reasons too. And deleting a page without discussion or explanation seems malicious to me (which BTW should clear your doubts about giving me a broom and bucket :) ) Anyway, no need to continue the discussion here, I guess. Halibutt

7. Oppose. Keeping attack pages in your userspace is not acceptable. Plus the reactions above seem to indicate he has a tendency of aggravating disputes. Radiant_>|< 16:33, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
8. Oppose per Cryptic and Radiant. Much too controversial to be trusted with adminship. Xoloz 16:40, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
9. I agree with Xoloz. Maybe another time. Θrǎn e (t) (c) (e-mail) 21:54, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
10. Oppose, per Cryptic.--Sean|Black 22:06, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
11. Oppose, an edit summary for recreating a legitamately tfd'd template Template:Support "reinserted the template after User:ChrisO vandalized it." Calling it vandalism is just out of line, and it was less than a month ago. Y0u [[User talk:Y0u|(Y0ur talk page)]] [[Special:Contributions/Y0u|(Y0ur contributions)]] 22:45, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
12. Oppose, I have edited with the User:Halibutt only a few articles. I found him to be a reasonable editor with some Polish POV. This is of course absolutely OK, as every human has his or her POV, and the administrators are humans. What is making me to oppose the request is his maintaining the User:Halibutt/Black Book. If a user abuses his or her priveleges as an editor by maintaining an attack page that harrases other users, then it is frightening to guess in which way he or she can abuse the administrators privileges. I think User:Halibutt should avoid harassing other users and comply with the Wikipedia rules on speedy delete and recreation of articles for at least a few months. Then I will support his nomination. abakharev 23:15, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

    As for harrasing and bullying other users, I may add another instance from User_talk:Knyaz: "Hi there, nice to see you here. User:Ghirlandajo is well-known already to all who contribute to articles on Central and Eastern Europe. Indeed, some of his contributions are great while others show a great deal of Great-Russian view of the world. Fortunately, all of his contributions are GFDL, just like mine or yours, so correcting the mistakes he makes is really easy. Just let me know should you have any problems with that. Regards, Halibutt 12:00, 25 October 2005 (UTC)" So one may understand why I don't like when they discuss myself in Polish. I don't know whether I will be able to comment on this issue again, as minutes after my vote Piotrus asked other admins to "moderate" me, whatever this is supposed to stand for. --Ghirlandajo 23:42, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

    Ghirla, IMO you demonstrate kind of paranoia here. Halibutt has Greater Poland view of the world. You have Great Russian view on the world. This comes from the person's background. A rare person is free from what he was taught of what he read. Wikipedia is great precisely because it helps to produce a truly cosmopolitan view of the world, although with strong American/pokemon/sexually-troubled bias. But the numbers of Russian and Chinese contributors is growing, so relax and don't panic: Polish will never conquer Moscow again. (What I am doing here is "moderating" you, so tremble and whimper!) mikka (t) 00:11, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

    I don't think that the paranoia is mine. Have you ever heard the Russians whimpering about Polish plans of capturing Moscow? I think it's precisely the other way. OK, I will not press the topic of their sado-masochistic concentration on alleged massacres, but do you think it is good for a would-be admin to advise the newcomers that someone's edits should be reversed? --Ghirlandajo 00:18, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

    As to what Alex Bakharev wrote: the only thing I can do about that page is to explain once more that it was not me to move that page there. In fact it was an admin's decision and he didn't even ask me about it before. As noone had any problems with that page after it was moved I simply forgot about it. If you find it offensive - just be bold and delete it. Or move it elsewhere. As to what Ghirlandajo wrote - indeed, this time my comment is complete and not taken out of context. And I would write it again even today as I still believe that what I wrote is ok. Knyaz asked me some questions about conduct of Ghirlandajo. I greeted the guy (a new wikipedian back then), explained that he should be bold, explained that not all what Ghirlandajo does on wikipedia is as disputable as Knyaz put it and offered my help if he needed it. I can't think of any situation where such comment would be offensive to anyone. Note that I actually defended your positive contributions after reading what Knyaz wrote on my talk page. In fact, most admins I know tend to greet people in a similar way. If it proves anything, then perhaps what I wrote before is right. I really love to be helpful. It's a great feeling to know that you helped someone. The only difference between my comment and template greetings used by others is that they do not have to reply to questions asked before the greeting is posted. As to the massacre case - I hadn't noticed your comments at Talk:Massacre of Lwów professors. Don't you think that it's the appropriate page to settle the problems you have with that article? As to what Mikka wrote - perhaps Poles will never conquer Moscow again, but Polish tapestry glue already has. I wrote an article recently and it turned out that they do not produce tapestry glue in Russia any more as the Polish-made is cheaper :) Beware! Halibutt 00:23, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

    Don't try to tell me that you didn't understand about Knyaz being a sockpuppet of user:AndriyK, a notorious POV-pusher, who has been terrorizing East Slavic articles for about a month now. As he gets blocked daily for his revert warring, this guy uses a variety of sockpuppets. On that day, he repeatedly assaulted the article on knyaz but was reverted by me. That's why your encouraging of his disruptive policies and your ready offer of help seemed to me particularly offensive. I'm going to bed now and will add no further comments, so good luck with your RfA. --Ghirlandajo 00:50, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Neutral. I had a quick look at your contributions, and I think that they are extensive and show a high degree of commitment to Wikipedia. Also, your discussion at WP:FPC is always reasoned well. However, I'm a little disappointed in your continued use of the {{support}} template at FPC despite its deletion, your previous ignorance of the speedy deletion rules and the continued recreation of the aforementioned template (see Template talk:Support). I would also suggest using the edit summaries a little more. Enochlau 09:07, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
2. Neutral. Although I have had strong disagreements with Halibutt in the past on a number of subjects, I would be happy to support him for adminship based on most of my encounters with him. One incident, however, inclines me to remain neutral, which is Halibutt's incredibly vast violation of WP:POINT of some months ago, when he decided that he would add the Polish name of just about every German city in order to demonstrate what he saw as the absurdity of the results of one part of the Talk:Gdansk/Vote fiasco. I feel that this was a problematic display, and as such, I'm not ready to vote in support. john [[User_talk:John Kenney|k]] 21:22, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
3. Neutral I have always valued Halibutt's contributions and trusted his edits to be in good faith. My concern regards his move of Dresden Frauenkirche and his resulting renaming of English-language churches into native names, despite going against community consensus. I have almost always believed that Halibutt would make a reliable administrator, but that one issue really puzzled me. So, at this point-in-time I am neutral. Olessi 00:23, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

   Sorry, but I cannot agree with you here. I moved the page to an English language title as in the past we had lots of problems with churches named in Polish or German (St. Mary's Church, Gdańsk anyone?). Wikipedia:Use English seemed pretty self-explanatory and binding to me. After people instructed me that they prefer the German name there and the community consensus supported the move-back, I withdrew and considered the case settled. So, the move was about my only contribution to that article in it's history and instead I settled the problem at the talk page. Was it wrong? Halibutt 00:42, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

4. User seems rather controversial. --Merovingian 00:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Comments

• Like Enochlau, I remember not being very impressed with your actions at Template:Support. You recteated it 6 times until it was replaced with {{deletedpage}}, called ChrisO and the other admins that deleted it vandals, and revert warred at FPC when others took the template out of your comments. That was about two weeks ago. Anything to say about this? Dmcdevit·t 09:38, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree that I was a tad enraged by the fact that, instead of replying to my comments at the respective talk page, where I explained why I believed the matter should be re-discussed, people simply deleted the page without any explanation. Fortunately the talk page is still there for all to see my arguments and... well, frankly speaking no opposing arguments. Finally, take note that during his recent RfA process Cryptic admitted that he overreacted in this case and that he assumed my bad will without looking at the talk page - which was the real problem here IMO. I consider that incident unfortunate, especially that so far I received no explanation whatsoever. Also, please take note that the article was blocked with the template after I asked for admin support in resolution of the conflict. While I don't find this resolution satisfactory and I still consider the question open to discussion, the recent deletion review pretty much ended the problem. As to my usage of the template that was under attack by people ignoring the talk page - it was not my mistake as there was no rule prohibiting the use of a non-existent template. I'd rather say it was a mistake of an admin who forgot to add the <includeonly> and <noinclude> tags, which is why the {{deletedpage}} page was visible, which was not my intention. Halibutt 11:02, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to add a tiny bit to this. I don't care tuppence about the support template but Halibutt is essentially right that it was deleted for reasons that were balderdash. It did not cause any significant server-load and it didn't turn any discussions into votes. FPC is already vote-based, whether we want to admit it or not. That some people liked to display some silly green sign instead of a bolded Support is harmless. Using TfD to stop good contributors from expressing themselves like they wanted to seemed unnecessary and somewhat un-wiki-like to me. I can understand that Halibutt got annoyed. Sure, maybe he overreacted a bit but he's a good guy and we all have some stupid little things which we're stubborn as mules about :) - Haukur Þorgeirsson 14:20, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

With respect, regardless of whether you or Halibutt think that the reasons were "balderdash", the community concensus reached (and as I remember, by quite an overwhelming majority) was to delete the template, and to not use it anywhere. Although this is not the place to discuss the support template, it suffices to say that any action deviating from the concensus reached in the past should be met by some kind of discussion beforehand, and stubbornly affirming your position isn't what we're on about. Enochlau 15:17, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

This consensus you speak of is obtained by counting votes, precisely the procedure many of the people objecting to the template were objecting to. If you read the TfD debate as a discussion rather than a vote you'll see that many of the people who say they want the template deleted cite a reason which is factually and objectively wrong - that it causes a significant server-load.

Again, I personally couldn't care less that this was deleted - I apparently didn't even bother to comment at the time even though I remember seeing the TfD. And I agree that it's often necessary to defer to the majority opinion - even when it is based on balderdash reasons :) - Haukur Þorgeirsson 15:34, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, after I saw that there is no support for the template and my option lost the deletion review I withdrew. Indeed, as Enochlau says, any action deviating from the concensus reached in the past should be met by some kind of discussion beforehand. That's why I used the Template talk:Support page, which cannot be said of those who deleted the page several times in a row. I wanted to start the discussion there, but there was noone to discuss it with as barely anyone joined it... Halibutt 15:44, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

• Hmm, I re-read the answers you wrote down below and I'm a little perplexed by this: "Also, for me being an admin is not so much different from being an average Wikipedian". If so, why would you like to become an administrator? Enochlau 10:09, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Note that Jimbo says pretty much the same: This should be no big deal :) There are two reasons mainly. Firstly, being listed as one of the admins attracts attention of people who seek help. And I love to be helpful. Secondly, broom and bucket make your life easier when dealing with all sorts of things you do in wikipedia. For instance, one of the first long articles I prepared, the one on my home town, is frequently under attack by an anonymous user who adds a large number of links to advertisement sites. Reverting the page 4 times in a row and then asking some other person for help might be a funny relay race, but it takes a lot of time and efforts. Admins can do it much faster. Halibutt 11:02, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

• Halibutt, I would like to point out that your habit of conversing with your cronies in Polish on talk pages is quite disturbing. It is an English project, after all, and such behaviour doesn't meet Wikipedia Guidelines. You may have noticed that Russian editors never use Russian for their talk pages. --Ghirlandajo 14:11, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
  • It's multiculturalism at work, and I guess if they're more comfortable in Polish, and they're contributing that's great, but it does raise questions of openness and accountability. What do others think? Enochlau 15:24, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Ok, let us all speak our native languages on our talk pages. When I try to thread some editor's contributors and find only Polish gibberish on his talk page, I start to suspect that the Polish editors are anxious to conceal their plans and ideas from the rest of the world. And it is getting particularly disturbing when I see my own name mentioned in a Polish sentence. --Ghirlandajo 15:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Polish is not gibberish :) And it's not like it's a secret code either - if you really want to know what they're saying I'm sure you can find a machine translation in two minutes. Or go to a Polish IRC channel and get someone to translate for you. Correspondence in Polish on talk pages is orders of magnitude more open than any correspondence in private mail - something which our system allows and is widely used. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 15:43, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, we use Polish a lot on our user talk pages and I never thought it was something bad. As Enochlau noted above, I think of this project as if it was international Wiki using English rather than English language wiki. In most cases we use Polish only when discussing things relevant to our current projects, while using English at article talk pages. I always thought that if anyone wants to know he'd ask. It's not a problem for me to translate anything from Polish to English or the other way around. However, if you consider this harmful, I can stop using Polish even when asking Piotrus of his personal oppinion on a map I created, as was the case of my recent Polish-language chatter with him. Would it make you change your mind? :) Halibutt 15:43, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

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

1. What sysop chores, if any, would you anticipate helping with? Please check out Category:Wikipedia backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.

A. Firstly, I must say that I always had a problem with the difference between cleanup and expansion, as for me the easiest way to clean some article up is to expand it significantly, then wikify and add as much data as I can. For me WP:CU and WP:RFE are simply two sides of the same coin and I'm equally interested in both. BTW, the same works for other problem tags. Some time ago I noticed that many (if not most) {{NPOV}} problems are due to insufficient explanation of certain problems or phenomena. So, most articles can be NPOVed by means of expansion. Also, for me being an admin is not so much different from being an average Wikipedian in that most of us revert vandalism on the spot, either through RC patrol or watchlists. Halibutt 07:16, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?

A. Some of the articles I contributed to got featured but I must admit that I'm particularly proud of the Warsaw Uprising series. For me that article encompasses all the virtues of a good Wikipedia article: it was prepared by a large group of people from all parts of the world, it is well-sourced, as balanced as it gets, has lots of great pictures (both historical and modern), few red links and one would not find such an article in a paper encyclopedia. Halibutt

3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

A. Of course I've been in conflicts over various topics. Wikipedia is a very special place where various people and various, often conflicting views meet. It is always painful to learn that one's truth is not the only one out there and that what is obvious to me might not be as obvious to others. However, I learnt (the hard way, I admit) that a compromise can always be reached, except perhaps for very rare cases where one of the sides is not willing to accept it. As to dealing with stress - a deep breath always helps. Halibutt