Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/TomasBat

TomasBat

Voice your opinion (10/19/5); Scheduled to end 22:07, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

TomasBat (talk · contribs) - It is my great pleasure to nominate TomasBat for adminship. I first met him on WikiProject Age of Empires, where he helped me greatly while I was still new and noobish. He also does great work on many other WikiProjects, including Video Games, Welcoming Committee, and Military History (just to pick three random userboxes from his userpage). Apart from the great article work, Tomas is also a stringent vandal whacker, and an all round nice guy. I think he'd do great work with the tools! G1ggy! _{Review me!} 22:07, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept. ♠Tom@sBat 21:41, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

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

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

A: Well, I would like to lend a helping hand at WP:AIV and WP:RFPP, which would get me more engaged in the fight against vandalism, as well as lending a helping hand in clearing the ever-growing backlogs, such as those found at Candidates for speedy deletion, Copyright violations for speedy deletion, Wikipedia protected edit requests etc. Also, another important point in which I would like to focus as an administrator would be that of accepting and declining requests at Requests for unblock; I would like to deal especially with users who have harmed the encyclopedia through vandalism, assuming bad faith, that claim to assume good faith now and wish to be given a second chance, so that they can regain their editing privileges and make constructive edits in the future. Another point with which I would like to specefically deal with these reqeusts for unblock would be that of wikipedians who have been blocked for being to social and making no/extremely few contributions to the encyclopedia, so that they can regain their editing rights if they wish to make constructive edits to areas of Wikipedia apart from userspace; a reason for which I would like to specially participate in this task is that of the fact that I have seen sometimes social users being blocked indefinitely without any kind of previous warning, making it all a bit unfair, since even vandals are warned before being blocked... Well, that would mainly be in what I would like to serve Wikipedia as an administrator, along with occasional recent changes patrolling, which could become a bit easier with the special rollback function.

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

A: Well, I feel I contributed well to a specefic article, Age of Empires III, which is now a good article and is close to becoming a featured article. Also, I would say that the eleven articles I started also aren´t bad contributions, even though most of them are stubs.

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: Hmmmm... Well, we could say that the nearest thing to an actual conflict would be that currently found at an archive at requested templates; I had proposed a template, and it was followed by an eventually series of discussion, but it all wasn´t heated up and the entire thing didn´t seem to cause any stress... (you may find the discussion here). And going into the future, I plan to keep cool on any future conflicts; maby on the link you will find that I didn´t keep that cool, but I learned from that and I plan to be more relaxed when "the editing gets hot".

Optional question from Anonymous Dissident

4. You seem to indicate by your answers that you intend to work a fair bit on dealing with vandals. Could you run us through the process of how to appropriately deal with a vandal?

A: Well, I´ll split this into several steps:

1. When you enounter the vandalistic edit for the first time, you should first of all revert it immediately.
2. Once the edit has been reverted, you should follow it up with a warning, having in mind something like this; or in other words, you must evaluate how serious the vandalistic edit was. Usually, if the vandalism consists of removal of content or something of the sort, then we assume, at first, that it consists of a test edit, rather than direct vandalism, and if the removal of content continues, then we start giving more serious warnings. And if the edit consists of an addition of nonsense, then we start light, but not as light as when its page blanking, but we get more serios with the warning templates whilst vandalism continues. So, in resume, we should select the apropiate template for each case of vandalism, and go up the scale as vandalism persists.
3. If the user continues and continues vandalizing, then we should eventually come to a final warning. Also, it may occur that a certain vandalistic edit may consist of very serios vandalism, where the user is assuming total bad faith; in these type of cases, an only warning should be given; but this isn´t that much of an issue since it isn´t so common, due to the fact tha many users vandalize for fun.
4. If the user exceeds the final warning (he vandalizes after the last, or the only, warning), we should immediately report him (or block him directly, if we are in the admistrative position).
5. If the vandal is requesting an unblock (once again assuming we are taking an administrative role), then we should take a bit of time to check it up; but, usually, these requests are declined, since it is very hard for a vandal to prove that he won´t abuse of his editing privileges yet again. Fortunately, a solution for a case in which a blocked user is requesting unblock is available: Template:2nd chance; this way, the user can prove that he/she is willing to contribute in a constructive way in the future. So, we should offer this opportunity to a vandal insisting to be unblocked and then check how it goes, and finally decide whether to unblock or not.

Optional questions from Od Mishehu

5: How do you decide how long the block should be?

A: You decide on how long a block should be by evaluating several factors:

First of all, we should see if the user to be blocked is an IP adress or a registered user; this is important in further evaluation because IP adresses are usually shared by multiple users, meaning that a certain person could engage on the encyclopedia in a harmfull way but other people who are to use that IP address would not consider such actions, but would end up blocked all the same. So, if the vandal is an IP, then we should usually block him for a few time, such as 3 hours or 24 hours, especially if it comes to a registered computer of a certain organization such as a school, a university, an office, etc. where the IP is even more likely to be shared by people other than the vandal. Of course, if vandalism from the IP persists after the not-so-long block, then we should once again block the address, not for an indefinite peroid of time yet but now for a bit more than the previous block, for instance 48 hours the second time, a week the third, 2 weeks the forth, a month the fifth, and so on. Eventully, due to the shifting of IPs and their users, we should also get going down the scale, going back to a week, then going back up again to a month, etc. Not going to an indefinite block. until it is evident that the person(s) under the IP is/are definitely into vandalism (this such "discovery" may occur before than the fifth block, I used as an example); that is when we should block the IP indefinitely. Now, as for users who have registered themselves an account, then we should, first of all, have in mind that the block will not affect anybody else (except in case of an autoblock), meaning that blocks should be a bit longer in such cases. Then, it´s all pretty much the same, except that the indefinite block should certainly come in a lot earlier if the behavior is clearly disruptive.

To put it in another way, we could say that we go "narrowing" the case until we get to the most specefic categorization as possible, and then we consider the severity of the disruptive edits. This such categorization would be something like this:

• Vandal who has disrupted the Wikipedia after last warning with harmful edits (block)
  • IP adress with no previous blocks (block between 3 and 24 hours)
    • IP adress with a previos block (block longer than 24 hours, say 48 hours or a week)
      • IP adress with 2 previos blocks (block longer than the previos block, say 2 weeks or a month)
        • IP adress with 3 previos blocks (block longer than the previos block, say a a month and a half, 4 months, an year, even though it isn´t very common or indefinite)
        • IP adress with 4 previous blocks (block of a month of less, then all blocks to this IP should be between a month and a week, but we may venture into more than a month eventually)
  • Registered user with no previos blocks (block of at least 24 hours, considering how severe the edits were; the block may be indefinite)
    • Registered user with previos blocks (block certianly longer than the previos, may be indefinite)

Also, other factors which should be taken into consideration in general would be...

• If the vandal has had a previos history of disruption to Wikipedia
• If the vandal has not vandalized Wikipedia for a long time since his/her last block expired or since final warning
• If the vandal has had a previos history of contructive edits to Wikipedia

Also, another thing which I would like to talk a about a bit would that of duration of blocks on social wikipedians who make no/extremely few contributions to the encyclopedia. Well, before making any kind of block, we should first check that the user has been warned several times in the past. If he/she has not beem warned, then we should, of course, warn them ourselfs. Now, if the user has been already warned several times, then we should consider a 24 hour block to serve as something like a final warning, or a block of similiar duration, before going directly to an indefinite block. And well, if the user continues not con contributing and still only socializing, then we are left to no choice but to block him/her infefinitely.

6: How do you decide whether or not to semi-protect a page per WP:RFPP?

A: Well, if it is an article, then we take into consideration the following factors:

• If the article has been disrupted several times before.
  • If the disrupotion is intense.
  • If the disruption is constant, meaning that it continually occurs
• If the article is a biography
  • If the biography is constantly "de-neutralized"

And if a user is requesting semi-protection of his/her userpage, then we should first check whether the page has been vandalized before; if it has been subject to heavy and/or constant vandalism, then we should appeal the block; but if their has been no vandalism at all, then we should intend to convince the user that their isn´t much need for such action.

Also, article talk pages could be semi-protected, but this usually should not be done becuase it totally prevents IP addresses from participating on discussion. For instance, Talk:The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may be considered for semi-protection since it is sometimes disrupted due to its articles topic, but in this specefic talk page, many anons participate on discussions there, so it really wouldn´t be a good idea in that case. Also, if we were to get to semi-protect a page, then we should of course make it a temporal semi-protection, so that IPs can re-join discussion sometime in the future.

General comments

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

• Links for TomasBat: TomasBat (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)

---

Please keep criticism constructive and polite. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review Special:Contributions/TomasBat before commenting.

Discussion

• Interesting, you do know that vandalism is not really a 'fight' right? —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 23:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

  Woah? How is it not? G1ggy! _{Review me!} 23:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

  Well I say it is a fight... who knows. But remember, Wikipedia is not a battleground... it's an encyclopedia :) Majorly (talk | meet) 23:45, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

  (ec) People always throw in the word "fight" when referring to RC patrol and reverting vandalism. I don't think that's the best way to approach vandalism, since the term appears to connote a negative meaning (WP:BATTLE), and it may give the wrong impression to a new user. Nishkid64 (talk) 23:47, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Support

1. Strong nominator support. G1ggy! _{Review me!} 03:34, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
2. Support frequents WP:ACID. Seems a good editor to me. So, I support. Anonymous Dissident ^Utter 21:57, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
3. Support Seems to be a good editor to me too. --Wikihermit ^{(Talk • HermesBot)} 22:06, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

   Support as his inexperience shines through, I just know he doesn't understand guidelines/policy or how Wikipedia works (based on his comments at RfA talk page). Yet as this isn't s paper encyclopaedia I don't mind granting him the tools. Matthew 22:18, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

4. Support - The user has been very good up till now and should continue this way..The tools would be good in his hands and I give him Thumbs-up..--Cometstyles 22:47, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
5. Support good editor. Lemonflash 22:50, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
6. Support. TomasBat is clearly passionate about the project. I have associated with him on the Age of Empires III page, and have been particularly impressed with his contributions there. I am slightly concerned about a lack of familiarity with the project's policies, but I think Tomas will be good with the mop :P ck lostsword|^queta!|_Suggestions? 23:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
7. Support I am seen this user around Wikipedia and I think that he will make a good admin. Captain panda 23:26, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
8. Support Great user and seen a lot in WP:AICD and welcoming users too.Arnon Chaffin (Talk) 23:32, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
9. Support - I feel he is ready for the tools. You beat me to nomming him G1ggy. --Tλε Rαnδоm Eδιτоr 00:44, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
10. Support - experienced enough, as demonstrated by editcount stats. I see him around in discussions all the time and am confident that this candidate has a sufficient understanding of policy. Walton^{alternate account} 12:10, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
11. Strong Support - I'm really impressed with the throughness you displayed in your answers to the questions and in your deep understanding of what Wikipedia needs. —Juansidious 05:09, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
12. Strong Support He´s edits have been good enough like to give him a try.--Tom 31 11 16:00, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

1. I do not feel that this user is ready, as of yet, to use the tools, as he is (as per Matthew) insufficiently familiar with policy and guidelines. Soon, grasshopper. Soon. For now, I oppose. DS 23:23, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
2. Oppose. Good editor, but little evidence of experience in policy areas as per Wikipedia namespace edits and answer to Q1. IMO he needs to get more involved in these areas before being given the mop. EliminatorJR ^Talk 23:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
3. Oppose I think a little more experience would help you a lot. Being an admin is hard, horrid work and I personally don't think you are ready at this time. But I encourage you to try again eventually. Happy editing :) Majorly (talk | meet) 23:36, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
4. Oppose; not enough experience for my liking, especially in dealing with areas he wishes to assist in. The only policy situation I have experience with him in is where he contacted me because I blocked someone who was violating WP:NOT#MYSPACE.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 23:39, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
5. Oppose TomasBat is very helpful in the project, but I don't think he is ready for adminship. In Q1, he mentioned doing some AIV and RFPP work. Judging from his contributions, I see only 3 edits (2 reports) made to AIV, and no edits at all at RFPP. Given that this user is interested in deletion, it would be best to see some AfD participation. All the AfDs TomasBat has participated in are related to the general scope of his edits (AOE and Club Penguin). These ~25 or so AfD edits came during a two-week period in April. There have been no other AfD edits before or after this two-week frame. My particular concern about AfDs is that if TomasBat wishes to participate in deletion, then he must widen the scope of his AfD participation. Limiting yourself to topics that either interest you or you are an expert on, will not be particularly helpful when you are considering the deletion of articles of totally different caliber (perhaps something historical). The number of mainspace edits is a bit on the low side, and your edits seem to be concentrated on a few particular articles, but that's something I'm not really worried about. However, I do encourage broadening your contributions at the mainspace so that you can get an idea of what it is like to work on other articles, and engage in discussion with other users over topics you are not too particularly knowledgeable of. I think if you keep up the good work, and expand your contributions (in the article namespace and the Wikipedia namespace), then you should be fine for another RfA in a few months. Nishkid64 (talk) 23:43, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
6. Oppose I don't think you're ready to be given the tools yet, based on your edit count. And your answer to question one was confusing; on one hand you want to fight vandals, while on the other you want to get involved with unblocking users (some of whom may have been blocked for vandalism). BH (Talk) 00:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC) Please Note: to save you some of your time, and to save me some of my time, I will not respond to any comments by users who say using edits counts isn't a good reason to oppose.

   Duly noted. Now please stop making uninformed votes. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 08:03, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

7. Oppose This editor needs more time with wikipedia, and a larger number of good, solid, edits.old windy bear 00:52, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
8. Oppose The few edits made at AfD did not show a good understanding of WP practice or policy, eg. "Are there supposed to be timelines on Wikipedia?" [1] . I hope to be able to say differently after a few months.DGG 03:01, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
9. Oppose You are coming along very well. However, I have a hard time supporting anyone who has fewer edits and demonstrates less knowledge of policies than myself. —Gaff ^ταλκ 04:44, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

   So you won't support candidates with less then 7000 edits? That's a lot more then the expected minimum for most editors... G1ggy! _{Review me!} 04:55, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

   I was afraid somebody would question my rationale. My edit count is quite high, mostly from vandal fighting. I suppose that I could support somebody with fewer edits than I have, if I thought they had shown in other ways that they need and are ready for the tools of adminship. I am not convinced that this user is ready. —Gaff ^ταλκ 16:01, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

   Essentially, my vote is oppose for now recognizing that in a few short months I could easily support. —Gaff ^ταλκ 16:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

   Your rationale should be questioned. If you think editcountitis is defensible, you should make your case in the discussion on WT:RFA. If you can't defend it, you should stop doing it. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 08:03, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

   Take a deep breath and read what I wrote. See the comment refering to edit counts and knowledge of policies? If his edit count was the only issue, it would be an easy support. As it is, I do not think that this user has enough of an understanding of Wikipdia policies or enough experience for me to support there adminship. —Gaff ^ταλκ 15:56, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

10. Oppose per only 781 mainspace edits, and a bit lack of overall experience. But you are well on your way. Gain some experience and try back again in a few months. Jmlk17 06:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

    How are you measuring that overall experience? The fact that you're counting mainspace edits implies that you're taking shortcuts around actually examining his contributions. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 08:03, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

11. Per Nishkid. Daniel 08:11, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
12. Very Weak Oppose - While I feel you do have potential, I counted around 1,200+ of your contributions were on User Talk pages. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, like other says it brings to question your knowledge of policy - you have less than 500 contributions to Wikipedia space (AFDs, RFAs, etc). --Ozgod 11:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

    How does it bring his knowledge of policy into question? I have more User talk contributions than any other area, but it's because I have nearly 1000 mainspace contributions that have been deleted through discussing pages that were pending deletion and tagging articles for speedy deletion appropriately. How does the number alone represent anything? Leebo ^T/C 12:37, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

13. Oppose - Little vandal-fighting experience (15/past 500 contributions vandalism reverts, with zero warnings given following those reverts, and few WP:AIV reports, when editor is claiming that it is a high priority. PGWG 16:05, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
14. Oppose comments like he made in this AfD show that he does not understand Wikipedia. Kamryn Matika 16:19, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
15. I'm afraid I have to oppose for now; being an administrator really requires more experience than a lot of people think it does. I'm sure if you just take the suggestions of the opposers to heart, you'll be more than ready for another RfA in a few months. --Mr. Lefty (talk) 17:07, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
16. Weak Oppose Leaning towards neutral, however my main concern is that you have less than 1000 mainspace edits, it would be nice to see at least 1000 and if you anticipate helping out with requests for page protection and AIV then I suggest getting more involved in reporting there, I think you could definitely pass in the future if you make some improvements. Kindest Regards --The Sunshine Man 17:30, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

    I could make 1000 AWB in an hour if I wanted. And before I requested adminship, I'd made about 2 page protect requests - and that was one of the things I'd said to do. Majorly (talk | meet) 22:16, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

17. Oppose, not enough editing experience, particularly with actual articles. — CharlotteWebb 21:43, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
18. Oppose Your experience is too narrow, and more than half your edits are to user and user talk pages. I know Age of Empires is terrific (my daughter loves it), but it's a great big Wikiworld and you should dip your toes into the rest of the pool. Get some broad experience writing articles and participating in the rest of the encyclopedia, and I'm sure I'd support in a few months. KrakatoaKatie 03:41, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

19. Oppose based on contributions. Examining a sample of TomasBat's contributions, I found a confusing and uncited addition to Wikipedia in culture [2], as well as adding a rambling paragraph and changing a correctly-spelled word to a misspelling on Wiki [3]. I also found him piling on a user, User:AlexHillan, who was blocked once for editing only in userspace and not mainspace. I find the comments Tomas left unhelpful, and even as the user tried to change, he was harrassed by other users saying "Still, your edit count does not look that good" and "By the way, only 21 mainspace edits, hurry up". AlexHillan left WP shortly after. Did TomasBat stop the harassing edit counters? No, he fixed their link. Meanwhile, my sample of his contributions turned up no edits that gave me a positive impression that TomasBat is ready to be an admin.

    Now, that said, I absolutely do not condone the uninformed oppose votes cast by Black Harry, Gaff, Ozgod, and The Sunshine Man. TomasBat has made more contributions than I had when I became an admin, and those thousands of contributions could have easily shown his experience, maturity, and commitment to Wikipedia. It happens to be my opinion that they don't, but those who vote based on edit counts have no way of knowing, because they never looked at them. I believe the bureaucrats should disregard those votes, but perhaps that is too idealistic of me. Therefore, I would settle for urging the bureaucrat to not count my vote.

    rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 08:42, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

    I support this idea. Indeed, many opposers simply noted the number. Majorly (talk | meet) 11:07, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

    Despite the implication, my vote was not solely based on edit count. Please seem my comments above. To clarify, its hard for me to support somebody who is less experienced than myself in terms not only of edit counts (a number) but also in terms of demonstrating they understand the polcies and can handle the job. Please stop assuming that I am some ignoramus voting based only on numbers. —Gaff ^ταλκ 15:56, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

20. Oppose based on unclear style of communication, including at this RfA. The ability to communicate clearly is a critical quality for an administrator, and I am not as of now confident that this editor would be able to do so. This is not an irredeemable character flaw, however, and I would happily reevaluate in a few months' time. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 10:28, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
21. Oppose per this mess, which suggests that the candidate lacks a grasp on core policies. ShadowHalo 14:23, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Neutral per Nishkid. I'd love to support, but there are some significant areas where your experience is lacking. Please try again later, I would support with pleasure. Riana ⁂ 06:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
2. Neutral Editor claims vandalism is a high priority yet I see no significant entries at WP:AIV. I would expect any vandal fighter (sorry about the use of the word fighter, but there we go) to have at least 30 - 40 requests in there, and ones that were approved by the way. Really solid editing otherwise, and as per some editors in oppose, give it 3 months and come back. Sorry I can't support at the moment. Pedro |  Chat  07:26, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
3. Neutral Looks like a nice person, but if you look at his edit count he had very few or no edits for a long time and then 1000's of edits last month, I think he should try again in a month or two --•Lwarf• Talk! 09:47, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

   Errr... you're looking at the wrong persons edit count! That's for User:Gaff. You want to be looking here - the edits are well spaced out in fact. Pedro |  Chat  10:26, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

   Sorry my bad, I would support but he has only been on wikipedia for a few months, apart for that he looks great. --•Lwarf• Talk! 09:03, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

4. Neutral per Nishkid. I'd definitely support if you work on his advice. Good luck, Tomas. —Anas ^talk? 14:44, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
5. Neutral leaning towards Support I think hat I would have chosen a complete support if you´d had made more than on just age of empires three. Any way you have experienced sysoship in many other pages, that´s why, you can help quite alot. That´s why maybe you should deserve a support. --LuC@s BuNcHi 16:10, 7 June 2007 (UTC)