Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Kizzle
Voice your opinion (0/0/0); Scheduled to end December 20th 15:39
I have been a Wikipedia contributor for over 2 years and never bothered to become an administrator until recent events. During this time, I have generally frequented the political pages and been involved in a number of contentious disputes. If I could summarize my participation on Wikipedia, it is that I thrive on reasoned and civil conflict. During the election of 2004, I frequented many political articles (including George W. Bush as well as other politically controversial articles such as Ann Coulter). I like to be in the middle of conflict while trying to keep a cool head. In my vast experience in controversial articles, I know that policy rules all. While "Wiki-lawyering" and "IAR" are valid concepts that are applicable in a limited range of situations, IMHO they never trump WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:V, WP:BLP, as well as WP:AGF WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA.
While this answer may seem like I simply want to become a user who wants the "block user" button available in a dispute, I feel that I have already been acting as a moderator who believes that given a heated dispute between parties, strict application of policy trumps all other matters (including article precedence). Part of the reason I want to become an administrator is the common violations of WP:AGF and WP:NPA I see in disputes. Just recently, (without mentioning names) an editor who suggested replacing a fair-use image with a free image that looked worse who was entirely backed by policy was labeled "disruptive", a "one-trick pony", and was responded to with "Quit wiki-lawyering, it's only the internet." Clear cut violations of WP:AGF like this are very dangerous IMHO because they discourage good users from making legimiate suggestions to controversial articles if they are simply going to be accused of being "disruptive". I don't intend to use any of my administrative powers (should I be elected) to help me gain an advantage in a dispute, and I only foresee blocking someone (besides vandalism of course) in cases of egregious and repetitive violations of WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL, or WP:NPA. My goal in becoming an administrator is to take a more official capacity in helping resolve disputes on contentious pages by using my intimate knowledge of relevant policy to help direct a heated dispute to a peaceful resolution.
Finally, I have done a lot of good and some bad here in my 2 years. I'd like to think that despite generally sticking to controversial articles, I have kept a cool head and tried to settle the matter civilly through reasoned arguments and appeal to policies. Of course, given my involvement in these articles, I have no doubt that editors that I have disagreed with in the past will deem me unfit to become an administrator. As a result, I have pre-emptively added several editors (if you disagree and actually do support my bid, then feel free to change) who I believe would not like me as an administrator.
- Questions for the candidate
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia in this capacity. Please take the time to answer a few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:
- 1. What sysop chores do you anticipate helping with? Please check out Category:Wikipedia backlog and Category:Administrative backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.
- A: I will be quite honest, I do not have a lot of experience with what other roles an Administrator plays besides my encounters with admins in editing pages, so I don't claim to have my duties or roles as an administrator all mapped out. However, I am open to learning more about how I can contribute to the project besides my stated goal of helping referee heated disputes on controversial articles. While I would obviously contribute to vandal fighting and WP:AN/I, I am open to suggestions as to other ways in which I can help. Regardless of whether you vote support or oppose, if you're an admin please add what administrative aspect you think needs help next to your vote and/or reasoning.
Instead of answering the next boilerplate questions, let me put it down as the good, bad, and ugly (disputes)
The Good
- I reported on Slashdot and helped formulate and develop semi-protection.
- Stephen_Colbert_at_the_2006_White_House_Correspondents'_Association_Dinner - heavily participated in the creation and development, saving it from deletion, getting it to featured status as well as on the front page. The discussion behind the shaping of the article from its inception to its current form was one of the most enjoyable experiences I've had on Wikipedia.
The Bad
- I've vandalized Wikipedia once in my life, and it was to get blocked in a "creative" way so that I could overcome my Wiki-addiction in order to finish up a project for school. The details behind the incident can be found here. Of course, that was a while ago and will never happen again.
- I've also been blocked without warning for violating WP:SPAM, which I still think is wrong (the without warning part), though I do understand WP:SPAM now, and that it applies to situations besides vote-stacking. You can view the the details here.
The Ugly (Disputes)
- I have been involved in several arbcom cases, all of which (to my knowledge) did not directly involve me as a defendent. They were:
- Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/BigDaddy777#Statement_by_Kizzle
- Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Rex071404_4 and involved in varying extents the first 3 arbcom cases against Rex.
- In these cases, dispute resolution was used as a last resort. Despite having a generally unpleasant history with Rex stemming from 2 years of disputes, I actually argued that he should be able to remain, as I did not see a reason why he needed to be banned for a year. I expressed this to him in an IRC conversation that he posted (with my permission) on his userpage, pleading for him not to leave. In the case of BigDaddy777, I asked him several times to stop personally attacking other users, I then took it to an RfC, and even offered to suspend the entire dispute resolution if he would simply even comment on the RfC page or say something along the lines of "I'm sorry" (phrased however he wanted to). However, he was unable to do any such thing, and unfortunately it led to him being banned.
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- General comments
Discussion
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- Lou Sander (talk · contribs)
- Kyaa The Catlord (talk · contribs)
- Karwynn (talk · contribs)
- TDC (talk · contribs)
Neutral