User talk:Balloonman

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Requests for adminship and bureaucratship update

RfA candidate	S	O	N	S %	Status	Ending (UTC)	Time left	Dups?	Report
DreamRimmer	0	0	0	0	Open	10:02, 4 June 2024	5 days, 14 hours	no	report

TPM

Hi Balloonman,

There's been a bit of back and forth on Tea Party movement talk over this edit [1] and I was wondering, would you please comment. The beginning paragraphs of the edit are the concern as they are drawn from op-eds, etc. Thanks.Malke 2010 (talk) 17:36, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll try to take a look at it later this evening... I had taken the Tea Party articles off my watch list because the back and forth gets old fast.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 17:39, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. :) Malke 2010 (talk) 18:07, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi Balloonman, could really use your help over on Tea Party movement. This editor, Willbeback, has been ignoring the talk page discussions and inserting OR, and removing stable edits with reliable sources, and nearly blanked a section. I'm sure he's past 3rr by now. Please help in the talk page. Thanks.Malke 2010 (talk) 04:39, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the very helpful comments on the various disputes at TPM. --Ronz (talk) 15:27, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, thanks so much. Also, I've posted a comment for you on the TPM talk page under "Balloonman chimes in again." Malke 2010 (talk) 12:29, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Admin

Hi Balloonman,

I know you very thoroughly review RfA candidates...and I noticed your comments about what you consider an admin to be, and that you believe Elen of the Roads should already be recognized as an admin. Our paths have crossed on a few occasions, and I was wondering if you consider me to be an admin as well. This is just for curiosity's sake; I am not currently considering an RfA candidacy. Thanks, Keepscases (talk) 19:09, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Honestly, our paths haven't crossed enough outside of WT:RFA/WP:RFA for me to say one way or another. (I may have you confused with somebody else, but I believe it was you, but if it wasn't I apologize in advance. And if I do remember correctly, this is not intended as an attack or criticism to be harsh, but rather honest feedback.)

If I remember correctly, one thing that you would have to overcome, if you were to run for Admin would be some lingering concerns related towards you view on UserBoxes. If I'm not mistaken, you used to be very adamant about what you perceived to be anti-Christian/Anti-God/Athiestic/Agnostic user boxes. While I haven't seen you oppose on that groun in a while (but I haven't been paying as close of attention to RfA's lately) the passion behind those opposes might raise some concerns with people. Namely could you be neutral/objective when it comes to issues related to God/Christianity.

Now it is entirely possible that you are and have been. You may have developed a solid history in that regards over the past two years or so. But people who know you primarily through RfA (such as myself) would have to be convinced that those passions have been tempered over the years.

Which means, if you do decide to run, confront that concern head on. Admit it, own it, and then show how you've changed and show us that you can be neutral/objective om those areas. If the opposes are from a year plus and you've "reformed", then it won't be impossible to convince people that your wikiperspective has changed. (Having passions like that is fine in the real world, but if you want to be an admin, the ideal is to have somebody who can separate his/her personal feelings from is issue.)

Again, if I remember incorrectly, my apologies. If I am remembering correctly, the above is not meant to be an attack, but rather an honest appraisal of an issue that might be an obstacle.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 19:49, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your input!

I would argue that my passion is (was?) less about Christianity v. Atheism and more about underlying attitudes, but there is no need for that debate until if and when an RfA surfaces  :) Keepscases (talk) 20:34, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Just remember, we can have feelings, but when running for admin, people want to know that you can reign those emotions in. I also recall that you were the first to fling allegations of pedophilia at Herostraus (sp) in his recall rfa. That might hurt as well, just because people work in an area doesn't always mean that they embrace the topic. I've found myself working areas thinking, "why am I here?"---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 21:50, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

After being on the receiving end of Herostratus's detective work in unmasking my "Malleus" sockpuppet I'm hardly an unbiased judge, but you're being a little hard on Keeps there. Herostratus is, after all, the one who made this plea for Wikipedia to encourage pedophiles to edit, on the grounds that "people who are pedophiles in the girllover/boylover sense (I'm still not clear, myself, on the overlap) are likely to have lots of hard-to-get information on that area", and who had That Userpage. – iridescent 21:58, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

@Keepscases: It might be hard for you to become an admin if you continue to ask those silly RfA questions. Access Denied ^{[FATAL ERROR]} 22:09, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Although with more answers like Elen's, it might be worth it.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 03:49, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Advice

I'm in two minds. One half of me thinks this thing with Wehwalt must be a massive misunderstanding, because I never said any of the things he says I did. The other half of me, rather uncharitably, is putting it down to Malleus !voting for me, and thinks it doesn't matter what I say, the accusations are related to who my friends are perceived to be, rather than anything I said. Which is ironic, given that I don't think I've exchanged more than half a dozen edits with Malleus, and I thought he'd never forgiven me over Ottava Rima. Should I just leave things as they are, do you think.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:16, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Couple of things have happened (see my talkpage and the RfA). I am now of the opinion that leaving things be is the best course. I'll just wait and see how things go.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:29, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Candidate article deletes

Thanks for your excellent comments. The same thing happened just before the 2008 elections too, and imo that's one reason why we don't have as many volunteers this time around. I posted my 'guideline' much earlier when some of those actually involved in the election and candidate articles were discussing these issues. See [United States House of Representatives elections in Illinois, 2010]], Districts 12 and 13, for an example of each of these:

• 'No-hopers' get their campaign site and Project Vote Smart link included in parentheses after their name in the election article.
• Those notable for only the election (the "iffys") can have more info included and we redirect their name (if we remember!) (Scott Harper example in District 13)
• Those currently in some state or national office get their own article anyway, so we just wikify their name.

We also had some we left as separate articles because they were long articles AND they were likely enough to win, but if they didn't win they were only notable for the election - so we marked them with the Merge tags we wouldn't forget about them after the election. I think that was working pretty well, but now we have the partisans jumping in and deleting everything in sight. That's scary. Flatterworld (talk) 17:27, 25 October 2010 (UTC) We also had some we left as separate articles because they were long articles AND they were likely enough to win, but if they didn't win they were only notable for the election - so we marked them with the Merge tags we wouldn't forget about them after the election. I think that was working pretty well, but now we have the partisans jumping in and deleting everything in sight. Flatterworld (talk) 17:27, 25 October 2010 (UTC) + We also had some we left as separate articles because they were long articles AND they were likely enough to win, but if they didn't win they were only notable for the election - so we marked them with the Merge tags we wouldn't forget about them after the election. I think that was working pretty well, but now we have the partisans jumping in and deleting everything in sight. That's scary. Flatterworld (talk) 17:27, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The suggestion I would make would be to dig up some of those AFD's which were nominated in the last week before the election. If you can show:

• A fair number of articles were nominated that last week
• By a large number of fly-by individuals
• That BLP Vios occured within them
• That some of the results were trending to delete or were deleted despite being kept.

THEN you will have a stronger case. As is, I don't think this will garner enough steam to pass. One of the issues that you need to prove, is that this is a legit concern. (I just looked at the AFD log for the past two or three days, and honestly, as of this point in time, it looks like this might be a solution looking for a problem---which is going to become an rallying point for those who oppose it---especially if any read this post ;-) So you need to show that it is in fact an issue that we need a preventative for.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 17:34, 25 October 2010 (UTC)