Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Greenman

Greenman

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (43/43/8); Scheduled to end 20:55, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Nomination

Greenman (talk · contribs) – Greenman has been editing Wikipedia for a long while now. He joined the platform back in February 2003 and has amassed more than 16,000 edits. He is an occasional contributor on the Afrikaans Wikipedia and also on the other indigenous African languages Wikipedias. A South African Wikipedian, he serves on the national Wikimedia ZA board as a committed member. Greenman is also a friendly editor and regularly participates in community discussions regarding South Africa and many more topics. He has obtained a trustworthy reputation among numerous editors and will go out of his way to help you in any situation. He has shown consistent reliability. His main interests are South African literature, sport, politics and technology. LefcentrerightTalk (plz ping) 11:12, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: Thank you User:Lefcentreright for the nomination, I accept. I confirm that I have never edited for pay, and do not ever edit under an alternative account name (excluding the occasional inadvertent anonymous edit when I am logged out). Greenman (talk) 11:32, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. Please answer these questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?

A: Although I have been editing since 2003, I have been reluctant to be an administrator. I am fairly conflict-averse, the process has always appeared quite onerous, and I have always preferred to work quietly in the background. However, after discussions about the lack of admins in our local community, and problems local editors have experienced, I have agreed to be nominated.

I don't see myself getting widely involved in new areas I'm not currently involved in. I do see myself getting involved in two main areas:

1) Vandalism prevention. For example, on 5 August, the article Joel_Wilson_(umpire) (history) was subjected to 179 edits in less than an hour. I happened to spot the announcement on the 3rd party site that led to most of the vandalism. When I came to view the page, it was being subjected to multiple vandalism attempts per minute. I got involved in attempting to roll back the vandalism, and requested that the page be semi-protected. I also warned vandalising users, and requested a block for multiple offenders that had already been warned. If I had been able to do either of these actions myself, it would have saved a noticeable amount of work for other admins (who besides blocking and semi-protecting, also later had to redact various edits for violations of WP:BLP). I warn users and request blocks reasonably often.

2) Viewing (and occasionally restoring) deleted articles. Working on African Wikipedia content, I have in the past quite often come across articles that have been needlessly deleted. Often, the reason for the deletion was not that the topic was not notable, but that the original editor was inexperienced, and did not reference the article properly. They may also have been unable to defend the article properly during the deletion nomination process. This results in the efforts being lost, and quite often the editor losing interest. I have found myself wanting to view their original contribution (which may have been substantial) so that I could assist in improving the article, as well as nurturing a new editor interested in African content. I remember one particular case where the efforts were substantial, the topic was clearly notable to me, and I was in the midst of tracking down sources (mostly not in English). Before I could finish, the article was deleted, and there was no way to continue.

I have come across far fewer of these recently. I am unsure if this is because the situation has improved, I am just not noticing as many. Greenman (talk) 20:06, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

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

A: I tend to be WikiGnome-like in style, so my contributions are often minor, and nothing in particular stands out. I have never worked towards getting articles to good or featured status. Rather, I work in areas that don't interest too many others. I tend to start lots of small, articles for the purposes of completion (such as making sure all participants in the various editions of the Chess World Cup have an article, or that all political parties contesting the 2019 South African general election have an article). I see my best contributions as being indirect - helping in the formation of the Wikimedia South Africa chapter, and in encouraging and assisting local editors. Local content tends to fall prey to link rot, or simply not exist online in the first place, and I have worked extensively to get organisations to rectify this so that the content can be referenced on Wikipedia. Greenman (talk) 20:27, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

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: Yes. My most frustrating time editing Wikipedia was in 2007. A single-purpose editor was, to my mind, rewriting history at the Herero and Namaqua genocide article. No other editors seemed interested in the article, and I became angry and despondent. I would rate this and this as my two worst edits on Wikipedia - they're both quite cringeworthy to read now. But there were positives. From the experience, I learnt to trust Wikipedia's processes. The article was protected, and the user was banned, and the systems, slow and frustrating as they seemed to me in the moment, with the 'wrong' version of the article remaining locked on the page for a lengthy period, worked in the end.

I have been involved in very few disputes since then. My style is to avoid conflict, disengage where needed, and to have patience with and faith in the systems in place. I tend to await consensus rather than act unilaterally in general. If accepted as an administrator, I will continue this style, and mostly use my privileges in uncontroversial cases of vandalism and the like. If there are more serious disputes and conflict, I will likely step away, rather than escalate the situation. My aim in accepting the nomination is to reduce the workload on other admins, and ease frustrations in the local community, not to increase my own stress levels! Greenman (talk) 20:56, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

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You may ask optional questions below. There is a limit of two questions per editor. Multi-part questions disguised as one question, with the intention of evading the limit, are disallowed. Follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked are allowed.

Additional question from John M Wolfson

4. Why do you want administrator rights on the English Wikipedia specifically, when it seems like your talents would be better suited towards global rights?

A: Primarily because I was nominated on the English Wikipedia to assist on the English Wikipedia. I would have no objection in principle to attaining global rights as well. However, from what I understand, Global rights are limited in some aspects on the English Wikipedia, as consensus has not been attained in all areas. See WP:GRP. Greenman (talk) 23:20, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Additional question from ThatMontrealIP

5. Could you comment on why you chose not to include inline sources in these article creations over the past couple of years? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

A: For 1, the source is included as part of the sports team template. The rest are all chess players, and the standard format includes three main sources, included as templates/external links; FIDE, the international chess federation, which is the official source for their titles and rating and which includes some biographical information, as well as chessgames.com and chess365.com, which are chess databases containing a record of their major games. So all articles have sources, but little if any extra content needing further inline sourcing. Greenman (talk) 23:09, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Additional question from Lee Vilenski

6. Thank you for running! You have ~16,000 edits, and 16 years of service. Do you see you activity levels increasing with the mop?

A: My least active year was 2004, with 132 edits. 2019 has been my most active year, with 2652 edits so far. I see my activity levels in future changing according to my available free time, rather than whether or not my nomination is approved. Greenman (talk) 22:55, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Additional Questions from Beeblebrox

7. This is a follow up based on the second half of your answer to Q1: EN.Wikipedia does suffer from inadequate coverage of African topics, so wanting to work on that is great, but there are some aspects of your answer that are bit troubling. One is that you seem to be suggesting that you would substitute your own judgement for that of an admin who previously deleted an article. The other is your statement that you were tracking down sources for an article when it was deleted and there was "no way to continue." To my mind the solution to both of these issues is to simply write the new article yourself, so I'm wondering why that seemingly did not occur to you.

A: To my mind, the judgement an admin makes in the case of a nomination for deletion is simply to carry out the consensus of the community. They are not there to impose their own views on the process, and I certainly don't see myself doing this. The situation I described was based on a specific example, where an African editor had put in many hours of work on an article, but it was poorly sourced. The article was nominated for deletion, and deleted, primarily on the basis of it having insufficient reliable sources. This does not mean that the topic was not notable, but in this case, simply that sufficient reliable sources had not yet been added. By deleting the article, the contributor can became demoralised, and most likely stop contributing, and a notable African topic would remain uncovered. Writing the new article myself is exactly what I would not want to do - I could not replicate the expertise of the original contributor, and redoing what they had done over many hours would be an immense waste of time. It would be even more of a waste of time if I can't see where they went wrong in the first place. The reason for highlighting this example was that being able to view the deleted article would allow me to assist the disillusioned contributor. I could assist them with sources, or point out where the article needs to be improved, or simply engage with them about why the article has no chance of being included. WP:BIAS is on ongoing issue, and every gathering of African Wikipedians is full of horror stories. Viewing deleted articles could help here in a small way. In the rare case an article needs to be restored, it would be restored on the basis that it has been improved to a degree where it now meets the criteria.

I must point out again that this situation has improved in recent times with a greater awareness of systemic bias, and with processes and privileges around new page reviews. Greenman (talk) 22:39, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Additional question from Beyond My Ken

8. 540 of your 1,214 page creations are User:talk pages [1]. Can you explain why that is?

A: The majority of these are warnings about vandalism and the like. Greenman (talk) 21:57, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Additional questions from Cryptic

9. To Q1, you say you want to work with page protection and undeletion. In the last year, I can find five edits to WP:RFPP ([2] [3] [4] [5] [6]) and two to AFD (to 1 and 2) and nothing else deletion- or undeletion-related (though I looked only in the WP: namespace); and zero to WP:REFUND or WP:DRV ever. Is there something obvious I'm missing? —Cryptic 01:50, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

A:

Additional Questions from Kudpung

10. What in your opinion are the benefits to the encyclopedia of a user creating hundreds of stubs (some poorly sourced) in a niche topic and hoping that other editors will find them and turn therm into proper articles?

A: I have been around since the early days, and this is exactly how Wikipedia was built, so the historical benefits seem clear. I am also involved in other language editions, and again, many articles are stubs, and this is a valuable starting point. However, even if an article is unlikely to be expanded upon, its existence is valuable. In the case of the two topics I mentioned elsewhere, participants in the Chess World Cup, and political parties contesting the 2019 South African general election, it scratches my own itch and makes things better for me, and others, as a reader. I want to know what the difference between, say, the similarly-named African Security Congress, Afrikan Alliance of Social Democrats, African Christian Democratic Party, African Congress of Democrats, African Content Movement, African Covenant, African Democratic Change, African Independent Congress, African National Congress, African Renaissance Unity Party and African Transformation Movement, and a stub article that contains information such as date of formation, and primary policies, with a link to other sources, is more than sufficient. Similarly, when viewing the Chess World Cup results, I would like to know who a player is, whether they are young and upcoming, nationality, peak rating, so a stub article containing this information, with links to sources containing more detail, is perfectly sufficient and overall enhances the value of the encyclopedia. Greenman (talk) 22:59, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

11. This is not a two part question as it requires only one answer. Imagine you are a New Page Reviewer. (something which I believe you have never done) There is a script devised by a user that greatly simplifies adding the appropriate Wikiproject banner and rating. Should New Page Reviewers be expected to do this or should the author, especially autopatrolled users do it as part of the article creation process?

A:

Additional Questions from Lourdes

12. On 23 June 2019, you wrote on your user page that you were employed part-time by MariaDB. Did you reveal this conflict of interest before 23 June 2019 in a formal manner during your edits to articles such as MariaDB, List of content management systems, Comparison of relational database management systems and others where you edited information related to MariaDB?

A: I have always been completely transparent about who I am, and my name, with a link to my blog, which contains public information about me, including from when I began part-time work for the MariaDB Foundation, has always been available from my user page, so nothing has been hidden at any point. Quoting from the COI guidelines, "Readers expect to find neutral articles written independently of their subject, not corporate or personal webpages, or platforms for advertising and self-promotion. Articles should contain only material that complies with Wikipedia's content policies and best practices, and Wikipedians must place the interests of the encyclopedia and its readers above personal concerns." My edits to the MariaDB and related pages have always been within these guidelines, because they are almost exclusively version updates, such as this and this. I maintain software version information for multiple projects, and if you look at my edit history, will see that I am one of the key editors in maintaining version information across Wikipedia in articles such as Comparison of wiki software, recently, primarily by replacing the previous, ineffective, templates, with templates that could be used in the various list and comparison articles (see the list of articles created) so that version information only needs to be updated in one place, and so that table sorting continues to work. I avoid edits of a textual nature that could possibly be considered COI. For example, there is a user request to split the MariaDB page into MariaDB Server, MariaDB Corporation, and/or MariaDB Foundation. I would happily do this myself on any other page, but have refrained from doing so in this case because of possible perception of COI. Greenman (talk) 21:54, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Additional Questions from Andrew D.

13. Green Man and green have a variety of meanings. Which was the inspiration for your user account name, please?

A: It's primarily a nickname from university due to my involvement in environmental activism. I quite like the Green Man motif, and have one staring at me in my lounge. Greenman (talk) 22:03, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

13b. Your edits now seem to focus on four categories: chess, political parties, software and sport. Why do you not edit environmental topics if this was once such a strong interest?

A:

Additional Questions from DBigXray

14. From your answer 1, section 2, can you elaborate more what exactly do you intend to do when you state that you will restore deleted articles "that have been needlessly deleted." Can you provide few examples of such articles that were deleted but should not have. How exactly do you intend to use your admin bits in these cases.

A: I would like to thank Kudpung for (almost) providing some good examples. To take one example then, an editor based in Europe, with no expertise in the subject, suggested an article about an award-winning female South African poet and translator, Karen Press, for WP:PROD. This is meant to be used for uncontroversial deletions. What would normally happen, since it's an obscure topic, is that the seven days would pass without anyone noticing, and the article would be deleted, resulting in African content disappearing from Wikipedia without a trace. With admin rights, it would be possible to view the article that has been deleted, see that it should not have been deleted, and the article could be restored, hopefully with some improvements made. In this case, due to the increased eyeballs as part of this AfD, the article was spared this fate, and has been improved in the meantime, a positive outcome. I would like to ensure that this sort of positive outcome is more widespread. Greenman (talk) 22:13, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Additional question from Jovanmilic97

15. What is your opinion regarding to WP:NFOOTY-WP:GNG's relation in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jovan Tatović? If you were to close this AfD, what would you do?

A: The AfD has been closed already, so unfortunately I cannot view the content, but as an admin my role is to carry out community consensus, so it's not important to answer this question. This sort of situation is not uncommon, where WP:GNG and a sub-guideline meant to provide clarity, such as WP:NFOOTY, still leave a resolution unclear. I tend to lean more on the Inclusionist side of things, so would be uncomfortable deleting content where there is no clear consensus. In this case, there seems to be a lack of clear consensus, so I would probably have relisted or closed as no consensus (and therefore removed the deletion notice). Greenman (talk) 23:31, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Additional question from John M Wolfson

16. Your edit summary usage is currently at 84.2%; while that isn't abysmal, you haven't had a month where you used a summary for at least 90% of your edits since February. (Your mainspace stats are slightly better, at 89.2% of the time, but still no 90%+ usage since March.) Given that communication is a key part of being an admin, would you promise to start consistently using edit summaries at least 90% of the time?

A: Clarity and communication are important, but I feel that the edit summaries that are autofilled (such as for this edit), can in some cases be clear enough, even though they will reduce my % according to the metric. My % for October is 39.6% and dropping fast, partly due to this Request for adminship. It would be easy to game this metric, but that sort of thing doesn't interest me, and looking through my edit history, I am satisfied that my edit summaries are clear enough, so won't be promising to increase my %. Of course I am happy to consider examples where my edit summary could have been improved to make things easier to future editors. Greenman (talk) 23:45, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Additional question from Levivich

17. If this RfA is successful, will you be open to non-binding WP:RECALL by adding yourself to Category:Wikipedia administrators open to recall? If so, under what criteria? If not, why not? Thanks in advance for your answer.

A:

Additional question from Nsk92

18. Could you please comment on your creating this new BLP stub article, Andrés Rodríguez (chess player) (link to the version at the time of this question) a little over 7 hours ago, while this RfA was in progress? The article is referenced to a single source, all citations are WP:BAREURLS, the first external link is a dead link[7], the DOB is unsourced, the article is not tagged as a stub, and the edit summaries for your last two edits are transposed. [8][9].

A:

Additional question from Lightburst

19. Since the most controversial thing about your RFA is the WP:COI issue, I want to give you an opportunity to say anything you like about the issue.

A:

Additional question from Discott

20. When did you start work at MariaDB? Did you do any work for them or any other organisation that might lead to COI issues before you started at MariaDB?

A:

Discussion

• Links for Greenman: Greenman (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
• Edit summary usage for Greenman can be found here.

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Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review their contributions before commenting.

Support

1. Seems to meet my criteria. Valid need expressed and long term no drama contributor. Be careful when wading into project space and please feel free to ask other admins for help if you pass. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:27, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
2. Support I don't see any problems with giving this user adminship. Their contribution to Wikimedia South Africa demonstrates a deep and impressive commitment to Wikimedia and Wikipedia. Regards, Willbb234^Talk (please {{ping}} me in replies) 21:35, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

   Weak support I am not particularly impressed with Greenman's contributions, especially his low edit count in projectspace (not to mention overall) and the low number of AfDs he's been in given that he wants to view and possibly restore deleted content. Nevertheless, he would appear to be a (slight) net positive, and NOBIGDEAL applies. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 21:42, 5 October 2019 (UTC) Moving to neutral. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 19:59, 6 October 2019 (UTC) And now oppose. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 00:13, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

3. Strong Weak support: adminship is NOBIGDEAL so my only major concern in almost all RfAs is temperament. Greenman appears to have a good temperament and I'm sufficiently reassured by the second paragraph in the answer to question #3, and the Wikimedia ZA board participation. As for the first paragraph, I think it's fairly brave to drag up that 2007 incident here, which would be concerning were it recent, but the understandable frustration when dealing with an overt racist and the intermediate 12 years are plenty of mitigating circumstances for me to ignore it entirely. We need more editors working in our under-maintained and under-developed South African content and giving an editor already working in that area the ability to work more effectively seems to me like a no brainer. I also agree with TonyBallioni above. — Bilorv (talk) 22:09, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

   @Beeblebrox: I'm quite baffled by this question—[...] you were tracking down sources for an article when it was deleted and there was "no way to continue." To my mind the solution to [this issue and another] is to simply write the new article yourself, so I'm wondering why that seemingly did not occur to you. Is it not clear that in the case Greenman describes, the main issue is that the other editor's work was lost? You could sensibly say "did you consider WP:REFUND?", but not "write the new article yourself". I also don't think it's an honest interpretation to say you seem to be suggesting that you would substitute your own judgement for that of an admin who previously deleted an article, but I suppose the candidate can answer that one. — Bilorv (talk) 11:07, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

   Coming back to change to "Weak support" per Ched (and not anybody else). I checked some of the 4im notices the candidate was giving out and found them to be acceptable in cases of severe BLP violations, but in the case of the four edits Ched points out, a level 1 notice is the only appropriate warning. The candidate should re-read WP:BITE and assume a lot more good faith of IPs and new editors in future. — Bilorv (talk) 08:08, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

4. Support. I like the well-reasoned answers to the standard questions. Q1 and the example of Joel Wilson (umpire) shows why it's a good idea to have (more) admins from South Africa (I can't think of any of the top of my head). From a mild view of the candidate's contributions, I don't think the tools will be used much, but I can see having Greenman have access to them being a net positive. I especially like the focus on editor retention and the willingness to rescue articles that may have been wrongfully deleted. Good luck! -- Tavix ^(talk) 22:30, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
5. Support - an excellent member of the community, does very good edits, should be an admin.CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 22:46, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
6. Support Writes articles, knows about BLPs and is reasonable at AfD. No reason not to support that I can find. Collect (talk) 22:51, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
7. Support Worthy of the admin tools. No real reason to oppose. A definite support. VibeScepter (talk) (contributions) 23:18, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
8. Support Long term contributor has been around since 2003 clear net postive.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 23:20, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
9. Support for a clear net positive. No evidence that they would misuse the mop, and I see no reason to oppose. Miniapolis 23:34, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
10. Sure. — 🦊 02:03, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

    And now more explicitly to counter this odd trend of bringing up mistakes from literally a decade ago in a request to get a delete button. — 🦊 15:46, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

    I've addressed this on Greenman's talk page, but I'll clarify it here. The issue is not merely that they created a copyvio in 2008; it's that the copyvio remained and was never fixed, and only speedy deleted when this RfA ran. Remember that CSDs only apply if every single revision meets the criteria, so that the article could have been deleted any time in the last 11 years but wasn't is a problem. If the article had been deleted in 2008, I wouldn't have brought it up. If another editor had fixed the close paraphrasing, I wouldn't have bought it up. If the licensing of the original source had been shown to be compatible with CC-BY-SA 3.0 / GFDL, I wouldn't have brought it up. Early mistakes are okay; not realising they are still active issues years later when running for adminship is more of a concern. Again, I want to say that I oppose this RfA with regret; there just needs to be a bit of careful thinking of the nuances first. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:57, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

11. Support. This is more like a mild support, due to concerns about low AFD participation and no edits to various other admin boards. Nevertheless, I think the candidate is knowledgeable about policy and has been editing long enough to know what is and isn't allowed. epicgenius (talk) 02:06, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
12. Support: a trusted contributor; thank you for volunteering. --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:18, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
13. Support: Fully mature and ready to take the janitor's keys. From AnUnnamedUser ^{(open talk page)} 02:48, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
14. Support: Long history of constructing editing and sound knowledge of policies.Hughesdarren (talk) 02:52, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
15. Support. No concerns about the mopworthiness of this candidate. bd2412 T 03:18, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
16. Support - an excellent member of the community, does good edits, should be an admin.Michaelgraaf (talk) 12:23, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
17. Support - WP:NOBIGDEAL. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 13:56, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
18. Strong Support: WP:NOBIGDEAL + has extensive knowledge about African content, can help bring insight in sticky situations. Thuvack | ^talk 14:11, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
19. Strong Support: I strongly feel that Greenman would be a good admin for a rang of reasons. In addition to WP:NOBIGDEAL he has a strong knowledge of South African and African content, has been a long time editor that has consistently shown good judgement and great integrity, is strongly committed to the free knowledge mission of Wikipedia, is looked up and proven himself to be an important member of the South African editing community, and knows a great deal about Wikipedia policies and practices. The Wikipedia community globally, and in Africa in particular, would benefit from having him as an administrator.--Discott (talk) 14:44, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
20. Support - From what I've seen, he has a lot of integrity and strong track record of good editing and leadership in important task areas. I really like seeing his perspective as noted above by Thuvack (talk · contribs) and others, and I think he'd be an amazing asset to the community. Michepman (talk) 15:42, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
21. Support I looked over the history of MariaDB. Agree some disclosure would be highly prudent. I do note that all the edits I saw appeared pretty gnomelike and not promotional. Should be a net positive. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:28, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
22. Support Eligible user.--PATH SLOPU 05:26, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
23. Support Supporting is likely just a gesture at this point but I think there is a chasm of difference between some occasional non-promotional gnoming of an article about the company you happen to work for and capital-P capital-E Paid Editing, but in these days of absolutism, a moral panic pile-on is inevitable. Fish+Karate 14:19, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
24. Support No reason to think this user would abuse the tools. --rogerd (talk) 14:28, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
25. Moral support at this point. I do not have any concerns with COI.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:47, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
26. Support. Geographic diversity in the admin corps is healthy, plus I concur with their attitude that stub creation is "is exactly how Wikipedia was built" and they should be applauded for contributing instead of criticized because all their contributions weren't instantly FA quality. Gamaliel (talk) 15:32, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
27. Long experience, net positive. —Kusma (t·c) 15:48, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
28. Moral Support - Unfortunately, I think there are too many opposes in order for this RfA to succeed, but I appreciate that you have admitted past mistakes and it hasn't stopped you from making an RfA. If you try again in about 9-ish months, I think you will have a higher change of succeeding. Best of luck! Foxnpichu (talk) 17:09, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
29. Support - per Foxnpichu and Gamaliel. Puddleglum2.0 (talk) 01:39, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
30. Support In my 2007 RfA, I gave as the principal reason I wanted to be an admin that I wanted to check deleted articles to see if they could be rescued. Wanting to do this does not imply using admin powers to over-ride community decisions, but in making the articles available for discussion or repeated discussion or improvement. DGG ( talk ) 02:58, 8 October 2019 (UTC) .
31. Support good answers for the most part, no reason to expect tool abuse. Edit summary usage should be increased, but I don't see that as a deal breaker. Being able to check deleted revisions to see if work can be rescued is a worthy reason for wanting the bit. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 03:22, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

    I'm not concerned about the Coi editing. I suspect I dropped an edit or two like that when I lived back West. Being paid by the subject doesn't automatically imply being paid to edit.SarekOfVulcan (talk) 03:32, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

32. Moral support, though I would recommend withdrawing the rfa at this point. Hrodvarsson (talk) 03:33, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
33. Strong Support and this is due to his friendly nature towards new users. During my early days as a Wikimedian, Greenman was and still is one of the few experienced users whom I could ask about any Wikimedia related question and he would always provide me with a simplified and summarized response, then proceeds to mine the correct links from the Wiki-abyss for me for further reading.Bobbyshabangu _talk 07:57, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
34. Support we need more articles on underrepresented subjects, which too easily get deleted. A willingness to find sources, even if they are gasp bare URLs, is a net positive. No problem with the Paid Editing/COI. Those edits are minor and getting paid for doing a job is not the same as getting paid to edit Wikipedia. Tobyc75 (talk) 11:25, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
35. Support pretty much per TonyBallioni. A steady contributor since the early days, working diligently in badly underrepresented topics which need admins familiar with those topics to make good and fair decisions and encourage retention of editors from those areas (instead of the armies of jilted sockpuppets we get instead), and drama-free since '03 (excepting this RfA but RfA is just a quirky way to spell D-R-A-M-A). I'm not convinced at all that the potential conflict of interest with some other topics is of any concern here. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:16, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
36. Support - reliable contributor; will learn as he goes along, as do all admins. Net positive from an underrepresented geographic area. schetm (talk) 14:23, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
37. Support, though probably only moral support at this point. I don't think I have encountered this editor in my short time editing, but I am encouraged by the comments of those who have. I see Greenman's second reason for wanting administrator access as entirely reasonable. Sometimes articles/drafts are deleted because no one has provided sufficient evidence or sourcing to show that the subject meets notability guidelines. Sometimes a subject gains notability in the time since their article/draft was deleted. Of course, it's possible to ask another admin to access deleted articles and restore them to draft or userspace, and it seems that that's probably what Greenman is going to have to do for the near future. I hope they feel strong enough to return for another RfA in the future. RebeccaGreen (talk) 16:16, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
38. Support while there is a theoretical possibility of this user editing with a conflict of interested, in practice I don't see any evidence of them doing anything that would affect the neutrality of the article (which is the point of all the COI etc policies and guidelines). Further I don't see any other issues that would suggest Greenman would be a bad administrator. Thryduulf (talk) 17:04, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
39. Support. I've read through the opposes and not found anything too troubling (i.e. that indicates malice or incompetence). CoI editing where editors add flattering material or remove criticism can be a problem but no-one has shown an example of the candidate doing that. DexDor ^(talk) 18:44, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
40. Support, moral at this stage. The user page COI declaration was too late (a few months ago) & maybe the relevant article talks don't have a note, but no one has really produced examples of edits that aren't factual. Otherwise seems fine. Johnbod (talk) 20:36, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
41. Support not convinced by the reasons to oppose. COI editing only becomes a problem if contentious material is added, and even then only if the person adding the material digs their heels in and refuses to budge. Other reasons for opposing are less concerning. The idea that "Greenman started the article, therefore he's responsible for it" is not convincing to me. AfD participation is also not a problem if Greenman familiarizes himself/herself with the policies before using the tools there. Since the reasons to oppose are not fatal, I default to support. Banedon (talk) 02:28, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
42. Support --Severino (talk) 08:05, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
43. I get the concerns about COI, but without evidence of non-neutral edits I don't see that as a deal breaker. FWIW COI≠PAID. Also I would imagine there are a lot of notable African topics that were deleted due to lack of sources and the difficulty in finding said sources. Having a competent editor willing to go through these to find ones that are worth restoring seems like a pretty good thing to me. The answer to question 7 assures me they are actually going to improve the articles to a standard where they encyclopedic not just overturn a deletion discussion. AIRcorn (talk) 09:39, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose CoI editing is strongly discouraged on Wikipedia. Irrespective of whether his edits are acceptable or not, his continuing engagement with the MariaDB article (his part-time employers) makes it impossible to differentiate what is paid editing and what is not. If you're editing your employer's page, even if you are not getting paid for the edits but are being paid for any other work, the differentiation is but so little. If Greenman confirms he will stop editing the page and go to the talk page for any editing requests, I may reconsider this oppose. I am clear that other editors may not agree with my oppose. Thanks, Lourdes 07:36, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

   On the contrary, Lourdes, it's an excellent point. What would seem even more significant, perhaps, is that in their acceptance of this nomination, they even confirm I have never edited for pay. This suggests that they do not, in fact, understand what paid editing actually is. Which is only slightly less troubling a vista than their not understanding WP:COI in the first place. ——SerialNumber54129 07:52, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

   Editing an article about someone or thing that has paid you for other reasons may be COI editing, but it is certainly not "paid editing", which means (shocker) being paid to edit. Don't go blurring bright lines for no reason. --JBL (talk) 10:41, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

   Wrong. But thanks for the usual. ——SerialNumber54129 11:00, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

   This is correct. Paid editing requires direct compensation in some value form (e.g. money) for making edits to Wikipedia. Editing areas of Wikipedia related to your employer is an "interest" as described by COI editing. — Bilorv (talk) 11:13, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

   I agree with JBL also; paid editing is being paid to edit; editing an article about someone who pays you isn't paid editing (it's a COI). – Levivich 17:08, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

   Obviously I respect the philosophy that If One Repeats The Same Thing Often Enough It Becomes The Truth, but I do not subscribe to it. The editors above may wish to read JoeRoe's oppose comment (currently #17 below). Many thanks. ——SerialNumber54129 09:14, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

   Joe Roe quotes a quite reasonable definition of the phrase "financial conflict of interest". The state "being paid to edit" (= "paid editing") is a special case of "having a financial conflict of interest", but the two are absolutely not synonymous. Insisting on blurring lines like this is corrosive to meaningful, good-faith discussion. (Please note that I do not argue about what impact this should have on anyone's vote -- if you want to oppose based on some reasoning involving the phrase "financial conflict of interest" and how important it is, be my guest. But you should not misrepresent the situation while doing so.) (Edit: sorry, I should have realized that this discussion also continues below; I am pleased to see that Lourdes also recognizes the importance of this distinction.) --JBL (talk) 21:28, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

   Thank you, Joel B. Lewis, I'm glad we agree that it was, indeed, a form of paid editing. ——SerialNumber54129 09:19, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

   You’ve got it backwards. Apples are fruits but not all fruits are apples. –xeno^talk 10:46, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

   @Lourdes and Joe Roe: I’m interested to see some of the improper edits to MariaDB. Have any specific edits been identified? In particular, anything that wasn’t simply a version update, which doesn’t seem to be so much “writing about” something as it is updating a verifiable piece of data that was pre-existing. –xeno^talk 11:55, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

   xeno, if my part-time job at a company involved me writing blogs about, amongst other things, new version introductions, and if I were to do the same at the Wikipedia article of the company, then each and every edit of the editor where they add such information of new versions or add references written by MariaDB employees is a significant conflict of interest and in some perspective absolute paid editing. Just as an example, if I were working in car company and was responsible for their product documentation, and kept adding details of new brand introductions or brand updates to the company's Wikipedia page, what would you perceive this as? If you want relevant links, please email me. Thanks, Lourdes 14:36, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

   The question turns on whether Greenman received compensation for their edits (from wmf:TOU): ...you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation., also from meta:Terms of use/FAQ on paid contributions without disclosure#How can I avoid disclosure under this provision of the Terms of Use?: If you wish to avoid the disclosure requirement of this provision, you should abstain from receiving compensation for your edits. So unless their employer is specifically paying them to edit Wikipedia, this seems to be a potential "financial conflict of interest" as per our local policies, but not "paid contributions" per the TOU. None of this is to say the candidate shouldn't have disclosed it, or realized it was a potential concern; but if they did it of their own volition, I don't see that as "paid editing" - and to call them a paid editor without adequate evidence seems unfair. –xeno^talk 15:08, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

   I agree. Lourdes 15:20, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

2. Oppose Not encouraged by the AfD activities, especially that the candidate wants to occasionally restore deleted articles. Just looking at the votes from 2018 onwards, the nominator has failed to either give a policy/rationale in all of these, used WP:ITSNOTABLE (which is to be avoided), and didn't analyze whether the sources were in-depth/WP:SIGCOV. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/TitcoinWikipedia:Articles for deletion/Y-Mag (3rd nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark KrokWikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rocker Vybz (no valid deletion rationale here and per X is also to be avoided), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Backdrop CMS (this one is especially bad in that regards) or the latest one with a non existing rationale that isn't grounded on guidelines/policies Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2014–15 Académica da Praia season. It becomes a bit better in 2017, may move to neutral if question answers are good.Jovanmilic97 (talk) 12:39, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

   Also the fact that the candidate avoided Q9, Q11 and Q14 is a big red flag to me. Am I the only one that actually noticed this? Jovanmilic97 (talk) 15:39, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

   Not sure the justification for using the word "avoided" as opposed to "not answered yet". There have been a lot of questions posed in a short time, and many of them are long and complicated. – Levivich 15:47, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

   I guess so? But feels odd to skip some and answer something else ahead of that question. Maybe because i'm not experienced yet in RfA discussions. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 15:57, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

   There's no need to answer in any order, or to even answer any of the additional questions; they are all optional. Some take a little time to research or formulate a response to, some come easier. Besides, it's not been that long. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 19:04, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

3. Strong oppose COI and paid editing are a massive problem on this project. Someone seeking tools should understand this and absolutely refrain from engaging in such activities themselves. So basically per Lourdes and SN. The lack of (accurate) AFd participation is also deeply concerning. I don't see any indication here in the nom or by the statements from the candidate that they need the tools. Praxidicae (talk) 19:33, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

   @Praxidicae:, what are the COI and paid editing issues you mention? You seem to suggest that the candidate might have engaged in that in some way or enabled it? If so that is a pretty serious allegation that would need some hard evidence.--Discott (talk) 08:31, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

   Discott I'm not sure why my oppose is the only one being challenged but you can read question 12 by Lourdes for insight. The candidate has been editing MariaDB for 6 years - since 2013 - and only disclosed that they are his employer in June of 2019. It doesn't matter if they are gnomish edits or not, our COI and paid editing policy are very clear and common sense should tell anyone who reads it that editing your employers article without disclosure, save for maybe blatant vandalism is a bad idea. Praxidicae (talk) 13:20, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

   I hate piling on opposes, but did the paid editing policy actually exist in 2013?--Ymblanter (talk) 13:49, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

   The issue here is not paid editing but COI. The COI policy page WP:COI has existed since 2004, and here is the version of the COI policy as of the end of 2012. Nsk92 (talk) 14:07, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

   I do not mean to challenge your 'oppose' position but rather gain clarity on the accusation made in the oppose statement. If you still feel you wish to oppose for reasons other than the one you mentioned above then I would be comfortable with that. I agree with Nsk92 that the issue here, if there is one, seems to be more of a COI issues and not paid editing. One would also have to establish whether the candidate made the edits in question whilst they were an employee of the organisation in question. If the candidate was not an employee of the organisation at the time of the edits in question then I don't think COI or the more serious paid editing accusations would stand up. If they were then I feel we should continue this conversation in the COI vein. This then begs the question, was the candiate an employee of the organisation in question when these edits were made?--Discott (talk) 08:00, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

4. Oppose (Moved from Support and then Neutral) I thank Greenman for volunteering his efforts for this RfA and greatly wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors, and I have no doubts that he's a great editor, but he doesn't appear to know that much of Wikipedia policy. His answers to Q5 and Q15 do not fill me with confidence that he knows about the importance of sourcing for biographies of living persons. While I'd argue that Q15 does have some open end to it, and my judgment is limited since I myself can't view the now-deleted page, he doesn't acknowledge BLP and barely touches on fact that SNGs like NFOOTY supplement, rather than trump, the GNG, which is how that particular discussion was closed, and without which knowledge the appropriate consensus would have been a lot less clear. These are understandable mistakes, but not ones adminabili should be making, especially given his intents to work with deletion. His low AfD participation also gives me pause, for that same reason. I'm further not thrilled by his answer to Q16; it's easy to write edit summaries in addition to the auto-summaries (You could in this RfA, for example, say "Answering Q16" for the edit in which you answer Q16, rather than rely on the section heading). I really don't want to be seen as coming down hard on this candidate, and am not vouching for the validity of the other opposes, but I'm afraid I just don't feel right supporting this candidate at this time. I wish Greenman the best of luck and encourage him to keep up the great work editing, and would very likely support a future RfA in the next couple of months iff Greenman works on these issues. (Also note that his edit count, while not large, is not a factor in my oppose here.) If this RfA passes, I highly urge Greenman to read the Admins' reading list cover-to-cover and brush up quite a bit on our policies and guidelines. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 00:13, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
5. Oppose. Not too sold on their AfD history, especially for a candidate who's second main goal is to restore deleted articles. Since the start of 2017, they have had a 73.68% success rate in 19 AfDs, with which I share Jovanmilic97 sentiment. The lack of response to Q14 (or delay, depending if the question is answered) furthers my fear. In addition to this, the response to Q15 doesn't fill me with much confidence. Wikipedia is not a democracy. AfD's don't operate on a "majority vote" basis, but rather the reasoning provided from both sides. Claiming that it isn't important to make a stance on whether the article should be deleted or kept, regardless if the content is viewable or not post-deletion, makes me uneasy about Greenman's understanding of Wikipedia policy. As much as I would like to help Greenman based on his response to Q1, but I can't bring myself to support this candidate. Utopes (talk) 00:25, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
6. Oppose For Now The answer to #15 is evasive and the answer to Lourdes's question #12 misses the point entirely. Whether the edits were appropriate or not has nothing to do with whether conflict-of-interest was explicitly disclosed. And a disclosure of conflict-of-interest must always be disclosed; just being able to connect the pieces with detective work is not explicit disclosure. Can't support at this time any RFA in which the candidate misses the point entirely on something so important as conflict-of-interest. We've had enough COI causing havoc on Wikipedia lately. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 01:21, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

   Definitely staying in the Oppose column and the activity on their talk page is making me more sure of this stance. Talking about not withdrawing because it entertains you and to make some kind of point about systemic bias reinforces the notion for me that you're not admin material, at least at this point. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 05:57, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

7. Oppose. I have reviewed every single one of the candidate's 347 creations. The danger of mass creating stubs is what is clearly demonstrated by their large number of articles tagged for attention, including unsourced or poorly sourced BLP that do not meet notability criteria, and some articles which I have had to PROD. Despite the large number of pages created, they do not pass my criteria for according WP:Autopatrolled which require all created articles to be of clean format and free of tags or taggable issues that would raise he attention of New Page Patrollers. The candidate's creations are rarely complete even as stubs - in the majority of cases even the stub tag is missing - the very item that might just attract the attention of someone who might be disposed to expand the article. That being said, if a stub is capable of expansion, why cant the creator not do that expansion? My mantra has always been: 'If one wants to police Wikipedia pages, one should also prove they know how to produce them,' nevertheless unlike some RfA voters, I don't go so far as to demand a FA or two and a raft of GA. Some of the earlier articles might just scrape through a request for Autopatrolled, but the rest and any future creations clearly require the scrutiny of New Page Reviewers. I also concur with others that there is insufficient work in maintenance areas including AIV, ANI, AfD, etc which does not inspire confidence in sufficient knowledge of policies and guidelines, and no work at all at NPP which though not required, is one of the best learning and starting tasks for aspiring admin candidates. There is a clear lack of use of Edit Summaries, which are important for an admin or maintenance worker. I am concerned about the COI issue - as I understand the rules, it is not only about specifically being paid to edit, but being a salaried employee of the subject of the article is a very strong Conflict of Interest. I am not doubting for a moment that the candidate can be trusted not to abuse the tools, but he required experience is just not there. My own RfA criteria, which are far from being the most severe, and on which I often allow a lot of leeway, are unforunately not met. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:31, 7 October 2019 (UTC) Sorry, I initially forgot to sign

   Kudpung doesn't give any examples so I looked at one of the articles which he has prodded: Karen Press. The subject – a South African poet – seems reasonably respectable and I have no difficulty finding more sources myself. I would expect this article to have a reasonable chance of surviving AfD and so consider the use of proposed deletion to be inappropriate as it is only for uncontroversial deletion and "must only be used if no opposition to the deletion is expected". So far as the candidate is concerned, note that they created the article thirteen years ago in 2006 and don't seem to have been back to it in this time. Complaining about something of this age seems unreasonable because standards were different back then and the candidate was presumably still green (inexperienced). As Kudpung has been though all the candidate's work, do they have any better examples which are more recent? Andrew D. (talk) 07:05, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

   I haven't made a decision on this RfA yet, but thanks for that example, Andrew Davidson. I have long-since concluded that biographies of women are one of the most likely topics to be accidentally deleted on Wikipedia, and this is a good example of one. It's why I support Women in Red. I wonder if this creation of mine from 2005 would have been deleted today? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:55, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

   Nice try Andrew, I started researching from the most recent stubs, they were bad enough, and that's what happens when gut feeling tells me I have to spend 3 hours (good thing it's a Sunday) taking a deeper look and I'm here to comment on a RfA not to turn someone's 300 stubs into articles for them. As systematic opposer to every single RfA for years, how often did you spend more than 3 minutes on your research? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:11, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

   As Kudpung hasn't provided any more specific examples, here's a list of the other prodded articles which haven't already been discussed:

   Tyrone Appollis – artist and poet – article created in 2008

   Willie Marais – Member of Parliament – article created in 2007

   Al Lovejoy – writer – article created in 2006

   Tony Eprile – award-winning writer – article created in 2006

   So, all of these articles were started over 10 years ago. All but one has since been deprodded. Andrew D. (talk) 10:13, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

   I think the point is if you are running to be an admin it would be a good idea to go back to your early creations and add references or expand them.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:42, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

   Precisely, and it's a point I have often made on many of the 100s of RfA I have voted on - although it's rarely a deal breaker. Candidates should at least get their ducks in a row before running. If Andrew wants do do their cleaning up for them, that's up to him, not me. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:39, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

   Kudpung stood for RfA in March 2011. At that time, the page Lulsley was tagged as having no sources and, even now, that page still has a cleanup tag. Kudpung created that page but has never been back to improve that stub. Why should the candidate be held to a higher standard? Andrew D. (talk) 22:03, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

   Because standards have changed, both for new articles and at RfAs. - SchroCat (talk) 23:01, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

8. Oppose - Either an actual conflict of interest or an apparent conflict of interest or a tone-deafness toward conflict of interest issues should be disqualifying. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:09, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
9. Oppose The PAID/COI issue sinks this one for me. Jbh ^Talk 04:18, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
10. Oppose I am not too concerned about CoI editing as long as any potential conflict of interest has been declared on their user page (which has been), and the edits are minor and within policy and guidelines, from a subject that will not be financially awarded directly from the kind of edits they make. In this sense, the candidate is perfectly fine and within policy here, but in their answers I do think they have not demonstrated the kind of understanding in terms of expectations when it comes to CoI, especially for someone going for adminship. In addition, answer to Q15 is simply just a mess; an admin’s role in a AfD discussion is not to “carry out community consensus”, that sounds like counting heads, which only works for uncontroversial pages. Rather, it should be to assess the strength of arguments from both sides in order to determine rough consensus, something that the candidate seem to have limited understanding of. Therefore I cannot support at this time, sorry. Alex Shih (talk) 04:26, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
11. Oppose per Alex Shih and Kudpung's well-thought out rationales. I can't think of anything else to add beyond what's already been said. OhKayeSierra (talk) 04:32, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
12. Oppose The above opposes (COI, AfD, etc) gave me pause enough to do a bit of research. You appear to hand out This is your only warning templates: ({{Uw-vandalism4im}}) at a fairly regular rate. The problem is that some of these warnings are for an IP who has only made 1 edit. example: here, here, and here. I thought perhaps it was just a bad month or two, so I went back a year and see that it's a pattern. This example was particularly concerning to me because the WP:RS (here) being used is continually changing; and in fact on the 10th of Sept 2018 - the rankings were as the IP stated. So, due to the above concerns and what I consider a pattern of IP WP:BITE, which we have more often than we should. Given that the user intends to work in this area of vandalism, I must oppose. — Ched (talk) 04:35, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
13. Oppose (moved from neutral) Greenman is a much better editor than I am in many ways. However I cannot wrap my head around the very low bar he seems to set for BLP article creation, as described by Kudpung above. So while there are many positives here as described under the support column, there are also some unexpected negatives under the oppose column that leave me unable to support. I'd be a support if he came back in a year or two having raised the BLP standard.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 04:45, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
14. Sorry. I haven't looked into the COI issues. The AfDs cited by Jovanmilic97, and the article creations cited by Kudpung, compel me to oppose without needing to. --Mkativerata (talk) 04:57, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
15. The candidate demonstrates between little (page protection, deletion) and no (undeletion) familiarity with the tools he's specifically requesting use of in Q1. With the Joel Wilson (umpire) situation he pats himself on the back about, it was User:The C of E who actually made the request for semiprotection and escalated to ANI when that showed itself necessary. The reverts were correct and are appreciated, but you don't need an admin bit to run twinkle.
    Of the three other visits to RFPP in the last year, two were reasonable. This, though, is not the history of an article where semiprotection should be the first resort, barring LTA, edits to other pages, or some outside context, none of which the candidate made any effort to explain. It did call for admin action, and I don't fault someone for asking for the wrong kind - unless they're asking to be put on the other side of that request.
    User:Jovanmilic97's already articulated my issue with the candidate's AFD activity, with a lot of the same examples I'd made note of. Which is unsurprising, given that it's just about all of their deletion contributions for as far back as it's reasonable to look during an RFA.
    No experience shown with undeletion whatsoever, and not even an attempt at an explanation despite prompting. That innocent-looking "Undelete 62 edits" link is probably the easiest admin tool to cause the greatest amount of harm with if misused through carelessness (as opposed to malice), the candidate gives us nothing at all to base a judgment of competence on, and he's not asking for any end result that wouldn't be nearly as easily accomplished with a visit to WP:REFUND or a friendly admin's talk page.
    Some things raised above that I'm not concerned with. Edit count: he's made enough and for long enough that we can be reasonably sure he knows how to edit, and that he's not somebody's sleeper sock. That silly "success rate" score that the afd tool shows: it's what you should expect from someone who comments early in AFDs, as the candidate has done, and isn't some sort of unreasonably extreme inclusio/deletionist fanatic, which he isn't - sometimes you're just going to be wrong, and that's ok, or you're going to be right and everyone else is going to be wrong, and that's less ok but not really your fault. The edits to MariaDB: unless there's some smoking gun I'm overlooking, they're all the completely banal, opinionless sort of update that's most of the reason why WP:COI "very strongly discourage"s direct editing instead of forbidding it outright. He should've mentioned it here, yes, but we don't need that kind of faux pas to sink this adminship after the utter unsuitability he's shown with his answer to Q1. —Cryptic 05:00, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
16. Oppose I like to see a demonstrated need for the mop before supporting, and while Greenman has made steady and continuing contributions to content over the course of the last decade plus, I am not confident in the need at the moment, particularly the response to Q15, where they focus on consensus instead of the moderately difficult policy argument which I addressed in the AfD and note their bias towards inclusion. I'm also concerned with the recent creation of BLP articles with no inline references. I am sympathetic to Q7, though, as an editor of African articles myself - there's a giant geographic hole in the encyclopaedia here even though sources aren't all that hard to find online. Also concerned about the template use above. Reading through the other opposes, I am not at all concerned about the COI. I would consider supporting in a renomination with a showing of a clearer policy-based record at AfD, so I can get a clear sense of how they would close a contentious AfD, more of a record in vandalism prevention, and a better sense of sourcing, especially BLP articles. On the whole, I think Greenman has the capacity to be a good administrator as they do bring some strengths to the project - I just need a bit of confidence and a little more of a track record in knowing handing the mop over won't create problems down the road. SportingFlyer T·C 05:57, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
17. Strong oppose based on the COI editing. Editing an article on one's employer, whether or not you were directly asked to do so, or the nature of the edits, is paid editing according to the Terms of Use and our policy: An editor has a financial conflict of interest when they write about a topic with which they have a close financial relationship. This includes being an owner, employee, contractor, investor or other stakeholder. (WP:PAY). This makes Greenman's statement above (I confirm that I have never edited for pay) untrue and I strongly encourage him to strike it. The reason we ask for that statement is because there is a strong consensus that paid editors shouldn't be allowed anywhere near advanced permissions. I'm sure he didn't intentionally lie, but not understanding an important policy like WP:COI/WP:PAID is a red flag for an admin candidate on its own. The answer Q12 reinforces the impression that he does not understand the COI policy or why paid editing is a threat to the integrity of the project. – Joe (talk) 07:29, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

    Yes, paid editing is one form of financial COI. That does not mean that tweaking your employer's article constitutes paid editing. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:15, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

18. (edit conflict) Oppose - Qs 5 and 15 don’t do it fore either, but I’m concerned about Q 12 and the CoI problem. I’m not suggesting Greenman’s edits to the articles have been problematic per se, but they fall into the ‘strongly discouraged’ area. The approach to (and judgement of) AfDs is also an issue. - SchroCat (talk) 07:33, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
19. Oppose - concerned about COI edits and lack of experience. GiantSnowman 08:26, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
20. Oppose per above. Concerns with limited experience and policy knowledge. -FASTILY 08:37, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
21. Oppose Not particularly keen on a candidate that writes so many stubs, some as small as 990bytes and some with no references. That approach is fundamentally posting work into the future. Bio articles in my opinion, assuming there is sufficient information available to create it, should be between 15k and 25k in length at a minimum. One sentence articles are useless and you can find more in simple google search. There are almost a kind of anti-article, as they provide so little information and drive folk away. Not particularly worried about supposed coi as candidate has declared their interest. Nor the footy question. Up until a couple of months ago, nobody was bothering about it, until the analysis was completed and realised how many were being created as stubs, of dubious notability. scope_creep^Talk 08:41, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
22. Oppose - Some of the concerns raised above are particularly off putting. Also, a general lack of experience in some of the areas that the candidate wants to work in raises the question of whether they actually need the tools. Kosack (talk) 09:07, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
23. The AfDs linked to in Cryptic's question alone show a worrying lack of knowledge in deletion policy for a candidate wishing to work in this area. Since there is little more recent deletion work to compare this to, I must oppose. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 09:30, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
24. Oppose Insufficient experience in the areas they intend to work. Lacks key policy knowledge re deletion/undeletion. It's not work of admins to unilaterally look at Special:Undelete and "restore" articles that they personally think "have been needlessly deleted." But it seems this is part of what the candidate intends to do as they said in their answer to the first standard question. Admin candidate who wants to work in undeletion should ideally know the legitimate ways of restoring articles. – Ammarpad (talk) 10:47, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
25. Oppose Lack of experience in areas in which they have said they want to use the tools, and insufficient policy knowledge.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 12:39, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
26. Oppose - I don't want to dump on a good editor, but the more I think about an administrator creating unsourced BLPs the more I'm worried about it. Personally, I don't mind mass stub creations like a lot, but at the very least, chuck a reference or three on it, and it's golden. Implied references, where it's got a link to an external website under EL is not good enough for me. Clearly a decent enough editor. I'd like to say it's a WP:NOTNOW case, as if they took some of the things on board, and adapted, there's no reason why they couldn't get the mop in future. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:21, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
27. Oppose due to a combination of the already-discussed COI and mass stub creation issues. An inability to provide adequate sourcing violates one of the fundamental principals of Wikipedia ~mike_gigs ^talk_contribs 14:15, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
28. Mainly per answers to questions 12 and 15. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:43, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
29. Oppose I'm not super concerned by the COI thing at this point as the changes were all uncontroversial, gnome-like editing. Policy, as written, would define that as paid editing regardless but if there's no POV pushing or anything like that it's not a big deal. What does concern me is that candidate's seeming lack of basic policy knowledge and experience in administrative areas. (and as a serious pointer for the future, if you see an article get deleted and think you could've saved it with sources you dug up, just tell the deleting admin that and it can be restored and/or draftified.) Beeblebrox (talk) 18:40, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
30. Oppose Sorry, but I can't support a candidate if I have to speedy delete one of their creations as a copyright violation. I realise it was a while ago, and there are extenuating circumstances, but admins have to know the basics of our CC-BY-SA 3.0 and GFDL licences. It's also a key point mentioned in Advice for RfA candidates. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:42, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

    Ritchie says that this was "a while ago" but the Lulu work which is supposedly the source, says that it was published in Sep 2018. I can't see the history of the deleted page now and I can't link to the Lulu page because an edit filter has blacklisted it as unreliable. Perhaps this was a case of plagiarism from Wikipedia? Can we have more details, please? Andrew D. (talk) 20:12, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

    I asked that exact question. Since the talk page is not a copyright violation, I have restored it to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Greenman/Graham Michael Lesch talk so everybody can have a look. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 20:18, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

    I'm not sure it's real fair to bring up a mistake from 11 years ago in an RFA. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:07, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

    I too raised an eyebrow. Several contributors to this discussion have suggested, "come back in a year or two", but in a year or two, his 2008 mistakes will still be out there. Bruce leverett (talk) 02:44, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

    @Andrew Davidson: Just a note: you can share blacklisted links by wrapping them in <nowiki> tags. — Newslinger talk 10:39, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

31. Oppose, while the candidate is a valuable editor to the project contributing in particular to a sorely under-covered field of subjects, the various editors above who have found significant problems with several of their created articles means that I can't support giving them a toolkit that includes autopatrol. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:06, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
32. Lots of problematic article creations. Nobody is asked to produce flawless and complete articles on the first edit, but there are expectations that experienced users ensure their content rises to a basic standard for quality and adherence to core policies. Copyvios and unsourced BLPs, even if years old, are disqualifying for adminship if the nominee has neglected to fix them. – Juliancolton | ^Talk 20:55, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
33. Oppose It is a real shame this isn't an WP:ORFA, as I would say this candidate stands a good chance here after another 9 months or so of editing focussed more on understanding administrative work. But right now I am sorry to say that I don't have that confidence. Yes, I am really impressed that Greenman wants to help and encourage Wikipedia activity in their local area - and they have clearly done a lot to foster engagement there. But I feel this RFA has been done more out of a sense of duty to that community, than a real need or desire to become an administrator. The first paragraph of their terrible answer to Q1 makes that clear, and I have mild concern that maybe there's a feeling amongst those local Wikipedians who supported them standing that having an administrator in their mists might somehow help them 'defend their corner'. (It was the use of the phrase "and problems local editors have experienced" in that paragraph that concerned me, though I've not seen those 'problems' properly explained, nor do I feel I need to ask before !voting here.) Offering just one example as to why I don't feel they're quite ready yet: as I think has already been pointed out by Cryptic, the answer to Q1 is factually incorrect with respect to Greenman's involvement in requesting semi-protection of the Joel Wilson (umpire) page from a barrage of vandalism on 5th August this year. They didn't request page protection, as they stated; instead, they simply added this pointless request to hurry up. A potential admin, knowing that a WP:RPP request had already been made, and seeing no action and continued serious vandalism, should have known they needed to go to WP:ANI to request 'urgent eyes on' the RPP page from any active admin, and to flag up that article in particular. So, we have a hugely productive and wonderfully supportive editor who is not quite ready for picking up the bit - but I think they soon will be, assuming they really want to? I urge Greenman not to be disheartened by this RfA. Some of our best admins failed at their first attempt. (Feel free to identify yourselves, folks!) I genuinely hope Greenman will come back again quite soon and that I can then offer them my full support. Nick Moyes (talk) 22:24, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
34. Oppose – My concern with the weakly sourced creations goes beyond the simple fact that this user created them. Nobody's perfect, of course, and I know full well that standards were not as stringent many years ago. However, Greenman seem to have made no real effort to improve the articles after starting them, by adding inline references etc. For example, one of the creations is Carel du Plessis, a former coach of the South Africa rugby team. The article mentions that he "was controversially appointed coach of the Springboks", the type of statement about a controversy related to a living person that simply must be properly cited per BLP policy. That's been in the article since its creation in 2009, and has apparently never been referenced, even though he was a coach for a major national rugby team in the 1990s who likely has plenty of potential sources available. It just looks like a lack of care has been taken, and that's not what I'm looking for in an admin, who must exercise care in their actions. Add to that the COI and copyvio concerns raised, and I can't support giving this candidate the tools. Giants2008 (Talk) 22:56, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
35. Oppose - I am sorry Greenman, but there are alarming issues. Your AfD participation is very minimal, especially for a user who wants to focus on deletion aspects as an admin. Your edits to general administrative areas such as RFPP and AIV have been lacking. Some article issues arise as well, but I cut some slack as people make mistakes. In conclusion, I do not see a demonstrated need for the mop, but see you as a great asset to the Wikipedia. You are a great editor, but the possible COI raises a red flag in addition to other reasons for oppose. Please do not be discouraged and in the future you can try again. I was in your shoes a few months ago at RFA Greenman, I understand the process and hope you will emerge a better editor from this experience. AmericanAir88^(talk) 02:55, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

    You have raised some legitamate concerns. However your statement: "I do not see a demonstrated need for the mop". How does one demonstrate a "need" to be an admin? - Ret.Prof (talk) 13:42, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

    The user is a great content creator and asset to Wikipedia. To be a great creator and editor, you do not need the mop. The low AfD participation and lack of skills in other areas, shows that the user does not currently have a strong demonstrated need for the mop. If a user had more experience in administrative activities, there would be a demonstrated need. However, Greenman's strengths stem from non-administrative activities such as creation. I hope this answers your question. AmericanAir88^(talk) 16:32, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

36. Too much disingenuity in the supports not to comment, unfortuantely. WP:PAY is pretty clear that a ((tq|financial conflict of interest}}—including being an employee—is paid editing (clue: it's under a L3 section header called 'Paid editing), uniquivocally and regardless of the nature / quality of the edits. But my position is, rather, that that is somethng of a distraction: the important thing is that we have a candidate for advanced tools who either doesn't know or doesn't see the significance of making such edits and then baldly declaring the opposite—equally equivocally—that they have done so. Combined with ignorance of WP:V and WP:BLP—not just policy, but two of he most important editorial policies we have—their is an unreadyness for the tools. Their comments on their own talk page also give pause for thought: continuing this RfA for the lulz? The opposition are all systematically biased? No thanks. Mind you those who have mentioned WP:NOTYET in either their supports or oppose are your friends, it definitely applies in this case, as I see no malice in Greenman, only a commitment to the encyclopedia, bringing personal qualities which in some cases should be developedand and others, adjusted. At the moment it appears that the latter outweigh the former; see you in a year though. ——SerialNumber54129 10:10, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

    The header is a navigational aid (and should probably read “Paid editing and financial conflicts of interest”); you need to refer to the actual content. This seems more akin to a “financial conflict of interest” than dyed-in-the-wool paid editing. I’m curious: if an editor wants to revert obvious vandalism on their employer’s article, they must disclose their employer on wiki? And if candidates have to disclose whether they have edited in a position of financial conflicts of interest as well as being paid directly to edit, the advice needs to be changed (see Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship#Candidate disclosure of editing for pay). –xeno^talk 11:47, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

    I clearly referred to the content as I directly quoted from it; I'm sorry if it was not obvious to you. As to your suggestion, what it probably should read is less convincing (and relevant) that what it does say. Suggest you start an RfC on getting the change you want; I might support it. But in any case, you completely miss my fundamental point, which is that a candidate who cannot see in advance that there might possibly be an issue as a result of editing their employer's article while stating that they never edited for pay does not demonstrate that they have ever read and understood policy. It is very much the same (lack of) approach as has been taken to V, for example, so should probably come as no surprise. Thanks for engaging here today, though; that's all from me. ——SerialNumber54129 12:05, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

    You should make your point without needlessly blurring clear and meaningful distinctions, and then people won't complain that you've needlessly blurred meaningful and clear distinctions. --JBL (talk) 21:36, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

    Thank goodness we are under no pressure to adhere to your interpretion of policy. ——SerialNumber54129 09:25, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

37. Oppose, unfortunately - the questions about possible COI and/or paid editing and Greenman's responses mean that I'm not comfortable giving him a mop at this time. ^creffpublic _{a creffett franchise} (talk to the boss) 14:56, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
38. Regretful oppose I had thought I would just sit this RfA out as he's clearly asset to the Wikimedia movement even as he's not the right fit to be a sysop on English Wikipedia today. However, the pointer to his talk page discussion means I want to register my concerns with his understanding of policy and crucially norms. It would have been best if he'd not edited MariaDB. It would have been second best if he'd been upfront about it and generally followed COI best practices. If he'd done that he could have avoided the parts that have lead some to believe he's violated our rules about paid editing. He might have done that but just as importantly he's definitely violated, through ignorance, our norms around paid editing, a topic the community rightly cares a great deal about. I would hope that Greenman would become a sysop one day. But to do that he'd need to be serious about wanting it by finding a mentor or two - there are some really great possibilities up in the support column. With some guidance, so for instance he created higher quality stubs that wouldn't as Kudpung points out need review by NPP, and time spent digging into the nitty gritty of policy (and the many unwritten but still very real conventions we have) he could pass. We should want more South African sysops - I know I do - which is why I hope he'll take this as a learning experience rather than a chance to rail about Wikipedias shortcomings. We have many, some of which were on display here, but I don't think they are why this RfA isn't passing. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:12, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
39. Oppose – I cannot support a candidate who does not fully comprehend and comply with our conflict of interest guideline. – bradv🍁 15:32, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
40. Oppose per Ched. Not knowing when to use a Level 4im warning is an absolute deal-breaker for me. A user who thinks this edit deserves a 4im shouldn't be doing any patrolling, let alone have the mop. I haven't investigated the COI issues yet, but this alone is enough for me to be unable to support this RFA. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 19:44, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
41. Oppose - the COI issue is major, though potentially subject to mitigation depending on question answering. The 4im issue is major - they should only be given in really rare circumstances, not the cases highlighted by Ched. They also don't seem to show enough experience in some of the areas they say they'll be operating in. Greenman has obvious pluses (the benefits of diverse admin locations aside), but the three negatives are too much between them. I'll reconsider if any of them get knocked down. Nosebagbear (talk) 21:09, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
42. Oppose - the COI issue is a deal breaker.--Frmorrison (talk) 23:34, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
43. Oppose. I am not bothered by the candidate's editing at MariaDB, the lack of edit summaries, or random annoyances from 10 years ago, they are all for me in the super lighweight category as they carry precisely zero risk to Wikipedia. The deal breaker for me is Greenman's lack of experience and contributions in key admin areas: AfD, SPI, DRN, ANI. It brings up the question whether they need the mop at all - AmericanAir88 has put it all very well. The warning issue brought up by K6ka also adds to my oppose. My advice now will be: keep up good work, be more active in admin areas, get a better grasp of policies (including how to use warning templates) and re-apply in a year or so. — kashmīrī ^TALK 07:17, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Neutral

Coming down here until Q12 is answered, although I'm not filled with confidence in the circumstances. - SchroCat (talk) 08:50, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

1. Candidate has been editing for several years, but I dont find the AfD logs very convincing to support. Candidate in Q1 has shown interest in Deletion topics. Waiting for Q14 to be answered. --DBigXrayᗙ 10:24, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

   Thanks for answering Q14, as others have pointed out, you could have made use of WP:REFUND. I understand that there are good intentions, but I believe some more experience in doing the admin related work will be useful to judge your grasp of the policies. The recent comment made by the candidate on the ongoing RfA also does not inspire confidence in supporting. For now I would be unable to support this RfA and would keep myself parked at Neutral. --DBigXrayᗙ 15:07, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

   implied primary sourcing on BLPs has me worried - on Q4. I don't see that they would particularly cause an issue with the tools, biut saying they have had almost 3,000 edits this year, as a record is a little worrying, as it's only around 200 a month (or, for the duration, 3 a day.) I'd want an aspiring admin to do at least a little more than this. Leaning support aside from this. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:34, 6 October 2019 (UTC) (moved to oppose)

   (Moved from Support) Something seems off about his answers to the optional questions so far. Q5 does not inspire confidence in his understanding of the importance of BLP; while I'm not going to put a ton of bricks on him for that, the other answers seem to have a slightly flippant tone, which I'm willing to believe is a result of cultural difference/language barrier. I will wait for answers to the other questions, especially those related to deletion, before I make a further decision. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 19:59, 6 October 2019 (UTC) Moving to oppose, regrettably. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 00:13, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

   #Neutral Greenman is a much better editor than I am in many ways. However I cannot wrap my head around the very low bar he seems to set for article creation, as described by Kudpung under the opposes. So while there are many positives here as described under the support column, there are also some unexpected negatives under the oppose column that leave me balancing on the fence post. I'd be a support if he came back in a year or two having raised the BLP standard. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 04:35, 7 October 2019 (UTC) moving to oppose

   In two minds here. 16,000 edits when spaced over 17 years isn't a lot, and not a lot of AfD activity. I'm also not seeing a clear need for the mop. I understand NOBIGDEAL, but I also like to see a clear need demonstrated before supporting. Also see a lot of potential positives, though, but leaning oppose at this time. Will be basing my vote off of how the candidate answers the questions. SportingFlyer T·C 11:17, 6 October 2019 (UTC) Moved to Oppose. SportingFlyer T·C 05:58, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

2. I'm landing here since I don't see a point in piling on with another oppose given that this RfA clearly will not pass. I agree that there are serious concerns presented above that prevent Greenman from being ready for adminship at this time, but I do want to express my appreciation for his long history of contributing to the 'pedia. At this point, I think has Greenman has received sufficient feedback and I would recommend withdrawing and reflecting upon the advice given above with the hope that a second RfA in a year or two will be far more successful. Lepricavark (talk) 03:33, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
3. Neutral. I land here as a bit of moral support. Of course CoI/paid editing is a major issue on Wikipedia, but if the result of our policies and norms is that a part-time employee who updates version numbers on his employer's website with no actual CoI gets caught up in our zeal to prevent extensive, paid-to-do-so biased CoI editing, then we've lost the plot, and the problem is how we've defined things rather than the user. Martinp (talk) 12:26, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
4. Neutral My take on this editor is that a little more knowledge and experience is needed. I would oppose, but I don't want to be associated with the rationales of many of the opposers. To the extent that our policies and guidelines conflate voluntary, undirected editing related to one's employ with paid editing, it is our policies and guidelines that are wrong. What Greenman is known to have done related to MariaDB, etc., should be neither considered editing for pay or disqualifying for adminship. Vadder (talk) 15:03, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
5. I planned to sit out, but agree with Lepricavark so I'll land here. Greenman has received sufficient feedback on what the community would like to see before another run. Further pile-ons are not helpful and only risk discouraging a good editor from trying again later. Wug·a·po·des​ 21:57, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
6. Neutral. I came to put myself into the moral support category as the editor meets my minimum criteria and I continue to believe in the no big deal idea. Unfortunately, I cannot. Anyone who wants to be saddled with a mop knows that RfA will crawl through one's history. Placing a recent statement on one's talk page, saying this arduous RfA process is entertaining, shows a shortage in insight and judgement that I would expect even the most novice administrator to have. But, there's always hope. As Wug states, further pile-ons would not be helpful. I do wish they will try again with a little more experience. Ifnord (talk) 23:29, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
7. Neutral Greenman is a very good editor in many ways but the thing is that I just can't give a positive vote because of his previous history with paid editing. TurboSonic (talk) 02:34, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
8. Neutral per my RFA criteria. The COI issue doesn't bother me that much as I don't consider editing about your employer paid editing just because they are your employer. The things that stop me from supporting are the AFD issues raised by opposers, and the general lack of experience in administrative areas. Iffy★Chat -- 09:57, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

General comments

• Re Q8: it's normal when patrolling for vandalism to create a lot of IP user pages, as Greenman's contribs show: [10]. So do mine: [11]. And so do yours, BMK [12] – Levivich 04:41, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

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Wants to fight vandalism. Has 45 edits to RFPP and WP:AIV over sixteen years? The candidate is clearly suited to what they currently do and the method with which they currently do it. ——SerialNumber54129 06:25, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

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This is not WT:RFA. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 07:52, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Q13 on Username by User:Andrew Davidson is not adding any value to the RfA contributors and it is sad to see such questions being asked regularly at RfAs. Candidate should feel free to ignore them, if they feel so. The candidate could have been asked such questions on his user talk, if it is considered so important to know the reason behind usernames.--DBigXrayᗙ 10:31, 6 October 2019 (UTC) That's not a fair criticism in the slightest. Often the simplest questions can raise the biggest concerns. SportingFlyer T·C 11:09, 6 October 2019 (UTC) In the last such case, another editor independently asked a similar question on the candidate's talk page. The candidate chose to answer at RfA and that seemed to work out fine. Andrew D. (talk) 17:43, 6 October 2019 (UTC) Greenman has now answered the question. Andrew, I am sure the response will now help many of us to gauge if he is fit for the admin role or not. I will speak for myself, that it did not help me in any way. Selecting a username is the first thing done while making an account and IMHO it is just a name that is "often" selected without any or little thought to it. As long as it is not offensive or promotional it should never be a concern for RfA hence I called them out as frivolous. We dont judge the maturity of an admin candidate just by seeing his first few edits that were made years/months ago. If someone needs to be convinced that a username has a good/interesting story (or some reasonable explanation that can be conjured up) behind it that can help to judge the maturity of an admin candidate, then I would question the judgement of the reviewer for using such a criteria in their RfA standards. I can understand the curiosity we have when we come across certain usernames, but I believe that curiosity should be addressed on the user talk page. --DBigXrayᗙ 07:30, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

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Q17: Levivich, you've already been told several days ago about inappropriate questions - in a manner far from condescending - but your ripost with PA tells us a lot more about your crowdsourcing methods. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:37, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I asked the candidate by email in advance, he gave his permission to ask on-wiki. Sorry, KP, you've expressed your opinion on the matter, but I disagree. And, I didn't make any PA in that thread or elsewhere. – Levivich 04:42, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I'll just re-iterate that asking the same question of every candidate, trying to make it a de facto standard question, is lame and annoying, regardless of whether it is permitted or not. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:29, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't think of it as "lame", I'd describe asking the same question of every candidate (and judging every candidate by the same criteria) as "even-handed" or "fair". – Levivich 21:15, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I do. I even consider it disruptive. Particularly that kind of loaded question which has nothing whatsoever to with a candidate's competency for adminship whether they are happy to humour you with an answer or not. It's the kind of misuse of the RfA venue that puts off potential candidates of the right calibre from running and gets people asking for a reform of the system. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:42, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

What I consider disruptive is going through and PRODing a bunch of an RfA candidates' articles in the middle of their RfA. I mean that is just stone cold man–the PRODs couldn't wait a week? But I guess we each have different definitions of what's disruptive. – Levivich 01:49, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Levivich I appreciate the question and I think the answer reveals something about the candidate.Lightburst (talk) 17:02, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

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Q5: Regarding the stub biographies of chess players, I consider the three sources used to be OK. In some cases it would not have been too difficult to find other sources; for example, I was easily able to get more information about Shimanov from reliable online sources. So it is a little disappointing to see that the editor did not pursue this, but as bare stubs go, these are all right. Bruce leverett (talk) 17:35, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

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Is any uninvolved admin or crat prepared to close this? WP:RFA says bureaucrats may also close nominations early if success is unlikely and leaving the application open has no likely benefit, which I believe is definitely the case here. The support is below 50% so has no chance of passing, the candidate is saying on his talk page I actually find it quite entertaining and am tempted to let the process run its course and see what else comes up. It's providing a good indication of the sort of systemic bias in place. I do not believe this is an acceptable reason to keep a doomed RfA running. It does no good for the community or for the candidate's future chances.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 13:25, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I am also tempted to endorse a close, although a bureaucrat has not closed a non-SNOW RfA since February 2016. I don't want this to be dragged on and negatively affect a future RfA for Greenman, which per various comments above I hope he does eventually pursue once he has more policy experience. (EDIT: I have further recognized that we have had otherwise-doomed RfA's run the whole 7 days.) – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:50, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I would give Greenman a chance to log in first and address any further questions if he wants to, and let him make the decision about whether to withdraw or not. The only reason I would consider a SNOW close if if the discussion started deteriorating into personal attacks, which hasn't happened yet in my view. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 17:02, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree with that assessment, even if Greenman's decision about withdrawal is different from what I would do in this situation. We have examples of otherwise-doomed RfAs running the whole 7 days. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 17:17, 8 October 2019 (UTC)