Jump to content

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/The Night Watch

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
< Wikipedia:Requests for adminship

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by NYC Guru (talk | contribs) at 08:03, 4 February 2024 (ask question). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Night Watch

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (31/1/1); Scheduled to end 23:55, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Nomination

The Night Watch (talk · contribs) – Having had my eye on The Night Watch for a while, I am confident they will make a great admin and am excited to nominate them for adminship. Night Watch is a well-rounded editor with experience in anti-vandalism, page moves, and patrolling new pages. They have a history of accurate AIV reports, a cool head in discussion and at noticeboards, and friendly interactions with new editors. Night Watch's CSD log is a bunch of red, but their userpage is gold and green: they have considerable content chops, with three featured articles, a featured list, and 12 good articles. Their articles range from Kingdom Two Crowns to Five Nights at Freddy's (video game) and Elden Ring (!), and I think my favorite is The Longing. Night Watch rounds this out with their contributions to featured article candidacies and various discussions, where they exhibit a calm and focused demeanor. I believe The Night Watch has the qualities the community wants and will be an excellent admin. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 20:34, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Co-nomination statement

I am honoured to be nominating The Night Watch for adminship. Their content creation is amazing: a dozen good articles and three featured articles, including a Four Award for Kingdom Two Crowns. The Night Watch is active in a number of other areas as well, including new page patrol and counter-vandalism. Their accuracy in admin areas is incredible: more than 99% accuracy with their speedy deletion nominations, and out of their 130+ reports to AIV and UAA every single one has been actioned. They've also contributed to articles for deletion, where they have an accuracy rate of 90% and their !votes demonstrate an excellent understanding of notability. I hope that you will join Moneytrees and me in supporting The Night Watch's candidacy. — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 19:42, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:I accept the nominations with thanks! I have one alternative account, The Knight Watch, which I use on public Wi-Fi networks or when vacationing overseas. I have never edited for pay. The Night Watch (talk) 23:28, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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. Why are you interested in becoming an administrator?
A: I plan to use these tools to help action AIV and UAA requests, and also answer WP:PERM requests, particularly those for autopatrolled or rollback. I will likely not get involved in technical areas as that is outside my domain of experience. I'm a content creator at heart, and I derive much of my enjoyment on Wikipedia by bringing articles up to a good standard. Most of my maintenance work is done as a way to give back and help the current body of sysops keep our project running smoothly, and these recent backlogs indicate that we need all the help we can get.
2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
A: My best contributions are my content work, especially the featured and good articles that I helped make. Some efforts that I am particularly proud of are Five Nights at Freddy's, a horror video game with a notorious fanbase, and Kingdom Two Crowns, a simple article that I helped develop from beginning to end. The project one I loved working on the most is The Longing, where I later learned via social media that the video game's creator had seen it on the main page when it was a TFA. My involvement in content areas has helped me learn how to work alongside scores of fantastic users in our community, from veteran article writers to eager newbies trying to find their way through the web of policies and guidelines. A big hope of mine is that I can continue helping those users long into the future when I'm taking a break from maintenance work.
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: Throughout my first year after registering, my eagerness to contribute made me rush into areas that I did not fully understand. I ran into several errors during new pages patrol in particular, and after an incident where I discouraged an established user, I knew that I had to slow down and reflect on my limitations. In the end, I voluntarily relinquished my NPP tools and afterwards completed a course at NPPSCHOOL to improve my policy knowledge before returning to the patrol. Another conflict that stood out to me was when I naively closed a requested move discussion while poorly understanding the context behind the move and got into a heated discussion with another user regarding it. Both incidents were quite stressful for me at the time, and rightfully so. No new user can expect to improve their competency without stress every now and then, and although those interaction were difficult in the moment I feel as though I have learned quite a bit from experiencing them, more so than I would from having made no mistakes whatsoever. When it comes to contentious situations, I try to keep a cool head, and in some very intense discussions may step away to approach with a calmer mind later. Though the most important part of addressing conflicts with other users is to demonstrate humility and an open mind, and to always address your own shortcomings and potential CLUElessness regarding the matter. In essence, my perspective towards contentious disputes is to stay calm and step away from the computer to collect yourself if necessary, consider the positions of others, remain humble, give dignity to those you interact with, and be accountable and open to criticism. I'm by no means perfect, and I do remember losing my cool back when I was a newer user, though I have learned a lot more since then and and have found better ways to keep calm in the years since. These experiences have taught me to extend the courtesy granted to me as a newer user to eager newbies that I interact with now, which is something that our project needs to stay healthy.

You may ask optional questions below. There is a limit of two questions per editor. Multi-part questions disguised as one question, with the intention of evading the limit, are disallowed. Follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked are allowed.

Optional question from Tooncool64

4. Have you ever been involved in an ANI incident, either as a complaint or complainee?
A: I have made a few edits to ANI over my tenure to offer some limited feedback on cases that other users have reported, though only recall starting one ANI thread and that was for an editor making legal threats. I see ANI as a very unpleasant but necessary noticeboard, and would just ask anyone I have concerns about on their talk page first to avoid having them be subjected to this sometimes demoralizing escalation. There is a reason why so many user essays have been written about that noticeboard: everyone involved typically feels a little less courteous and less enthusiastic about editing afterwards. As such, I try not to open threads there unless absolutely necessary.

Optional questions from Dreamy Jazz

5. Thanks for standing for RfA. I notice in your answer to question 1 you mention technical areas as something you probably won't get involved in. With this in mind, how would you handle a new user asking you for help solving an issue with a gadget on your user talk page?
A: Since gadgets started out as user scripts and are maintained by volunteer users, I would ask the new user what gadget they are having a problem with and check to see which active users are maintaining the gadget, then leave a message on the talk page of one of them to see if they can identify the issue. Another approach would be to leave a post at the talk page for the gadget as a key criteria for gadgets is that they are well-maintained, and see if someone there can help with the issue. If all else fails, I could ask at the village pump to see if the technically-inclined editors there can help identify and solve the problem. My current understanding of technical matters such as gadgets and scripts is very limited, so I would try my best to help direct the new user to another editor who could help their gadget function properly.
6. You mention that you will help out at WP:PERM in your answer to question 1. What would you do if a user asks for the account creator group at WP:PERM/ACC because they want to run an edit-a-thon?
A: I remember reading that the event coordinator group was created to replace the account creator user flag in the case of edit-a-thons, as the account creator group is now granted to those heavily involved in ACC. I would inform the user of this distinction, and would check their contribution history to see if they have no recent issues that would lead to potential abuse of this tool. Seeing no issues, I would ask them when the edit-a-thon occurs and verify its existence, then grant the tool temporarily for that date. I would also try to monitor the account creations and/or granting of confirmed to see if everything is going as planned. If the requester is an established user with a history of good contributions and running several edit-a-thons, I would grant the flag indefinitely.

Optional question from Red-tailed hawk

7. In your response to question 1, you refer to using the administrative tools in order to block disruptive users. UCOC Section 3.3 ("Content vandalism and abuse of the projects") lists hindering, impeding or otherwise hampering the creation (and/or maintenance) of content and Systematically manipulating content to favour specific interpretations of facts or points of view as forms of unacceptable behavior. Given that, how would you respond to a report to WP:AIV where, upon examination of the report, you can confirm that the reported user has created a number of non-neutral, but decently referenced articles?
A: I would decline the report as not an instance of blatant vandalism, after a double-check to make sure that there are no instances of vandalism in the editor’s contribution history that were not mentioned in the report. For the articles, I would look at each individually to see if whether or not they were marked as patrolled by a new page reviewer, and if so would check whether or not they were marked with relevant maintenance tags, potentially talking with the reviewer if they neglected to place any. There is no single approach to be taken in regards to non-neutral articles, it all depends on the nature of their violations. If the articles were written by someone who seems to be little more than an eager fan of their subjects, I may drop a quick note on their talk page on the importance of NPOV and how their articles appear to not be compliant with that currently. If the neutrality violations appear to promote their subjects, I may warn the creator about COI/PAID editing and tag appropriately. If the articles appear to be Contentious topics violations, I may check to see if the creator has been made aware of the topic and may block them to enforce any pertinent restrictions. Either way, a simple report to AIV is not the way to go, and the distinct nature of the neutrality violations means that a more complex response would be required to address each of the articles and the user in question.
8. I notice that User:The Night Watch/Recall was deleted per WP:U1 (user request to delete page in own userspace). Can you give a bit of insight into what went into the decision to request deletion of that page? — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 04:16, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A. Back when I was a new user, I was very self-conscious about my ability to use my user permissions according to our guidelines, and I thought quite a bit of how other users perceived my as using these flags appropriately. I remember running into a page from an administrator saying about how they were open to recall, and I was inspired to create a similar approach for the user rights I was granted access to: if some users thought I was not using them correctly, they could mark their name down with a comment and I would relinquish them. Eventually, I realized that recall had not been called upon for any user in many, many years and I thought that the page was quite pointless when recall was never used, and I supposed I did not need to write down a specific page for that. Nonetheless, if anyone has any specific problems with my edits or behavior, I welcome all criticism of my conduct and have a strong belief in WP:ADMINACCT. If anyone has a problem with something that I did, please do let me know and I will gladly take your feedback. I am still open to recall in a way even if it is not written down: I try to judge the feedback given to me and bow out if I am found to be incompetent. Anyone reading this message, please do come out and tell me if I was wrong somewhere.

Optional question from Theleekycauldron

9. If there is anything you would like to say in response to Tamzin's oppose, I would encourage you to do so in the oppose section; however, I would like to provide you this alternate space to do so as well :)
A: Thanks Theleekycauldron (am I allowed to call you leeky?) I do not remember much of that day the comment was made, but I do remember seeing the sarcasm in Tamzin’s comment and disapproving of that in the moment. What I have seen for years now online is that sarcasm is counterproductive and is generally a negative addition to any discussion in a virtual format, and whenever it is employed in a conversation the dialogue tends to go downhill from there. I actually do respect Tamzin and their advice quite a bit and my strong reaction was probably me feeling a little disappointed and betrayed after seeing that remark. I definitely could have softened my word choice, and my abrupt bluntness probably stemmed from my belief that sysops should not engage in that type of language. Rereading the context from that !vote, I do think I should have talked to Tamzin from the sidelines about my concerns rather than giving a firm remark. Seeing that they were hurt by my comment, I would like to apologize; my intent was never to hurt you, I was just somewhat shocked in the moment. I was just a little surprised that a sysop that I looked up would be doing something like that. I can only offer my word that I will not resort to such remarks in the future. I respect your !vote and opinion, and would say that using such language was a large mistake on my part.

Optional question from Conyo14

10. Hello. Could you provide examples of times in which you were a neutral arbitrator (or closer) to an RfC or content dispute and elaborate on how you resolved potential conflicts between editors?
A:

Optional question from NYC Guru

11. How would you react if Wikipedia had to shut down?
A:


Discussion

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

Support
  1. as nom — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 23:55, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Beat to first again ;,,,( Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 23:56, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Mach61 (talk) 00:05, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Support – Seems like they'd do ok as an admin. Hey man im josh (talk) 00:57, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Support per noms and exemplary circumspection in answer to Q3. Generalrelative (talk) 00:59, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Support Always seen them as admin material. Prodraxis (talk) 01:14, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  7. (edit conflict) Support Unless I find anything which raises major objections between now and next week, I believe the candidate will be an asset to the admin team. I trust the nominators and I appreciate the answer to Q3. It's always good to know your limits. ❤HistoryTheorist❤ 01:16, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  8. I was greatly impressed by the candidate's demeanor in this discussion on their talk page, where they were calm, friendly, and polite to a new editor despite the latter's misguidedness and belligerence. That alone proves to me that TNW has just the kind of temperament we need in an administrator. On top of that, I have seen a lot of good work and reasonable commentary from TNW in multiple areas of the project. Dylan620 (he/him • talk • edits) 01:42, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  9. * Pppery * it has begun... 01:42, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Oh my God, I love this guy editor. TWOrantulaTM (enter the web) 01:45, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @TrademarkedTWOrantula: Perhaps you should reword your vote; we shouldn't presume the candidate is a "guy".--Bbb23 (talk) 01:59, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Good idea. TWOrantulaTM (enter the web) 02:01, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  11. not a jerk; WP:NOBIGDEAL HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 01:47, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Support Elli (talk | contribs) 02:05, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Support (With silly commentary) This editor is, in terms of content added to Wikipedia almost, but not quite entirely, unlike a Plantepedia editor. Five hundred edits and all video games and anti-vandalism. Nothing green. So support, but I might drop off a Triffid at their domicile at some point. As a gift. ... Edit more plants, people! 🌿MtBotany (talk) 02:44, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Support. Good answer to Q7. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 02:54, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  15. Support Very experienced, has a clue, understands policies and guidelines to an excellent degree. Everyone should strive to be like them! Mox Eden (talk) 03:29, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  16. Support – DreamRimmer (talk) 03:33, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  17. Support net positive.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 03:43, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  18. Support I am noting Tamzin’s oppose and that it is easy to offend people with written word... and from my reading the comment was not an attack. I have seen TNW around. Great content creation. I have had positive interactions with them. They have consistent editing participation. Relatively low participation on the drama board. They have positive AfD participation. I will overlook the demonic number for Large edits (>1000 bytes) in their edit count (spoiler it is three sixes). I do wonder why they have (5%) deleted edits. My main criteria is that they will protect content and content creators and I think TNW will do that. Lightburst (talk) 03:53, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Lightburst You can rack up a lot of deleted edits doing NPP/AfC work. 5% actually seems pretty low, considering. Compare TNW's noms, at 6.6 and 7.5%. -- asilvering (talk) 07:35, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  19. Support no issues. UserMemer (chat) Tribs 04:22, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  20. Support A respected editor I trust with the tools. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 04:27, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  21. Fuck yeah. QueenofHearts 04:37, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  22. Seen them around and I'm glad to support this Volten001 ☎ 04:47, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  23. Support Seeing the answer to Q9, that has pretty much solidified my support. Great candidate :) Kline • talk to me! • contribs 04:51, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  24. Support - all the best. Tolly4bolly 05:01, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  25. Support. I pulled up the "What links here" report for The Night Watch's user page, filtered it for Wikipedia-space pages only, then looked at all their noticeboard comments. Observations: well-versed in policies and guidelines; always polite; appears frequently but not too frequently at ANI to make a useful comment (in other words, they're familiar with ANI but not obsessed). Never BITE-y. Seems like they'd make a good admin! --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 05:28, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  26. Support. WP:RFAINFLATION is getting too serious recently and everything big seems fine. 2003 LN6 (talk) 05:51, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  27. Support LGTM ^^ Utopes (talk / cont) 06:16, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  28. Heck yeah! Great user! Panini! • 🥪 06:33, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  29. Yep-As someone who get's into edit conflict with them so frequently during RTRC patrolling, they deserve the mop. The Herald (Benison) (talk) 06:41, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  30. Support Amazing, since you are getting more support than you always wanted, I decided to select support for you, as having support is very beneficial to others and its community. I wish you do an excellent job at being an admin and cleaning up the mess that bad users created and protecting its new content. ArtForDecades610 (talk) 07:32, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  31. Support per the reasons already given by other editors. Professor Penguino (talk) 07:42, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. I don't like the idea of opposing over a past negative interaction. People have bad moments. But I had an interaction with TNW that frankly concerned me a lot more than if they had, say, edit-warred with me or told me to fuck off in the heat of the moment. After a user personally attacked me, and I replied with links to similar personal attacks by the same user, TNW saw fit to interject to tone-police me for the wry wording with which I'd presented that evidence, while not acknowledging the unprovoked PA I was responding to—a PA that the user was in fact blocked for subsequently. I was genuinely upset by the initial PA, and to have someone butt in to take me to task like a disapproving parent was considerably more upsetting. Is that how the candidate intends to handle disputes as an administrator? One of the most common scenarios admins deal with in dispute resolutions is where one editor has egged another on, and the latter has snapped—often snapping in much harsher terms than my "Surely". Admins need to be empathetic to the people they exercise administrative power on. I came of age on-wiki in an era where tone-policing was often used as an excuse to go after victims of personal attacks rather than take their concerns seriously. I would just as soon not return to that era. I oppose. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 03:01, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I too was pretty grossed out by this comment of TNW's. Replying about it here in the spirit of the answer to Q8. -- asilvering (talk) 07:30, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral
  1. Tamzin raises an interesting point. It was only one comment (there may be others) but it doesn't look good. Honestly, I can see myself making the exact same comment that Tamzin did, in the exact same tone. Policy doesn't require we treat disruptive people with kid gloves, only that we are responsible about it. Not sure I will oppose, but that attitude of blaming the person that was being attacked wasn't helpful. They scolded Tamzin, without even addressing the fact that the OP made a fairly harsh personal attack. They only described the initial !vote as "ridiculous". It almost looked like gaslighting. I'm not sure where I will land by the time it closes. Dennis Brown 2¢ 06:36, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
General comments



Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/The_Night_Watch&oldid=1203142704"