Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/TFOWR

TFOWR

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (0/0/0); Scheduled to end 20:44, 28 October 2024 (UTC) Remove the <!-- and --> around subst: in the #time parser function (as well as this comment) once you transclude this request.

Nomination

TFOWR (talk · contribs) – Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to present TFOWR (talk · contribs) for your consideration for the role of administrator. TFOWR has clocked up almost 15,000 edits in nearly 2 and a half years on the project and has recently returned from wikibreak. Since his return, I've been consistently impressed with what I've seen, which has included many level headed, civil and clueful comments on ANI, Talk:Main Page and many other fora. Since I got my own mop a month ago, I've valued his input at RfPP, where he makes useful suggestions to save time for admins and he even took on a mediation role in a very heated discussion between several editors. All things considered, I think TFOWR would be a great asset to the admin corps. I sincerely hope the community agrees with me. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:26, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Co-nominations

Co-nom from Llywrch: Is it too late to co-nominate TFOWR? -- llywrch (talk) 02:18, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Co-nom from Fences and Windows: TFOWR (formerly known as This Flag Once Was Red) is fine admin material. He's sensible and a calming influence (recently herding cats at Talk:Gaza flotilla raid), he is familar with AN/I, AIV, RfPP, SPI, etc. and would make good use of the tools. He had three separate editors last month (including myself) ask him why he wasn't an admin, and now he's run out excuses not to stand. Fences&Windows 13:12, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: Thank you, HJ Mitchell, llywrch and Fences&Windows. I'm surprised and flattered that you believe I'd be a good candidate for the mop. I accept, subject to serving at the community's pleasure (based on this process). As noted on my talk page, I always welcome advice and criticism - here or elsewhere. TFOWR^{idle vapourings} 11:21, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. It is recommended that you answer these optional questions to provide guidance for participants:

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

A: In the immediate term: WP:RFPP, WP:AIV, WP:SPI, WP:WQA (and WP:DR in general), WP:ITN, WP:OTD and the various XfDs. In the longer term I'll go wherever there's a need (I tend to follow WP:ANI fairly closely and frequently end up in "new areas" as a result).

RFPP and AIV are areas where I've been active for what feels like forever. I'm a Talk:Main Page regular and see ITN and OTD as consensus-driven processs where I could help out. WQA - and the community's policies on civility in general - is an area I find fascinating: I feel it's one area where our current policies are stretched to near breaking-point (long-term editors are dragged over the coals, new editors can't decipher the seemingly baroque rules that appear to vary from one editor to the next). XfDs I've been involved with as a !voter, and is another consensus-driven process I feel I could help with more. I've been involved with SPI through dealing with long-term sock-puppetry, and I'd like to be in a position to deal with obvious cases (subject to being non-involved, etc) as I feel the community's response to some long-term abuse can be very slow and ineffectual.

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

A: Managing disagreements or disputes.

I'm pretty proud of some of the things I've done at WP:ANI or as a result of ANI. A recent example is Talk:Gaza flotilla raid, where I've been one of a small group of regular editors countering a twin-pronged WP:POV flood. A less recent example consisted of working at ANI with another non-admin to broker peace between two new editors, both of whom have gone on to be constructive, productive editors.

I believe that disagreements can be good - they can lead to new understanding. An example of this, and one I'm personally proud of, is Catfish John: I encountered this article at an AfD, where I !voted delete. Another editor !voted keep, and the pair of us worked on the article until I was proud to change my !vote to keep.

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? Yes, I believe that conflict is inevitable over time (and, as mentioned above, I feel it can even be useful). Stress? Yes. Stress is harder to deal with, and - in my opinion - leads to conflict becoming disruptive, rather than potentially useful.

The most stressful event I was involved with was a long-running dispute centring around articles in the International Baccalaureate area ("IB"). An editor emerged who was determined to promote The Truth about IB (indeed, they were involved in a website called just that). Inevitably editors who disagree with The Truth were dismissed as partisan. This affected several good, neutral editors. It resulted in several, including me, posting to ANI. Eventually it resulted in me walking away, leaving good editors to cope on their own. Eventually it led to blocks and sock puppetry. Eventually the problem went away.

This issue took far to long to resolve. It was stressful for many people, myself included. I don't believe I handled it as well as I could have done, in that I believe I could have helped resolve it sooner and better, and I could - should - have remained actively involved. While accepting my failings here, I also believe that this is an issue the community needs to address: how do we deal effectively with determined proponents of The Truth?

I've edited in some nationalist areas, so I've worked with partisan editors, and consider that to be stressful work. Fortunately I don't think anyone has ever believed that I'm partisan (at least, if they have they've subsequently seen me disagreeing with "the other side", and accept that I try to be neutral). Two sets of partisan editors seem to me to be easier to deal with than one determined Truth warrior.

Finally, this is probably a good point to mention that I haz been blocked! I was blocked for edit warring with an IP controlled by an indefinitely-blocked editor (since community banned). Good block, no complaints, but I mention this because it highlights the difficulties involved in dealing with long-term abuse. Recently, I've seen many editors question the value of community bans. From my perspective, community bans are better than indefinite blocks when it comes to responding to long-term abuse: WP:3RR allows us to revert banned users; no such exemption exists for users who are merely indefinitely blocked. I'm am not saying that community bans are a panacea... they're not. But they help editors dealing with long-term abuse to avoid being blocked and the stress that that causes :-)

There are numerous other conflicts I've not mentioned - some I've handled well, others... not so well.. Dig through my contributions and you'll find them. I'm happy to comment on any of them.

General comments

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

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