Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Dev920

Dev920

Voice your opinion (39/19/6); Scheduled to end 07:10, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Dev920 (talk · contribs) – I was surprised to find that User:Dev920 is not yet an admin. She has brought 3 articles to featured status, has over 5000 edits, and is active in several WikiProjects. Dev920 is a model of civility and the spirit of collaboration. She is also the author of what may become one of the most famous miscellany for deletion nominations ever. If she has faults, I have not run into them. What I have seen is someone who can be trusted with the admin tools, and someone who has proven that she can successfully take on a difficult and controversial tasks. Samuel Wantman 07:10, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I'm deeply honoured to accept. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 08:30, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia in this capacity. Please take the time to answer a few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:

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

A: I want to go where admins are needed most – I have noticed there are plenty of admins blocking users, not so many clearing the CSD backlog on a regular basis. I would also like to help out at page semi/un/protection, having been grateful in the past to the admins who do this. I want my time as an administrator to focus more on the article side of things – protection, deletion, that sort of thing, stuff that often piles up very quickly.

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

A: I would have to say that my greatest achievement is my nomination of Esperanza for deletion. Not my best achievement, but definitely the one that has had the greatest impact. I am much more proud of my successful proposal to reduce the size of talk page templates, which has now been added to Wikipedia:Talk page templates and implemented across Wikipedia. You can see the discussion here. Personally, I am most pleased with my FAs Jake Gyllenhaal, and Latter Days, in particular Latter Days, which I wrote virtually single-handedly. I remain phenomenally proud of my ongoing conversion of List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people/A-E to a referenced informational table, complete with missing entries cross-referenced from List of LGBT composers, List of LGBT Jews, and List of bisexual people. Since I joined in November 2006 and began a “revival”, I’ve also developed much of the look and infrastructure for WikiProject LGBT studies, resulting in a tripling of the membership which I am very happy about.

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: Conflict is not something I enjoy, but I’m willing to stand up, be counted and enter the fray if the encyclopedia needs it. I try to keep my cool, and I think I mainly succeed, though, like most editors, I have fallen down on occasion. I am absolutely willing to admit when I am wrong, such as my argument over Shi’a View of Ali, which turned out to have been my fault for not fully understanding WP:MERGE. When a conflict has been resolved and/or dropped, I try to maintain a good editing relationship with the other editors concerned, such as my dispute at the proposed LGBT Barnstar, where Badbilltucker maintained I was attacking other editors when I wasn’t. We now get on quite well, and he even joined the LGBT WikiProject at my invitation (and I joined the WikiProject Council at his). So far, I’ve found actually reading the policies people quote at you usually crushes their own argument. If you stick to policy, however much they bang at the door of your talk page in frustration, you are always going to be in the right.

My userpage says "Cum recte vivis, ne cures verba malorum", which very loosely means, "If you're doing the right thing, don't worry about negative criticism." When Wikipedia or other editors have got me down, I try to remember that.

Optional questions from Larry laptop (talk · contribs)

4. Towards the end of last year, you set up Userproject:Conservatives (the project is gone but interested editors can seem some of the debate on the matter here) - a project that had the aim of producing NPOV but comprehensive articles, assist the Tories in winning elections. There was a rather heated discussion about it, you refered to other editors as "fools" at one stage - my question about the matter is as follows:

No-one but admins can actually see the page in question, so I’d like to address this before I answer the questions. I set up Userproject:Conservatives because I wanted to be able to admit my own bias. I simply wanted to be honest about my reasons for editing Tory articles. For that reason, it was not possible, or desirable, to start a WikiProject. I had no intention whatsoever of using it as some sort of campaign to introduce POV into Tory articles, and as any admin can confirm, I put caveats and disclaimers all over the project to that effect, lest any other editor come to the project with less pure motives than mine. Also, as I pointed out on the AN discussion, the purpose was to bring Conservative-related articles to FA status – a task that would have resulted in any POV, intentional or otherwise, immediately being stomped on. I also had a NPOV checking department to which any concerned Wikipedian could add themselves to ensure that we kept to this aim. I feel I simply couldn’t have put in any more safeguards than I did against POV warriors hijacking the project.

As I said on AN, anyone who wasn’t a Conservative could have joined – but I couldn’t see why they would have wanted to. Why would anyone join a project they aren’t interested in the aims of? This is also why I only targeted Conservatives for invitation to the project. I also said that anyone who wanted to was welcome to set up a Userproject:Socialism and we could have a friendly competition as I was not out on a mission to denigrate Labour-related articles, merely to improve Conservative ones.

The grounds for the speedy deletion given were that it broke WP:NPOV, but as I said, repeatedly, WP:NPOV only refers to the main namespace. You can be as POV as you want outside of it, as long as that does not affect your articles. When I pointed this out, someone claimed it broke WP:USER, "If the community lets you know that they would rather you deleted some or other content from your user space, you should probably do so, at least for now - such content is only permitted with the consent of the community." However, the community did not want the content because... they thought it violated WP:NPOV. It was a very frustrating vicious circle. The admins concerned simply didn’t assume good faith, I don't think. I suspect this was also due to language problems: when an American admin sees the word "Conservative", alarm bells start ringing and they start seeing visions of the Moral Majority storming the wiki. In Britain it’s merely the name of a slightly right wing rather limp wristed political party which has been out of power for ten years.

a) How would you handle the matter if you were an admin looking at the matter rather then setting up the project?

I wouldn’t have deleted it. If I had been an admin at the time, I would have seen a potentially worrying and divisive project run by an idealistic user, in good standing and with an FA article under her belt, who was adamant she was not breaking any policies, which indeed, on further inspection, she technically wasn’t. WP:AGF. So I would have warned the user about keeping within policy, watchlisted it, kept a beady eye on it, and MfDed it the second I saw any attempts to votestack or insert POV.

b) What are your thoughts about your conduct during the discussion on this userproject?

For the first and only time in my Wikipedian career, I insulted someone. I shouldn’t have done that. WP:CIVIL applies to all people, in all situations, forever more, and it was certainly wrong of me to call someone a fool, regardless of how I was feeling. I can only offer in my defence that it was three months ago, I’d never done it before, and I’ve never, ever done it again. In general however, I think I acquitted myself OK. I explained my reasoning behind my project, quoted policy, and until my final slipup, I was civil throughout.

5. You have mentioned that you had a featured article with the Jake Gyllenhaal article - at one stage, you set up this page. Discussion about it can be seen here (scroll down to dispute) - (I feel the sub-title "Because, seriously, they might *not* be gay..." was indicative of a bias - you disagreed). You also said in dicussion: I have now set up a website to pull those pictures I was referring to out of the locked gallery at IHJ. It is available here.[3] I propose that, as these are photos, the provenence is largely irrelevant and we apply WP:IGNORE regarding WP:RS. Dev920 19:38, 18 June 2006 (UTC).

Quick note, I disagreed because “No, that was humourous dig at the fact that I can't find anywhere that says they are friends without adding gay stuff. :D Dev920 20:25, 18 June 2006 (UTC)”. I then subsequently added a disclaimer to the front page; “It has been brought to my attention that, in our increasingly sexualised society, people may see the captions I have added to the photos as pushing some sort of an agenda. The captions exist to demonstrate that Jake and Austin's body language indicates that they are good friends, not just random people who have been photographed a few times together. It was NOT my intention to have anyone read anything more into it than that; this website exists to demonstrate Jake and Austin's friendship, and if you happen to see more to it than that on this site, you are mistaken, and my apologies if I have not demonstrated my point more clearly.”

a) What do you think about editors setting up their own sites so they can then use them as sources? --Larry laptop 09:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I set up that website because I couldn’t find anywhere that mentioned Austin Nichols and Jake Gyllenhaal in the same sentence without assuming they were lovers (which, incidentally, it has been confirmed that they aren’t). I knew from the photos I saw on IHJ that they were friends, but it was impossible to find a source that just said that. So I created one. I felt that in regards to WP:RS, what I had done was something of a grey area, as the photos themselves were reliable, but hosted on a locked website. WP:OR even says “However, research that consists of collecting and organizing information from existing primary and/or secondary sources is, of course, strongly encouraged.” Fortunately, we found and added a newspaper article just saying they were friends (and then subsequently added a paragraph acknowledging the speculation, but that’s another discussion) but ultimately, I don’t think we would have added it. Is it acceptable to host reliable sources on an unreliable source? WP:V says “For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources”, which implies that occasionally, they are. This question is also a major part of the Youtube debate. There’s a fine line there, but I think it is best to err on the side of exclusion, if only because it could undermine Wikipedia’s credibility. I think unless a very good case were made (such as the Youtube clip of Saddam’s execution), generally they should be taken down.

Questions from Aminz (talk · contribs)

6. Can you please explain this general comment of yours about Muslim editors on wikipedia: [1], I have wasted far too much effort on battling with the Muslim editors that I could have spent on something I enjoyed. I thought I might be able to encourage them to actually write at least one article worth reading, but they'd rather edit war, insult Jews, and get blocked than actually contribute anything useful, and I'm thoroughly sick of it.--Aminz 11:04, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Certainly, a number of people have been extremely concerned by this. I would like to assure everyone that I have absolutely nothing against Muslims or Islam (I grew up in Newham). When I use the term “Muslim editors”, I am referring to the group of Wikipedians who publically identify as Muslim, mostly edit Islamic articles and were all members of the Muslim Guild.

When I first joined Wikipedia, I was very concerned to discover that most Islamic articles were of poor quality, and as we do here, I tried to fix them. Up until the 15th December, I was an active contributor to Islam, as I felt that it was a very poor quality article and an article on such a major religion really ought to be FA. The article, while I was editing it, went from this to this. All the while, however, I had to have mile long discussions with Muslim Guild editors in order to get anywhere, as you can read on the talk page. Everything that is even mildly critical of Islam was edit warred and endlessly argued over – the criticism section for example, present on most religion’s articles, was debated because there isn’t an Israeli terrorism section on Judaism. Every edit took hours and hours of my time, patiently trying to thrash it out on the talk page, only to be reverted by someone else. Eventually, on the 15th of December, after we had failed our attempt at GA, someone tried to replace “Some modern Western historians have concluded that Muhammad was sincere in his claim of receiving revelation, "for this alone makes credible the development of a great religion." These historians generally decline to address the further question of whether the messages Muhammad reported being revealed to him were from "his unconscious, the collective unconscious functioning in him, or from some divine source", but they acknowledge that the material came from "beyond his conscious mind" ”, that I removed, and I realised that there was no way I could ever improve this article to the level I could be proud of. Like I said on a previous question, I do not enjoy conflict, and this endless wrangling was getting neither me nor Islam anywhere, but simply leaving me stressed. I left, itsmejudith tried to persuade me to come back, and the quoted comment was my reply. I have never edited an Islamic article since. I note that someone below has said that I am too confrontational, but I think by simply leaving Islam articles, I have demonstrated I'm not prepared to argue needlessly.

I have no idea whether the editors to Islamic articles are representative of every Muslim editor on Wikipedia, though I doubt it. But during my involvement with the Muslim Guild, I was shocked by the level of edit warring going on across Islamic articles. Additionally, even just by reading talk:Islam and my talk archives it is obvious that most, if not all the Muslim Guild editors are wildly anti-semitic, with several reprimanded and/or blocked for this, and Bhaisaab has been permanently banned. I tried to stay out of it and just improve articles for the better, but they can’t seem to collaborate to improve an article, even one that is very important to Islam. There are no GA or FA articles that were written by members of the now defunct Muslim Guild. Take a look at any Islam-related article and they are poorly written (though this cannot be helped if English is a second language), with no references, and many consist of extensive Qu’ranic quotes and little else. I do not understand why this is, as many of the editors concerned have been on Wikipedia for months, but I simply didn’t want to work in such an environment, and so I moved elsewhere. My comment to itsmejudith was an explanation why. It is a pity, because I for one would deeply appreciate an NPOV resource on Islam, and I’m sure many others would too, which was how I fell into editing it in the first place.

I'm sensing that some people are concerned that I hate Muslims or Islam, and would like to say that this is categorically not true. Many of my friends are Muslims (and even on Wikipedia I like Alm very much on a personal level), I was brought up in an area where most people are Muslim, and I would not have worked so hard to improve Islamic articles had I detested what I was editing. I apologise deeply and sincerely to anyone who thinks this of me based on my edits here, because this is truly not the case.

Question from TeckWiz (talk · contribs)

7. Though I voted delete because of how the organization was at the time, why did you start the MFD that lead to the the deletion of Esperanza? Why not rebuild into something promoting community and editing? In the MFD, you and everyone else said that it's not promoting editing at all. However, you're a member of the Kindness Campaign, which doesn't promote editing either. Why not delete that also? And if your reason is that it helps to raise awareness of the positive benefits that a little kindness and recognition can bring (the Kindness Campaign's second goal), that's the same thing Esperanza was doing. --TeckWiz^Talk Contribs_@ 21:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I respectfully object to that question, TeckWiz. No one user is responsible for the deletion of Esperanza, it was a community decision, and I would say to blame just one user for the deletion of Esperanza is a little unfair. --Kind Regards - Heligoland 21:58, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I have changed it to be a little less blameful (though that's not a word.) --TeckWiz^Talk Contribs_@ 22:20, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I did not MfD Esperanza because it didn’t promote editing, those were other people’s arguments. I have no real issue with people starting organizations that have little to do with editing, as long as they are not harmful to Wikipedia. The reasons I gave in my nomination are why I MfDed Esperanza, namely that Esperanza had built itself up to the point that members considered themselvess better than normal Wikipedians, that it had developed an entire community isolated and insulated from the rest of the Wikipedian community, that many Esperanzans themselves were unable to see the problems Esperanza had and those that did did not make efforts to fix them, that a bureaucracy was set up that went against the spirit of Wikipedia, and that ultimately, you cannot promote hope through a monolithic organization. I joined the Kindness Campaign because I liked the fact that it consists mainly of a membership list and some suggestions on how to be kind. Organisations like Esperanza and Concordia try to draw members in, away from the Wikipedia: KCers take their mission out into the community, where we normally work and interact with others.

How can you promote an adjective, an intangible concept, through programs, a seven member council and green e’s? You can only be kind, or inspire others, through your actions – a personal thank you on a talkpage, a barn star for a Wikipedian you really value, helpful answers to confused newbies. I know many people below seem to think otherwise, but I try to be kind to others wherever possible, and I think looking through all my contributions, not just a few, would bear this out. At Esperanza’s heart was a good idea, but it went about it in a misguided and ultimately harmful manner that led to the community being more demoralised. There were attempts to bring it back to an organisation that promoted community, but it fizzled out. That’s why there was a consensus to deactivate.

Thanks for the good answer to my question. --TeckWiz^Talk Contribs_@ 01:02, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

General comments

• See Dev920's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool. For the edit count, see the talk page.

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Discussion

Support

1. Support as nominator. -- Samuel Wantman 08:54, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
2. Yes! Yes! Yes! Edit-conflict-with-nominator support. Unreservedly, certainly trustworthy. She is the very model of a modern Wikipedian. Just to elaborate - fantastic FAs, calm, level-headed, good XfD participation, and the extraordinary quality of the Esperanza MfD nomination should tell you all you need to know; this candidate can really think as well. Concerns were expressed about when the MfD actually took place - just after Christmas - and it is perhaps a sign of Dev's absolute suitability for adminship that she had actually planned to wait until the New Year: the eventual timing was my fault. If ever an RfA candidate approached maximal excellence in every possible sense of the word, this is it. Moreschi ^Deletion! 08:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
3. Support - Dev920 is an enthusiastic, active contributer who has a very clear understanding of what Wikipedia is and is not. She is active in most important areas of the project, and has changed Wikipedia for the better. Her actions regarding Esperanza were bold, and she kept her cool during the entire process. She has also completely revitalized the WikiProject LGBT studies, and her attention to the project is the principal reason for the exponential increase in members over the last few months. I have complete confidence that she would make an excellent admin. My only concern (with all admins, not just Dev) is that she not stop article creating and editing, due to being burdened with admin tasks. I notice often that admins seem to spend most of their time on bureaucratic functions, and forget the reason they joined Wikipedia in the first place. Jeffpw 09:02, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
4. Support I don't think we've ever directly interacted, but I've managed to stumble across her great work all over Wikipedia. Besides, she made an excellent choice in the color of her userpage. —Mira 09:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
5. Support but don't forget to keep making excellent contributions to WikiProject LGBT studies while you wield the mop...! The Rambling Man 11:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
6. Support I trust this user with the mop. ← ANAS ^Talk? 13:07, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
7. Support Great editor. I'd trust her with the mop. Gzkn 13:26, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
8. Support per nom. Contributions look good.--Eva ^bd 14:28, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
9. Support: Adminship isn't a big deal, and there's an urgent need for more admins, third lowest ratio of admins to editors on any wikipedia, apparently. --Kind Regards - Heligoland 14:37, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
10. Support per nom. yandman 15:07, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
11. Support. AFter reading this candidate's statement in the Esperanza MfD, I have no doubts about their good judgment. RyanGerbil10(Упражнение В!) 15:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
12. Support, never seen anything other than good stuff from Dev. Proto::► 14:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC) (reinserted this support vote--it was removed during another user's oppose vote) Jeffpw 15:30, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
13. Strong support - kind, thoughtful and willing to stand up against problem users. Addhoc 15:39, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

    Support A tireless contributor and very helpful to newcomers Hassan2 15:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC) _{something odd here - the user page does not match with the user contribution and the account was created this afternoon. --Larry laptop 15:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC)}

    _{After he tried ripping off my userpage, he ripped off Larry's userpage. I warned him against doing it again, he said "oh noes!", I blocked him. DS 16:07, 19 January 2007 (UTC)}

14. Support per Proto - whenever I see her, she's doing something useful and intelligent. Trustworthy and capable of making very well-reasoned arguments. Trebor 16:56, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
15. Support no problems here. Arjun 17:12, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
16. Support I have seen user maintain admirable COOL when less mature and/or responsible editors would have failed to. Mark83 18:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
17. Support. Michael 18:47, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
18. No concerns. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:24, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
19. Weak Support. Most of the diffs pointed out below don't concern me too much, and those that might be of some concern aren't enough to dissuade me from supporting the candidate. I trust the nominee will take those comments to heart when handed the tools and will make a fine admin. Agent 86 19:27, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
20. Support I'm happy with the answers to the questions and I,on balance (and thinking quite deeply about my frankly too high standards for what an admin should be), think that Dev920 will make an excellent admin. Just make sure you keep up your excellent editing work. --Larry laptop 20:29, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
21. Support Your contribs. are great as are your answers to the questions. I see no reason to oppose. Ganfon 20:43, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
22. Support. SynergeticMaggot 21:21, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
23. Support --Duke of Duchess Street 22:16, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
24. Support; I have disagreed with a few things you have done in the past, especially the Whedonette (talk · contribs) harassing incident, but that was a little while ago now and I see no reason to oppose. Yuser31415 22:26, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
25. Support No-brainer. | Mr. Darcy talk 22:32, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
26. Support Excellent cantidate, deserves tools. Alex43223 ^{Talk | Contribs | E-mail | C} 23:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
27. Support. Unconvincing opposes, clearly a trustworthy user. -- Steel 01:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
28. Support - I believe the user will use the tools appropriately and has done an excellent job of intraspection regarding her past mistakes and disagreements with other users. We need more admins with the tools for deletion who will use the tools safely and I belive Dev920 will do a fine job. --Matthew 01:44, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
29. Support -Even though I am also running for administrator, I think Dev920 will make one of the best admins ever. Government07 03:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
30. Support It's all good. Tohru Honda13^{Talk•Sign here} 06:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
31. Support.- You. Seem. Like. You'll. Be. A. Good. Admin.--SUIT⁴² 09:59, 20 January 2007 (UTC).
32. Support:I have experiences that sometimes she looses good faith very quickly and assume many things which are not at all true (e.g. [2]). There are few other things that bother me about her for examples she gets angry sometimes. However, we have to look good qualities and see if good qualities are more dominated than bad qualities. It is because we all are not perfect. I think overall she act very neutral and tried to work for good reasons in wikipedia. I really appreciate her effort to nominate and work very sincerely and in neutral way for GA status of Islam article. For me being neutral matter a lot. Hence I must support her. Go sister go... --- ALM 12:29, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
33. Support the cabal told me to. Computerjoe's talk 12:32, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
34. Support. I note the valid concerns raised by some of the opposers. But I'm sure if you trawl hard enough through any contributor's editor history you can find an example of one or two occasions where they have expressed themselves unwisely. I am not persuaded that these difs below represent any general pattern of invicility on Dev's part. I have interacted a lot with this user on Wikipedia and find her experienced, knowledgeable and dedicated. In short, she has my trust and I believe she would use the tools well. WJBscribe ^{-WJB talk-} 14:11, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
35. Terence Ong 15:28, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
36. Support: An editor who wades into controversial subjects can occasionally get uncivil, and certainly will get discouraged at least once or twice. We need more admins who have experienced the worst of Wikipedia, and who have remained civil and constructive through the vast majority of that experience. The only "perfect" admin candidates ("perfect" in the sense of not being seen by anyone as being on the "wrong" side of a debate) are probably those who have been fortunate enough to avoid edit wars entirely. But what may be good personal fortune doesn't prepare an editor to help step in, as an admin, to sort out gnarly fights with plenty of incivility and valid accusations, often from both sides, not to mention trolls and sock puppets and vandals. -- John Broughton | ^(♫♫) 15:58, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
37. Support. Obviously a very good editor. -- Karl Meier 20:53, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
38. Weak Support. The Muslims comment is certainly a cause for concern, but I don't think it's enough to stand in the way of her adminship. She's obviously a very good editor. I think she'd make a good admin. alphachimp 23:04, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
39. Support. I'm concerned about the comments on Talk:Islam and the Esperanza MfD, but one of the things we often forget is that RFA is a measure of how well the user would wield the tools, not a civility check. She'd use the tools well, but the comments concern me. bibliomaniac15 00:06, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose I can not condone the random insulting of people over one article.I regretfully oppose. I have checked out this users contributions to other peoples talk pages. Apparantly this user believes that some articles are exclusive clubs only to be edited by certain types of people. I feel that this attitude goes against the spirit of Wikipedia.To see those comments go to this page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:NkrasCylonhunter 14:46, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

   I don't really see that in the link you have provided - all that I can see is Dev explaining that a certain wikiproject is going to be interested in a certain type of project. --Larry laptop 14:51, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

   This quote really disturbed me."Any article which involves LGBT to a reasonable extent is covered by us. That isn't having it both ways, that's doing our job." Dev92014:58, 19 January 2007 (UTC)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Cylonhunter (talk • contribs)

   I don't see anything disturbing in that interaction. A user was confused about the Wikiproject LGBT tagging an article, Dev and another user explained the rationale, and the user's concern was assuaged. Since communication is the key to Wikipedia, I think the exchange was perfectly normal and innocuous. And by the way, Cylonhunter, please do not remove other editor's votes of support, as you did with Proto's vote. Here is the diff. Jeffpw 15:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

   http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Itsmejudith&diff=prev&oldid=94576820 this bothers me as well. This editor is to prone to frustration and anger to be an admin. I am sorry for deleting votes I did not intend to do this. Cylonhunter

   Welcome to Wikipedia, on this your 9th day here. Regarding the comment of Dev920 that shows in the diff you provided, do you have any basis to believe that it is untrue? -- John Broughton | ^(♫♫) 03:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

   I do not know if what this user said is true or untrue.However I did interpret it to be an unfair attack on the whole muslim editing community.Besides does the amount of time I have spent editing make my opinion and ability to dig up history any less valid.User talk: Cylonhunter

2. Sadly and reluctantly, Oppose Comments like this are not helpful to resolving disputes. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:05, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

   The tone was a bit harsh, but then again the editor in question was pushing the limits of AGF, IMHO. yandman 15:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

3. Weak oppose changed to Strong Oppose, this user considers the Dummy's Guide to Islam as a reliable source. Also, because of [3] comment on Muslim editors. I have asked question number 6 about this comment. --Aminz 23:50, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

   Comment - The author of "Islam for Dummies", Malcolm Clark is a professor in the Department of Religion at Butler University. While the title may not appeal to Aminz, there is nothing wrong with the book as a reference source. Jeffpw 11:32, 20 January 2007 (UTC}

4. Oppose per all above. Also, your philosophy is worrying; it seems to imply that if you're right, you don't have to care about negative criticism. The problem, of course, being that maybe you aren't right. -Amarkmoo! 02:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
5. Model of civility, eh? Member of the Kindness campaign, as listed on her userpage – [4]. That's ironic, because I don't find you to be a least bit civil. — Nearly Headless Nick 11:45, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

   I'll simply quote the diffs, so that people can have a good look. – [5], [6].

   Thanks, but I'm done. I have wasted far too much effort on battling with the Muslim editors that I could have spent on something I enjoyed. I thought I might be able to encourage them to actually write at least one article worth reading, but they'd rather edit war, insult Jews, and get blocked than actually contribute anything useful, and I'm thoroughly sick of it. There's going to come a point when most areas of the Wiki will be at least GA standard, but it'll never happen with a single Islamic article. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 21:02, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

   "How would a former member of Esperanza respond? By saying, "I think this is not a great idea, given the fact that it failed with Esperanza."" I would like to think that anyone who is faced with that kind of idiocy would reply "No, because that's a fucking stupid idea and totally contravenes every possible Wikipedian principle and policy you can imagine." Do you seriously believe the only thing wrong with that scenario is that Esperanza tried it and got rejected? Is that your only possible thought? Come on. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:57, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

6. Oppose This user is one of the reasons why I have lost all hope in Wikipedia and its community, and have been editing only sporadically recently. Dev920 has shown a willingness to engage in people politics and disrupt the community. Based on the diffs provided by others, particularly this comment in a conversation I was involved in, she seems to have a pattern of incivility. Ironically, she has a Kindness Campaign userbox on her userpage. If this RFA passes, the Internet will suck (and Hildanknight will blow a gasket). --J.L.W.S. The Special One 12:03, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
7. Oppose anti-muslim statements. -Lapinmies 13:28, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

   I do not think her anti-Muslims because her edits in Islam article were neutral. Sometime she loose patience and gives bit harse comments but still she has mostly good qualities. --- ALM 13:46, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

8. Oppose. This a tough oppose, because I tend to agree with most of Dev's actions, but not the manner or tone in which she carries them out. From reviewing the last month or so of contributions, it seems that she adds fuel to fires on a fair number of occasions, likely unintentionally. Unfortunately, I can not support at this time. SuperMachine 14:10, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
9. Oppose. Sorry, but I can't overlook the substantial civility issues pointed out above. Otherwise, you appear to be a splendid contributor, so I guess we'll see you again around here, after some time. Sandstein 16:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
10. Oppose. Seems like a good editor, but to be an admin you should be less confrontational when dealing with contentious issues, even if the other party is being a jerk. Coemgenus 16:49, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
11. Oppose I'm not as critical of the comments in evidence as some of the opposers; but they do contain unfortunate overgeneralizations (no Islamic article will ever reach GA standard?), and a level of vocalized frustration that I see more often in POV warriors than in admin candidates. The candidate should try RfA again after keeping her cool for six months. Xoloz 18:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

    I'm sorry you feel I edit like a POV warrior. I hope that we run into each other on other articles one day and I can prove otherwise to you. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 18:35, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

12. Oppose. Multiple civility issues (as seen above). I can't overlook people who leave such offensive and uncivil comments on talk pages. Nishkid64 18:28, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
13. oppose. "even just by reading talk:Islam and my talk archives it is obvious that most, if not all the Muslim Guild editors are wildly anti-semitic"? Yeah, thanks... --Striver - talk 20:38, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

    Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive158#IDF_barnstar.3F.21 Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:11, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

14. Oppose per Nishkid. You seem like a great editor, and your answers were amazing, but civility is something that you don't always obey. I remember you made an uncivil comment on the Esperanza talk page, and I actually thought you were an Esperanza member. I was surprised that Esperanza wasn't brought up in any of the questions. --TeckWiz^Talk Contribs_@ 21:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
15. Oppose Sorry, the candidate seems to have some outstanding qualities, but the evidence of over-the-top hot-headed comments is worrying. Occasional losing-one's-temper is ok, but the kind of comments shown above are a bit excessive Bwithh 21:58, 20 January 2007 (UTC) I'm opposing for reasons below.

    The diffs above are almost all two comments I have made out of over a thousand. A lot of my opposers I think are not seeing the whole picture. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:11, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

    I was actually just thinking about this (before I saw your comment above) and looking through your contributions history. I think now that basically it looks like only a few isolated incidents and I was thinking of changing my vote to neutral. On the other hand, I think your responses above to the concerns about the Muslim issue are bit injudicious - are most ("if not all") of the 70+ former Muslim Guild editors[7] really "wildly anti-semitic" ? this is a very strong statement. is every Islam article that bad? are you saying Striver is anti-semitic or what do you mean by that pasting that discussion link? In addition, I then saw your User:Dev920/Wikiphilosophy page which I feel shows an inadequate feel for Wikipedia content policy (WP:NOT). So, these two concerns moved me back from neutral to oppose. Bwithh 22:41, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

    I do not believe I have had personal interaction with all 73 members of the Muslim Guild, so I accept that I may be over-generalising. The users I have had interactions with, however, have repeatedly displayed anti-semitic sentiments on talkpages, in edit summaries, and even on my talkpage. Again, I cannot speak for every Islamic article, but I do not recall coming across an well-written one that has not had substantial help from non-Guild members - I use Wikipedia as a research tool but I have been unable to use it for my Islamic assignments because of this. I am happy to retract if this is not the case (and please point them out because I need to read them!). I do believe Striver is anti-semitic, and my purpose in posting the link was to both partly demonstrate this and to show that other editors also believe him to be anti-semitic. I don't want to say any more about that because I do not want to get into a discussion about Striver on this RfA. I tried to leave the entire Muslim Guild behind when I left off editing Islamic articles.

    I do not see any contradiction between my Wikiphilosophy and WP:NOT, so I would be grateful if you could explain what you meant by this. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 23:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

16. Strong Oppose This person ruined the chances of wikipedia become a community. Also she has been incivil a few times to people and I can not support a person like that. Sorry. --James, La gloria è a dio 00:33, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
17. Strong Oppose Incivility of the highest form. Prejudice against relgious groups shall not be tolerated here on Wikipedia. S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 01:14, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

    But I don't have any prejudices aginst religious groups... Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 01:16, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

    Unfortunately for you, many people aren't going to believe your statement of that over repeated incivil remarks. Prejudice may be the wrong word, but it's really a technicality. -Amark moo! 01:21, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

    Dev, you grouped "Muslim editors" under one umbrella with that comment about how all they do is "insult Jews". That kind of generalization is known commonly as prejudice. S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 01:40, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

    Yes, I did make something of a sweeping generalisation there. I've tried to correct that by saying in my answer to Q5: "When I use the term “Muslim editors”, I am referring to the group of Wikipedians who publically identify as Muslim, mostly edit Islamic articles and were all members of the Muslim Guild." Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 01:46, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

    Even with your narrowed down criteria (Muslims who identify themselves as Muslim, edit articles about their religion, and are members of a group held together by their religion), all it takes is 1 Muslim in that group who does not fit the model you so recklessly described in order to prove your statement false. That's the problem with generalizations and stereotypes. Even if that case was a mere "slip of the tounge" (so to speak), there seems to be some deep seated sentiments that are brought to light with that comment. S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 01:52, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

    Well, I clearly can't persuade you otherwise. All I can say if that if I was some sort of Muslim hater, I wouldn't have spent about fifty hours trying to improve Islam. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 01:56, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

    Just because you dump lots of time into an article about a subject doesn't mean you can't hate it. For example, I am sure many users who have dumped hours into editing articles about Hitler and Stalin personally dislike the men. S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 02:00, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

18. Oppose Unsatisfactory civility issues is a major concern here. However, her contributions to this project is commendable as well. But an admin must show civility at all times. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 01:55, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
19. Oppose per striver, sharkface, and nearly headless nick. Peace. --Nielswik_(talk) 03:35, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Neutral

# Neutral I am neutral for the moment pending the answers to my questions (I should point out that I indicated to Dev that I would be asking those questions). I think Dev is a excellent editor and wikipedian - however some of her interactions with fellow editors makes me wonder if administration is the right role for her. I should also point out that more generally I concerned by recent events that RFA is not a particular rigorous process and really needs to be more selective about who it hands a broom out to (that's not a slight on Dev920 but the process, I plan to partipating in RFA a lot more, Dev is just the first person I plan to turn the rubber hose on) --Larry laptop 10:01, 19 January 2007 (UTC)--Larry laptop 10:01, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

1. Neutral for now. I have some concerns and need to take a closer look before I could support. Carcharoth 11:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
2. Neutral leaning weak oppose - lots of good work done by editor (especially with the very well-constructed MFD nomination of Esperanza) ... but there are a few things that keep me from supporting. (1) The conservative project thing - it wouldn't bother me at all if you said, "I realize now that politically biased wikiprojects are wrong" or words to that effect - everyone makes mistakes, but you seem to be defending it in your comments above. (2) !voting on a contentious AFD with no reason given [8] (3) WP:V and WP:NPOV are fundamental policies, so I would certainly consider being unsourced a reason to delete if nobody is willing/able to source it [9] (4) In your two recent edits to Jake Gyllenhaal, you were probably correct, but your edit summaries seem to show a misapplication of WP:IAR and of WP:V. (5) Referring to another editor [10] as a weirdo - it was User:62.136.153.73's only edit so I'm not sure how that makes him/her a weirdo. Edits like these are obviously, 100%, the exception rather than the rule for someone whom I consider to be a valued editor. Consider this, if anything, just some suggestions on areas to improve. --BigDT 16:05, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

   Regarding (3), here's her comment on the AfD: Being unsourced is not a valid reason to delete per WP:DELETE. And that is absolutely correct - being unsourced is not a reason to delete. Being incapable of being unsourced is different matter entirely. At most she was unclear (and I wouldn't agree with that characterization, personally). -- John Broughton | ^(♫♫) 16:56, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

   Ok, let me clarify some of those points:

   (1) I don't accept that Userproject:Conservatives was wrong. It was probably a bit dumb, and I wouldn't do it now because it would be too much hassle and I've got a hell of a lot more to do :); but the idea itself was within policy, though not to be encouraged. I've already explained everything else above, so I'll stop now.

   (2) I wanted to vote on it but couldn't think of anything else to say that hadn't already been said, so I voted without an explanation. Obviously, as AfD is not a vote, it was fairly meaningless, but I just had a crisis of imagination. I haven't done it since.

   (3) John Broughton has got there before me because I've spent so long researching this reply, and he said what I was going to say. The deletion policy says only if an article is totally unverifiable can it be deleted entirely. SkierRMH said that it was a term that was widely used in book circles and there were plenty of references on it, so it apparently was verifiable, and I voted accordingly. I apologise if I was unclear.

   (4) Randomly removing a name but leaving the brackets is a bit weird, but you're right, I probably shouldn't have called him a weirdo. Thank you for calling me on it and I shall avoid doing so again.

   (5) This issue is one that I was going to take to to AN to get some other opinions on this, but I never got round to it. Basically, WP:V says the burden is on the editor to prove an event happened. At the time, Jake singing a show tune in drag had only happened twelve hours previously, and it hadn't hit the newspapers (though it now has: [11]). One of the things I love about Wikipedia is our ability to cover breaking news. I added the info, and Larry reverted, saying I needed a source, but the only thing I could find was a gossip columnist linking to the Youtube video. So I put that up. Obviously, it's a bad source, but you can't really lie with a video, so I felt that to apply WP:IAR here was acceptable, as I could not prove the sentence any other way and to link to the video itself would be a copyright infringement. But it's a bit of a grey area for me and I will certainly take the time to think more on how the policies fit together. Thank you for the criticism. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 17:24, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

   Ok ... that's all reasonable, thank you for your reply. As I said, you are obviously a great editor and if anything, consider my comments just general suggestions. --BigDT 17:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

3. Neutral. I have to admit, this edit seems to have me a little concerned. I went wading through her contribution log and wasn't able to find anything else that would incline me to opposition. --Brad Beattie (talk) 18:12, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
4. Neutral: Great edits and great answers, but the opposition convinced me to avoid supporting you.--Wizardman 19:46, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
5. Neutral You are an amazing editor and you are a person who does much needed things to help Wikipedia. (i.e. suggest deletion of Esperanza, fix talk pages.) In addition, I believe you are interested in helping to develop Wikipedia. However, you are just too ideological. Your fighting with the Islamic Guild is questionable in its justification. The name calling and fiery tirades also are not good qualities in an administrator who may need to act as a mediator and solve disputes so commonly. I initially supported you, but the opposing arguments were strong and had merit. Even if you don't get the administration position, continue editing! You are an important person in Wikipedia. Overall, I can't decide. May the correct side win. Captain panda Mussolini ha sempre tarche Quis ut Dues 01:16, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
6. Neutral, leaning towards oppose due to incivility. Insanephantom (my Editor Review) 02:04, 21 January 2007 (UTC)