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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Shanen (talk | contribs) at 01:47, 14 May 2014 (→Discussion). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

AbigailAbernathy

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (?/?/?); Scheduled to end 23:44, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Nomination

AbigailAbernathy (talk · contribs) – Basically, I just see Abigail's name coming up quite a bit in various places. She seems to be well on her way. Jsharpminor (talk) 22:38, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:
I wholeheartedly accept this nomination.--A Wild Abigail Appears! Capture me. Moves. 23:35, 13 May 2014 (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. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?
A: It really isn't easy to predict what work I intend to take part in, seeing the wide selection of things I can help with. However, I can say for sure, that I will participate in:
  • CfD. I do openly admit that I have somewhat above-average knowledge of this topic, but I can say that in the past I have tagged articles that fit the criteria for speedy deletion. I know enough to review articles and make careful judgement.


2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
A: My strongest contribution is making sure newcomers know our guidelines and other rules of Wikipedia. I often get questions regarding my reversions, or I even point out why I reverted using links. The most linked help article I use is referencing for beginners because I have seen that most of my reversions are due to incorrect citation use, failure to cite, or just adding biased information overall. Also, as said above, my second strongest contribution is just keeping vandalism under control and making sure nothing is added that goes against the guidelines and format.
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: I can't say that I haven't, many newcomers come to me about disagreeing with my reversions; also there are the obvious trolls who try to get my attention. There was this conflict recently about a newcomer who was trying to add a table to the Once Upon a Time (season 3) page and someone was reverting it, they were obviously frustrated and was showing their frustration in the edit summaries. I reverted some of their additions as well, so I felt obligated to go in, cool stuff down, and talk it out. I educated the newcomer about referencing and how if your addition has no source that cannot be retrieved easily on the internet, then it cannot be added. I also told them that I was willing to have a full on civil compromise as long as they are calm and rational before beginning. The newcomer backed off, reverted their own hurtful messages on the second user's talk page, and I have not seen further vandalism from them.
In the future, I intend to deal with stress and frustrations of newcomers in a neutral and positive manner. I believe all newcomers can someday become great editors as long as they know our guidelines and can effectively add sourced material that is helpful and constructive to articles. I love seeing users like that on my side of Huggle and will do anything to keep them coming back to Wikipedia to improve it rather than vandalize it.
Additional question from Filelakeshoe
4. Thanks for your contributions. Aside from vandalism reversion and gnome work, are there any particular articles you've written or improved?
A: I'm sad to say that I have not taken time to write articles or significantly improve them. However, I am interested in doing so and plan on attempting to do so in the future. I cannot give a legitimate excuse why and feel a little disappointed for not doing so.


General comments

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

Discussion

Support
  1. Support Beat the nominator on this one, but I see no reason to oppose you at this time, especially since you have a good attitude towards other editors. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 23:51, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support I didn't know that the nominator was supposed to support... seems a little self-serving, since I presumably wouldn't nominate someone that I wouldn't want to see succeed. In any case, I've seen solid work from AbigailAbernathy, and the admin tools would definitely be helpful for her work in fighting vandals. Jsharpminor (talk) 00:32, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Support Great candidate, No issues!, Good luck :) -→Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 00:49, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. Oppose due to lack of article work. I understand this stance tends to make one seem like a rigid old fogey so let me explain. Reverting obvious vandalism is a good thing and we need editors doing it. However, there is a line between vandalism and other kinds of disruption and problematic editing which is oft very thin and you only really know how to deal with those things as an admin when you have dealt with them as an editor, i.e. once you've worked hard on a few articles, then someone comes to those articles with one intention only, to push their original research POV or to remove information they don't like or to add useless trivia or whatever, and interaction in those disputes tends to require a lot more than just template messages linking to guideline pages. Also, she mentions mentoring new users about referencing, but "if your addition has no source that cannot be retrieved easily on the internet, then it cannot be added" is patently false (reliable offline sources are perfectly okay, as are internet sources requiring registration, etc.), and I can't honestly assess whether someone understands policies such as reliable sources unless I see their article work. So not now, sorry. - filelakeshoe (t / c) 00:17, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Oppose for the moment. No reflection on what seems like Abagail's excellent work, however admins must be acquainted with some form of article creation or expansion. I would be uncomfortable with a vandalism-fighting admin that hasn't seen WP from the perspective of editors. So I think WP:NOTNOW. Get out and about and edit some articles of interest, and come back in 6 months to a year. --LT910001 (talk) 00:26, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Oppose 84.15% automated edits. I don't think I've ever seen one that high at RFA. While that surely shows some nice vandalism work, that leaves 1200 non-automated edits, 600 of which are to user page (not talk) and Wikipedia space. I didn't break it down further, we are likely looking a 200-300 manual article edits. My bar is pretty low, but not that low. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 00:35, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Oppose – based on what User:Dennis Brown said—not a lot of content creation, and mostly automated edits that do not show much of a need for admin tools. Epicgenius (talk) 00:44, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Abigail, you are a very dedicated vandal-fighter on Wikipedia. Based on your contributions, it appears you are setting aside hours of your time to reverting blatant vandalism on Wikipedia—and I think I can speak for the entire community that this is much appreciated. However, what makes me hesitant in supporting your adminship is that for the past 12 months, reverting vandalism using Huggle is the only significant work you have done. The ability to interact with newcomers and identify vandalism is an important part of being an admin, but that is only a part of it. I recommend participating in more project and article-related areas, such as article development and the deletion process. Administrators should be able to handle more serious disputes than simple vandalism, and most importantly, have a clear understanding of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Reverting vandalism gives you only partial experience in Wikipedia administration, and for this reason, I must oppose for now. After 6 months of work in other areas, I will be more than happy to consider you again. Best, Mz7 (talk) 00:50, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Oppose - based on my suspicion this person may be a spammer and professional criminal in disguise. However it is certainly possible the person merely reflects Wikipedia's policies in support of spam. Not sure if it will help, but let me clarify that I am only a minor and occasional editor, and I look at Wikipedia articles much more often than I edit them. My basic position is that I believe spammers will gladly abuse Wikipedia's reputation in support of their scams. They might simply read Wikipedia to create background for their scams, but I think that is not stoppable, whereas more extreme forms of abuse should be resisted. Simply citing a Wikipedia article might fool a sucker by mixing Wikipedia's credibility with the scammer's scheme, but the next two steps are obvious: Modify articles to create more plausible scams or become an editor or admin on Wikipedia to defend the abuse. In today's example that brought this person to my attention, a scamming spammer is citing a Wikipedia article in support of an obvious scam (though I cannot tell if the article has already been explicitly modified to support the scam, or the scam is only based on the content of a legitimate article). I think that in such cases, Wikipedia should have a convenient mechanism to add an anti-scam warning to the article. That warning should be temporary, but it should not be easily removable, since obviously the scammer would be motivated to remove it. To maximize its effectiveness and protect the reputation and integrity of Wikipedia, the mechanism should include a categorization option. In today's example, I would have noted the scam was a 419 and the warning should include a link to the article about 419 scams. This would doubly deter such scammers by educating the potential suckers. I know of no such mechanism, but what I do know is that this person who wants to be an admin removed the warning I attempted to add. Why? If it is in support of Wikipedia's policy, then it is a stupid policy that supports spammers and scammers, and that policy should be changed. If it is because this person is a criminal, then my suggested response is stronger. For now, I'm merely watching this page, but I definitely feel this person should not be given more power to abuse. In conclusion, I wish Wikipedia were better to justify more of my actual editing time (even though I am a professional technical editor and don't like the idea of giving away the services I am well paid for providing). Shanen (talk) 01:47, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral


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