Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Gimme danger

Gimme danger

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (20/2/2); Scheduled to end 09:37, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Nomination

Gimme danger (talk · contribs) – After editing for four and a half years, I've participated in nearly every task Wikipedia has to offer. I think my broad experience qualifies me for a mop and some soap. Sometimes I wish I could put them to good use. Danger (talk) 08:10, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Note to those !voting: I prefer not to reveal my gender on Wikipedia and thus prefer to be referred to as they or them. If this is distasteful to you for reasons of grammatical purity, any gender-neutral pronoun set is fine. Or you could go with he/she, his/her and the like. But that's just ugly.

And of course, thank you for taking the time to read these answers and for your comments, kind or biting!

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: This answer has two parts. First, I would use the tools in my normal Wikipedia work. I've recently begun working at the help desks and would like to be able to change the revision visibility of user's personal information. Sometimes I spend an hour or two at new editor's contributions and usually nominate a few pages for speedy deletion; it would be nice to be able to do that myself.

Second, I would like to work where I'm needed. I get a kick out of seeing numbers count down; I like working backlogs. This is evident in my contributions. I'm happy to do tasks that are relatively tedious and require concentration, over and over.

Clarified per Fastily: In short, I would like to do two types of tasks that require admin tools. I would like to do the tasks I encounter over the course of my normal editing, as I described in the first paragraph of my answer. I would also like to work to remove administrative backlogs.

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

A: I am fundamentally a gnome. The project of which I am most proud is clearing the WikiProject Wisconsin's assessment backlog of some 5,000-ish articles. (At least, it was clear in 2008.) While I assess I make small fixes as encounter them. I've undertaken a few similar projects recently.

I welcome new users and have been involved in adoption and mentorship and consider making it easier for other users to create content a fundamental goal of my work here. Writing is not my strong suite; I prefer to smooth the road for editors bolder than I.

Jane S. Richardson was a DYK. It was a challenge for me to write and I'm proud that I managed it, but I was more happy that it provided a suitable background for the fantastic image that Ms. Richardson donated to Wikimedia.

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: Of course, yes and yes. Earlier in my editing I concentrated on Tibet, an area of understandably heated debate. I attempt to keep a strictly neutral position, though I recognize the practical impossibility of that task, and assume good faith as long as possible. It is a point of pride to me that I have been accused of being paid to edit by both the Chinese Communist Party and the Government of Tibet in Exile. (And I've never seen a cent from either.) I believe in following dispute resolution processes, discussing on talk pages rather than through edit summaries, and gently redirecting troublesome users. These principles have generally kept me from getting into disputes in the first place, although there's no pleasing everybody.

Recently, meaning in the last year, things have been quiet for me. I undertook a mentorship in 2009 of a topic banned user, Wikifan12345, and it caused some stress when he lost interest in the process. After a certain point, I believe that it is no longer productive to continue with disputes and I generally inform those users politely that I don't wish to talk with them anymore. Seems to work. Since I don't generally have any problems, I think I'll continue on this course.

Questions from The Utahraptor

4. Would you ever work at WP:AIV? If so, under what circumstances would you block an editor (for example, would you block an editor with no warnings, one warning, two warnings, etc.)

A: It's possible that I would work there, although I have no real interest in doing so at this time. Blocking an editor who has not been warned should only be done in cases of especially egregious misconduct: making unambiguous threats, outing users, or particularly severe BLP violations. Clearly compromised accounts and usernames that clearly violate username policy also could be blocked without warning.

For standard vandals, the sort who add "penis" to random articles, and other blatant misconduct like spamming and minor copyright violation, I think three warnings is sufficient. (I consider the third level user warnings somewhat redundant and at that point think the angry red pictures on the final warning templates need to come into play.) For the sorts who add defamatory material to BLPs or particularly disgusting vandalism such that it could not be mistaken for a test I think one warning, with red picture, is sufficient.

For subtler misconduct, I find it impossible to make broad statements about how many times an editor should be warned before being blocked. Failure to assume good faith or follow verifiability policy needs to be evaluated on a case by case basis.

5. Pretend for a moment that you are made an administrator, and you come across a backlog at WP:RPP. Under what circumstances is page protection appropriate/inappropriate?

A:Page protection is appropriate in cases of ongoing editwarring that involves multiple parties or extensive vandalism. Editwarring generally requires full protection, but semi-protection can be applied if all the parties are IPs or new users. Coordinated attacks by multiple autoconfirmed accounts also is grounds for full protection. Persistent vandalism or content violations should be dealt with by semi-protection. It is generally not appropriate to protect article talk pages, to full protect an article for a long period of time or to full protect an article pre-emptively.

There are additional cases, of course, but, pretending I was an administrator, I would work while rereading the appropriate policy, which is how I do pretty much everything except grammar editing. (And dashes. I now feel very confident about dashes!)

Additional optional questions from Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message}

6. A biography fails to qualify on either GNG or BASIC. Can it still be considered worthy to find a place on Wikipedia?

A:No. While it's not matter of worth, a subject without significant coverage in independent reliable sources does not have a place on Wikipedia. Without such sources, we cannot write anything, since anything written would violate verifiability. Having an article with no content would be silly.

Follow-up First of all, are you aware of the special notability criteria? Second, would you explain the difference between WP:Verifiability and WP:Notability? DGG ( talk ) 20:09, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I am aware of special notability criteria. Verifiability is the principle that everything claimed on Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable source. A notable subject is a subject that merits an article on Wikipedia. General notability guidelines are very simple. They ask if writing on this topic be verifiable. In the case of special notability criteria, the criteria are used as a proxy to confirm that a verifiable article could be written about the subject. (This connection is made explicit in the first sentence of the sports guidelines). For example, if a musician has won a major award, it can be presumed that there will be articles in music magazines about the award; it's possible that the award itself has a citation. The seeming exception to this chain of logic is WP:PROF, which specifically notes that the subject's biography might not be the subject of secondary sources. I am skeptical that this is a correct application of notability, because it would seem to allow articles that are not verifiable. Of course, because it is a guideline it clearly has the support of the community; were I made an administrator, I would follow WP:PROF. I am not inclined to pointiness.

The important thing to keep in mind, in my opinion, is that verifiability is a core content policy, one of the four axioms of Wikipedia editing, if you like. Notability is a derivation of verifiability and notability guidelines outside of GNG are inductive arguments about the verifiability material on certain classes of subjects. Inductive arguments are not airtight proofs.

So, to explain my answer, the question posits that there are no independent reliable sources with significant coverage of the subject, since it fails the GNG and BASIC. Thus regardless of whether the subject meets specific criteria for notability, any article text would violate verifiability and thus such an article has no place on Wikipedia. Such a beast as a topic that fails the GNG but meets a specific criteria seems unlikely, but it is not impossible. That is why I did not mention specific notability criteria in my answer; they seemed superfluous from my standpoint.

Note: BrownEyedGirl has explained why my answer was inadequate and I certainly understand her concerns. I am copying my response for the benefit of those reading these answers. I think I should explain that I approached that particular question from a philosophical standpoint and took the failure of GNG and BASIC as a given. As in, assuming perfect knowledge that an article does not meet GNG, could it have a place on Wikipedia. In practice, I believe in cleaving to community guidelines and in the value of the specific notability criteria; if presented with a subject that appears to fail the GNG but meets a specific notability guideline, I would not push the red button, so to speak.

7. A new editor removes a well referenced paragraph from an article aggressively claiming in the edit summary that the content does not adhere to NPOV. You realize that that's not the case, and ergo rollback the content. The new editor deletes it again strongly disagreeing with your revert. You rollback his deletion again and warn him for vandalism. This time the new editor starts personally attacking you on your talk page by accusing you of being a paid editor for Wikipedia. You rollback that edit too, warn the new editor of repeated vandalism. The new editor goes ahead and again deletes the content from the article, leaving the same aggressive edit summary of the paragraph being non-NPOV. An administrator comes along and sees what's going on. What should the administrator do?

A:Firstly, I hope that this would not happen and if you're taking the example from my contribution history, boy is my face red. In any case, the administrator should warn both users about the pitfalls of editwarring and the merits of calm discussion, warn the new editor about personal attacks, warn me about biting the newbies and failing to explain my edit to a new user and offer help in understanding NPOV to the new user. (It took me 2 years and about 5 close readings of the policy before I actually understood NPOV policy, so I can empathize.)

Follow-up: What is the difference between rollback and revert? DGG ( talk ) 20:12, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

A revert is an edit that undoes the edit of another user. Rollback is a user-right (or a Twinkle button) that allows an editor to revert an edit or several sequential edits by the same user without having to go through the edit history manually. It inserts a standard edit summary that simply states that the edits have been reverted. Thus, it should not be used except in cases of unambiguous vandalism or edits where a detailed edit summary would not be needed. If the user in the question was using the user-right, they should be warned for using it inappropriately.

Since I was the user using rollback in the question, I interpreted, wrongly, that it was referring to the Twinkle rollback buttons that I press so often. (I have not applied to be a rollbacker because I think Twinkle gives me more functionality anyway; the tool was given to me today though.) Thus I didn't make the connection that there was no informative edit summary (for reverts of this type I use the feature that allows "rollback" with a custom edit summary) and that the new user had never actually been informed of what he was doing wrong.

With this new information, the admin should deal with me much more harshly, not necessarily with a block but with a more strongly worded message. Perhaps they ought to be rhetorically smacking their hand with a hammer as they speak to me. If I have a history of using the rollback function like this, the administrator should consider revoking that privilege.

8. True or false: An article that has escaped deletion at an AfD previously, cannot be tagged with a CSD again.

A:Technically false. It is possible that the article is later found to have copyright issues that must be removed, reducing it to a dictionary definition that is then transwikied without the article being deleted and could be tagged under A5. And then there are the shadowy G9 deletions and is any page ever immune from those?

In general though, having passed through an AfD indicates that the article does not have any of the blatant issues that would qualify it for CSD (ie. it asserts notability, it's not a clearly degenerate article of any sort).

9. An article qualifies on GNG, is free of copyright issues, has valid RS available, yet is deleted after discussions at AfD despite all delete !voters accepting the article qualified well on GNG (assume that the discussions were faultless; and not influenced by office action). Give three kinds/varieties of articles where such a deletion might occur, despite the article qualifying on GNG.

A:

1. A POV fork of another article without mergable content.
2. A howto type article: "How to change a tyre" has many independent reliable sources available, but Wikipedia is not a howto manual.
3. A promotional article for a notable product or organization that has no non-promotional content and no page history worth keeping.

10. In your sojourns at NPP, you come across an article titled Salonia Durelli with one line written that this is a new animal (earthworm) group found in an island off Australia. You search the Internet and find that the claim, although apparently notable, is not seemingly credible. You A7 the article. An administrator whom you've given a heads-up on the article, comes across, and "______" the article, with a reasoning "______". Fill up the blanks.

A:Keep the article. Since species are considered inherently notable, claiming to be a species is a claim of notability and thus the article fails A7. Also fails A7 because it is about a group of animals (at least one hopes a species is a group), not an individual animal.

I would suggest taking it to AfD because there are no sources and it is a clear hoax, at least to a taxonomist: Salonia was already taken by a genus of brachiopods in the 1930s.

Follow-up is there a speedy deletion criterion for clear hoaxes,or do they need AfD? DGG ( talk ) 20:12, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, G3 covers clear hoaxes. I did not suggest speedy deletion under that criterion in this case because I think that the hoax must be extremely blatant for speedy deletion. In this case, knowing that it is a hoax requires some specialized knowledge of zoological nomenclatural rules. (It would be even more obvious to a brachiopodologist.) Thus, I think it ought to go through the due process of an AfD, if only so that the deletion acquires the weight of community consensus and is not based solely on somewhat esoteric knowledge.

Additional optional question from Malleus Fatuorum

11. What's your general view on civility blocks? Do you think that a very short block (a few seconds or minutes say) can ever be justified?

A: By "civility block" do you mean a block based on incivility? If so, I think that the incivility must be egregious and ongoing such that it is a a currently disruptive force in Wikipedia. The blocking policy uses the term "gross incivility". If I were an uninvolved administrator, I would block the fellow who came to my user talk page and called me a bitch a few times and told me to go fuck myself, if his behavior had continued. Mild incivility, I think, should be noted with warnings to the offending editor. If the editor is persistent in zir poor conduct, but is not significantly impeding the 'pedia, I think an AN/I thread is appropriate. Because incivility is a highly subjective call, I think there should be some discussion before blocks on that basis ought be issued. Civility blocks should issued with care. If a user is merely irritating over the long term, there is no reason to block zir; not everyone's personalities will mesh. Only when the user has a long history of disruption through incivility, say by, driving experienced editors away from articles with subtle but continuous negative insinuations about them should ze be blocked. (For the record, the user I'm thinking about left Wikipedia long ago.)

Under the current block policy, I cannot see a justification for any very short ban. If a user is being disruptive now, they will probably be equally if not more disruptive in 5 minutes when the block expires. I think this conforms with policy against "cool down" blocks. The only cases where short blocks would be justifiable are perfunctory blocks to restore a block record after a user has exercised the right to vanish and when the cat steps on the keyboard (perhaps not justifiable, in that case, but understandable).

So what would you suggest ought to be done about administrators like the one who issued me with a 10-second block on 11 December 2009? The problem I'm getting at of course is that administrators are given access to all of the tools, not just the ones they express an interest in, or have demonstrated any aptitude for. Malleus Fatuorum 02:34, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

To respond to your edit summary: in short, egregious incivility likely to continue equals block. Mild incivility equals warnings, persistence equals AN/I to determine whether a block is appropriate.

A ten-second bloc is a misuse of the block tool; it does not fall under the parameters of use set out in the blocking policy, as I attempted to explain above. In this particular situation it certainly didn't help matters. I think it's appropriate to ask for an explanation for the block. If the block was actually inappropriate and the behavior on the part of the administrator issuing the dubious block is a one-off, then I think a warning or reminder is an appropriate response. If the behavior is part of a pattern of abuse of the tools, then I think desysopping should be discussed at AN/I.

I'm sorry to go on about this, but administrators get away with murder so far as blocking is concerned. So, do you see a difference between alleged incivility on article talk pages vs. user talk pages? Would you ever block for incivility (rather than personal attacks) by a user on that user's own talk page? Malleus Fatuorum 04:38, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

There is a difference, though a subtle one. Article talk pages are where collaboration on article development takes place. Disruptive incivility there directly interferes building the encyclopedia. Since it is more of a threat, the threshhold for blockable behavior is lower. In their own userspace, I think editors deserve more leeway because it is less of a threat to article development. Incivility on another user's page, walking over and pissing on their rug, if you will, is more egregious than incivility on either article talk or one's own user space because it shows a fundamental disrespect for the other user. (It's the difference between calling someone an asshole on the street and following them home and doing it in their living room.)

In practice though, incivility is almost always spread over several talk pages and infects edit summaries, so these aspects have to be weighed. Therefore, it's not really possible for me to make a solid determination on your second question; it depends on the situation. If an editor's uncivil behavior is limited to their talk page and not egregious incivility, I can't see blocking.

Very sorry to make this longer. But would it be fair to say that an editor who has been uncivil in response to an unsolicited post on their talk page is entitled to more leeway than elsewhere (within reason, of course)? —WFC— 08:19, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Within reason, yes. I think of one's userspace as one's front porch or living room; you can't punch people there, but you can smoke. (In real life, I have to leave rooms where people are smoking, which is why this is is apt to me.) But as I said above, unless the incivility is disrupting the operations of the 'pedia (punching people), I can't see unilateral blocking anyway.

General comments

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

---

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

Discussion

• This is an awful lot of questions for just the first day of an RfA. —Soap— 21:13, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
• Danger, I find your answer to question one to be rather vague; just where exactly do you intend to do administrative work? I'm considering opposing you at this point because you have not made it clear how the tools would benefit both you and the project. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 00:17, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Fastily, I've clarified my answer to question one; I hope it allays your concerns.

I'm sorry, maybe I was not clear up above; allow me to clarify my question. I'd like to know which specific administrative areas (list them out - e.g. WP:AIV, WP:AFD, WP:CSD) or backlogs you wish to work in. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 02:12, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah. Clearing the backlog of files with the same name on Commons seems like a good project. I was deliberately vague because I am happy to clear any backlog if asked to do so, but that's the one I have my eye on. --Danger (talk) 02:34, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Support

1. Support. Looks to me like a fine candidate. – Athaenara ✉ 11:41, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
2. Support I like this editor, Danger is helpful, some involvement in adoption, good to know about the help desk involvement. I think im paticularily impressed with the way Danger handled the event when a new editor tried to scold him for adding a welcome template. Danger effectively calmed the user and with good and appropriate humour diffused the situation. I have no doubt that Danger will be a fine admin, good natured, experinced and helpful. Ottawa4ever (talk) 11:54, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
3. Support. Taking a browse through the contribution history shows helpful activity in a wide variety of areas, and no red flags that I could find. A clean block log and constructive comments on AfDs and talk pages suggests the good temperament required for the job. 28bytes (talk) 11:55, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
4. Answers to questions four and five show an understanding of policy, so I support this nomination. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 16:35, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
5. Support A fine candidate. No issues here.--White Shadows ^{We live in a beautiful world} 17:07, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
6. Support. Experienced user, hardworking, and helpful. No reason to believe they'd abuse the tools. I particularly liked his/her answers to the first 2 questions, which indicate a general proclivity towards repetitive janitorial work; the type of user that tirelessly clears entire backlogs with speed and efficiency, something Wikipedia definitely benefits from. -- œ^™ 17:36, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
7. Support. I checked the past thousand or so edits. Seems an honest and worthy admin candidate. Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 17:38, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
8. Support Fine with me. Good answers to the questions so far. ThemFromSpace 17:48, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
9. Support per the fine people above. I don't think that they could have said it any better. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 18:44, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
10. Support longterm user with a cleanblock log and a nice mix of contributions. BrownHairedGirl makes a very valid point, but going through a fairly large sample of the users deletion tagging I feel comfortable with Gimme danger having the deletion button, though I'm sure they won't forget BHG's point. Danger is not currently a Rollbacker, but on the basis of the vandal reversion that I've seen them do I'm happy on that front as well. ϢereSpielChequers 20:13, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
11. Strong Support I would have offered to nomination Danger for adminship had we discussed it. I have encounter many of Danger's edits related to WikiProject Wisconsin over the past several years. I am very impressed with the quality of all of their edits. Danger has show a lot of dedication to the project and Wikipedia will benefit from another trustworthy person added to the admin corps. Royalbroil 23:11, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
12. Support There aren't any problems with him. WAYNESLAM 23:22, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
13. Support Good overall user, I see no issues Peter.C • talk 01:23, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
14. Unlike DGG, I was very impressed with the answer to question 6; it showed that GD respects our verifiability policy and understands the underlying point behind the notability guidelines. A check of GD's contributions looks fine (I especially liked reading Jane S. Richardson!). Seems fine to me. NW (Talk) 04:28, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
15. Support – Years of great work. The mop would help. —mc10 (t/c) 04:52, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
16. Support The candidate has shown a willingness to do grunt work (e.g. putting assessments on talk pages of Project Wisconsin articles); that — along with ample experience, trustworthiness and a sound understanding of Wikipedia's policies — should make him/her a fine sysop. I have to agree with the opposers, however, that s/he did fumble the ball on Question 6.--Hokeman (talk) 05:17, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
17. Support no reason to think that this user would abuse the tools. Seems like this would be a fine candidate. --rogerd (talk) 05:47, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
18. Support- BHG's oppose gave me pause, but in the end I think the candidate will use the tools responsibly and correctly. Reyk _YO! 06:34, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
19. Support User has been around since 2006 feel the project only gains with the user having tools.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 07:07, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
20. Per above. One two three... 09:57, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose per answer to question 6, which suggest that the candidate did not read WP:BASIC#Additional_criteria before replying. That's particularly odd because in reply to question 6 GD wrote "I would work while rereading the appropriate policy, which is how I do pretty much everything except grammar editing".
   I would not usually oppose a candidate on the basis of one misunderstanding of policy or guidelines, but this one is serious because it could lead to the wholesale deletion of stub- or start-class articles on people for whom notability per WP:GNG may be demonstrated only through research in specialist (possibly offline) sources which may not be accessible to general participants at AFD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:57, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

   I think I should explain that I approached that particular question from a philosophical standpoint and took the failure of GNG and BASIC as a given. As in, assuming perfect knowledge that an article does not meet GNG, could it have a place on Wikipedia. In practice, I believe in cleaving to community guidelines and in the value of the specific notability criteria; if presented with a subject that appears to fail the GNG but meets a specific notability guideline, I would not push the red button, so to speak. --Danger (talk) 00:29, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

   Thanks for the reply, but that doesn't persuade me. Perfect knowledge is not something we should ever assume: all we scan do is to work with the knowledge we have, having done our best to try to learn what we can. I note your support of the specific notability guidelines once that was pointed out, but regardless of what to make of that answer, the whole perfect knowledge thing puts me right off. Wikipedia works on verifiability, not truth, and our ability to verify may fall far short of the truth. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:00, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

   That's fair. I can see how that wording would be off-putting. I use "assume" in the sense of a mathematical proof, where we assume that givens are true, regardless of whether they are true in the real world. So in my mind, the question was based in an ideal world. (Unfortunately, I have not yet been cured of that mathematical training.) From that perspective, my perspective, the question was very much like asking "given a polygon with 4 edges, is it a triangle?" In the real world, one of the edges might have a length so negligible as to make the shape a triangle, so the answer is only obvious in that idealized environment. I should have understood that my wikiphilosophy is not at issue, but my ability to use the tools without blowing things up is. --Danger (talk) 01:24, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

   Sorry, but my warning light is glowing stronger. Wikipedia is a complex and sometimes a bit self-contradictory web of compromises between various ideals, and the idea of someone is approaching it with the pure logic of abstract mathematics seems to me to be a recipe for big, big trouble if they have access to the buttons.

   We have an ideal of an encyclopedia which can anyone can edit, but hard knocks of reality have shown us that some people screw up it and need to be shown the door, that sometimes things get heated and we need to put an article in a locked case by fully protecting it, and that letting unregistered editors create new articles invited all sorts of high-profile trouble which could seriously damage (or even sink) the whole project. The ideal has had to be trimmed so that the ship can stay afloat, and while it would be logically neat to stick to a pure position, we've found out the hard way that in an imperfect world we can't quite mange 100% purity.

   Same with notability. You set out a purist abstract position, but the hard reality is that in some specialised cases the community has decided that it is best to postpone the purist notability test until some specialist researcher does the work a generalist can't do. In some cases we accept that not enough may ever known about a topic to fully pass our notability test, but that nonetheless it's better to complete the set (e.g. winners of a high level sporting competition or members of a parliament) by allowing a few articles where the best we can do is verify facts without establishing notability. You're probably right that this is logically flawed; but you missed the central point that these logical flaws exist in many places across wikipedia as we experiment with ways to reconcile ideals which sometimes conflict.

   I know you were thinking out loud, but this approach still worries me. Adminship is a sort of power, and after doing the job for more than 4 years, I'm pretty sure that it's like real-world power: something to be applied in a murky world of competing truths, with a clear understanding that most of the time we are faced with a search for the least-worst option rather than for the perfect one. In the real world, much well-intentioned havoc is wrought by people who think that their power can be exercised by the application of purist logic, and I have seen the same thing happen on wikipedia. With the question that sparked this off, you had the chance to take some time to answer, but you still well down the wrong path; if you're making a practical decision under pressure, I don't see that you'll be more likely to forsake the purist logic. Even in your reply to DGG's supplementary you say of the subject-notability guidelines that "they seemed superfluous from my standpoint". I'd be a lot less worried if you just said you'd screwed up that answer, but I just see more pure logic :(

   I have reviewed the above before posting, and I know it sounds harsh; sorry, but I have not yet found another way of putting it all. You're clearly committed to wikipedia, and civil, and seem to have a good track record as an editor, and I am quite sure that you act with very good intentions. But I think that as an admin, your over-reliance on dry logic will lead to trouble. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:56, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

   I guess all I can say is that I do pure math, where everything is abstraction, and I do organismal biology, where everything is an exception, although there are exceptions to that as well. Most of my work, in assessment and categorization, is the application of broad classification guidelines to articles which never fall nicely into those categories. When dealing with controversial topics about which I personally have strong opinions, I have been able to combine a devotion to neutrality with an understanding that perfect neutrality is impossible. I think that I have shown through that work that I am comfortable with ambiguity and am able to apply principles in the real world and I regret that I was unable to convey that. --Danger (talk) 03:52, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

   Danger, I believe someone can fail GNG and BASIC, even in the omniscient sense you mention to BrownHairedGirl, and still meet notability for a biography through exceptions such as holding a named chair at an accredited university according to WP:ACADEMIC criteria 5, for example.

   The fact that you were mistaken isn't a red flag for me; everyone makes mistakes. The fact that you try to defend your answer to BrownHairedGirl, rather than look up the special criteria for biographies and admit to a mistake, is a red flag. Too many administrators think they can do no wrong just because they are administrators. We need more administrators who will admit it when they are mistaken.

   Warren Dew (talk) 07:15, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

   I addressed the exceptions in WP:ACADEMIC in my response to DGG's additional question, at the end of my first paragraph. While I do not believe that such exceptions are acceptable in light of verifiability, that is a personal opinion. I have no interest in contravening the community consensus represented by the guideline. Consensus is more important than my personal opinions, even those about Wikipedia. [1] I'm happy to admit when I'm wrong, I'm just not convinced I'm wrong in this instance. --Danger (talk) 09:48, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

2. Oppose on the basic of apparently unsatisfactory answers to qys. 6, 7,9. I've tried to clarify this by some supplemental questions there. My feeling is the candidate means well, but does not yet understand some key policies that govern administrative action. DGG ( talk ) 20:14, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

   If I may ask, what part of my answer to question 9 was unsatisfactory? You did not ask a supplemental question for that question. --Danger (talk) 00:29, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Neutral You appear to get deletion right, you have been around for a while and you've edited steadily. I'm surprised that the majority of your edits are related to the article's talk page. Also, I'm curious as to what areas of the WP:BACKLOG you intend to take that requires administrative privileges. Otherwise, I see no reason to support. Minimac (talk) 17:22, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

   The odd distribution of my edits comes from assessment, help desk/editor assistance, and AfD categorization. Since I've assessed at least 6,000 articles, if not more, my edit distribution is quite skewed toward talk space. The administrative backlog is attractive to me because the numbers are generally small and because the tasks are new. (It feels more satisfying to count down from 60 than from 6000, at least for me.) But there are large number options in the admin backlog too. --Danger (talk) 17:50, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

2. Neutral Still looking. Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 19:33, 8 January 2011 (UTC)