Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Thumperward 3

Thumperward 3

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (9/0/0); Scheduled to end 13:05, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Nomination

Thumperward (talk · contribs) – So, third RfA. In my previous two RfAs I received a nomination out of the blue from an editor I'd previously had little content with; this time I'm choosing to self-nominate as I think it's time I got to working on the various admin backlogs I see at the moment, and because I think I've significantly improved as a candidate since then.

I've been around for a bit over four years now and have accumulated 70,000 or so edits. About half of those are to articlespace, half the rest split between article talk and templatespace, and the rest split between user talk, template talk and projectspace. I've been an active participant in templatespace for about three years now and during that time have worked pretty heavily on most of the project's core templates, including a ton of work on infoboxes and article message boxes. This is work which requires patience, lots of discussion, and a heck of a lot of editprotected requests; I've raised more of those than I've had hot dinners and I feel that the more admins we've got who are able to service those requests the lower the entry barrier to working on templates will be. Other than that, I tend to work on whatever takes my fancy at a given time; since my last RfA I've become more active both in new page creation and in GA work, although I'm not especially active in either.

As far as projectspace work goes, my main focus is on keeping the project ticking along. I raise a lot of {{db-house}} requests for trivial housekeeping (template merges, moving pages over redirects and such), simple dispute resolution (raising RPP requests when I see an edit war brewing, ushering people onto talk or other DR) and help desk / technical village pump work, but I've also been involved in year-long RfCs (both on article disputes and user conduct) and in other deeper dispute resolution. I'm pretty active in TfD and have been involved in the other parts of XfD to a greater or lesser extent over the years: I'm much less active at AfD than I used to be, primarily because I believe that AfD runs much more smoothly than it used to. Previously I was of the opinion that it was necessary to stay active there to prevent others from gaming the system, but to my pleasure this seems to be less of a problem these days. I usually only use ANI as a reporting mechanism for immediate problems which need admin eyes, and I believe that this is what it's best for; the less it seems like a club house, the less people will treat it as a first point of contact for disputes or problems which can be handled elsewhere.

Basically, I know what I'm doing, and right now I do so much stuff which borders on admin-level work (editprotected, sorting out page protection, housekeeping deletions) that I'm creating work for the admin corps rather than reducing the workload. I think my editing history speaks for itself in that regard.

Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:05, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

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

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

A: Housekeeping and backlog reduction; the same things that I'm presently contributing to from the other side. I'm very well-versed in templatespace and feel that I'm more than capable of handling involved editprotected requests there; I've got a lot of experience in RM, and I'd be keen to get involved with history merges and other hairy technical work which would help the encyclopedia tick along.

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

A: I've been pretty heavily involved in templatespace for some time now, and as such my work there has touched a very large percentage of our most prominent articles. I've written, rewritten, or otherwise been involved in cleanup of most of the high-profile meta-templates which users see every day in the form of infoboxes or cleanup tags. That said, I'm no less proud of the work I've done to improve articles to GA / FA status, or on the new articles I've created.

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: Following my first RfA, I completely re-assessed my attitude towards dispute resolution, and I think my attitude towards dispute resolution now is exemplary. I don't edit war; if a discussion reaches a stalemate, I'll move onto the next level of dispute resolution; and I think I've mastered dropping it if there really doesn't seem to be an amicable solution to a dispute. I think that typically I'm a calming influence on discussions, and I try to ensure that disputes focus on the subject matter and how it interacts with policy and community norms rather than taking things personally. I can think of many editors whose positions I may strongly disagree with but with whom I am able to work with amicably and productively.

Additional optional question from Jusdafax

4. I see from looking at the opposes in Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Thumperward 2 that you had a past run in with Jimbo. Could you please discuss what happened, and why you don't bring it up in question 3? Thanks, Jusdafax 14:03, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

A: What happened basically was that we had a series of RfCs on the subject of Linux, mostly relating to the issues around the GNU/Linux naming controversy. At some point, Jimbo was petitioned by "his side" (Jimbo's views on the issue are pretty well-known) to step in and voice his opinion. Jimbo's comments centred around some mass-editing I did in August 2008, at a time when I felt that there was consensus. After that, the discussion ended up grinding to a halt. I should probably have brought it up, yes, but it wasn't really a dispute between me and Jimbo: it was a dispute involving other editors, and when Jimbo commented it quickly became a dead end because of the Word of God aspect. Regardless, I've significantly dialled back my involvement in that topic, and indeed in the last discussion I had (over on talk:GNU: there's a long RfC) I acted as a mediator between the two opposing sides. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:21, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Additional optional questions from DGG ( talk )

5a. Could you explain further your comment "it is hardly worth pointing out that editors in good standing would be best nominating articles for deletion anonymously should they not wish to be permanently harrassed in the current WP climate. " at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Boba Phat (2nd nomination) ?

5b I notice that in many recent AfDs you gave a comment which was essentially supporting deletion without a formal !vote one way or the other. If you were an admin closing such a discussion how would you assign weight to such comments? DGG ( talk ) 15:38, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

5c: every participation in AfD in the last two months seems on a quick scan to been either a delete !vote or a comment supporting a delete position. Have you recently ever encountered a challenged article that you thought should be kept, and said so? DGG ( talk ) 15:38, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

A:

General comments

• Links for Thumperward 3: Thumperward (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
• Edit summary usage for Thumperward 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.

Discussion

Support

1. Without making any accusations, because I didn't have all the facts, I wasn't impressed by several of the opposes in the second RfA. I don't see anything yet that makes me reconsider my support, but I'll keep looking. - Dank (push to talk) 13:37, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

   Kept looking. Clear skies. - Dank (push to talk) 13:53, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

2. I've seen his work both on-wiki and off. His quality contributions to talk pages alone leave me cheerful in supporting. --Izno (talk) 14:08, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
3. Trustworthy editor. PhilKnight (talk) 14:41, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
4. Support - per forthright answer to my Q4, and a long record of good deeds (it ain't easy to hit 70,000 edits!) to improve the encyclopedia. Best wishes here, and always. Jusdafax 14:43, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
5. Support per all of the above. I'm not seeing any issues. Good luck! Doc Quintana (talk) 14:47, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
6. Support - a productive contributor. I must say that the self-nom statement was pretty good. Interactions with other users seems mostly positive, from what I can tell. P. D. Cook ^{Talk to me!} 15:15, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
7. I know from experience that this candidate will be efficient at dealing with problems of a technical nature. We need more admins like that. In addition, I can vouch for the accuracy of the first three answers. WFC (talk) 15:31, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
8. Strong Support I've seen Thumperward around before and have no doubt that he will be a trustworthy and valuable administrator. A8x (talk) 15:34, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
9. Support No red flags. Access Denied^(t|c|g|d|s) 15:36, 18 July 2010 (UTC)