Wikipedia:Requests for bureaucratship/Avraham 3

Avraham

Nomination

Voice your opinion (talk page) (12/0/0); Scheduled to end 23:48, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Avraham (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Approximately one year ago, I presented myself to the greater wikipedia community as a candidate for bureaucratship. I found the feedback I received those previous times to be both valuable and educational. Since that point we have had five excellent candidates successfully become bureaucrats. However, we have also lost the services of some of our more prolific bureaucrats. As such, I am still willing to volunteer my services to the project as a bureaucrat.

I had been approached by a number of people over the past six months about resubmitting my candidacy, and my original plan was to wait until a year had past. My impetus for submitting my candidacy a month early is based on a specific need. Unfortunately, as the project has grown, the level of vandalism has increased dramatically, including vandalism that relates to the creation of inappropriate usernames—ones that defame and ones that violate privacy concerns. While there are mediawiki extensions that can hide usernames from logs, sometimes a full-out rename is called for. We have a few checkuser or oversight enabled bureaucrats, but there have been times when having more would have been helpful to protect the privacy of wikipedia editors or wikipedia biography subjects. As this need has been raised a few times recently on the functionaries mailing list, I have decided to post my candidacy earlier.

About me: I have been a member of this project since July 2005, and active since January 2006. I have over 29,000 edits, and near 31,000 if you count deleted edits. I was granted the community's trust as an administrator in July 2006. Most recently, I was appointed as a checkuser in October 2008. I am a sysop on the Commons and volunteer for the OTRS system. While the bots make clerking less of a need at the various name-change pages, I have taken the communities advice to heart and became more active at those pages. While I lack the technical ability to run a bot, I believe that I have the necessary understanding of the appropriate bot policies.

I hope that I my actions on this project and interactions with fellow contributors to this project have demonstrated the qualities and skills that the community requires of and desires in its bureaucrats and that you will allow me the privilege of contributing to the project in this fashion. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 23:45, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:

Self-nom -- Avi (talk) 23:45, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as a Bureaucrat. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. Have you read the discussions on when to promote and not promote? What do you understand the criteria for promotion to be?

A. Yes, the criteria for promotion is community consensus. As stated on Wikipedia:Bureaucrats: “They are bound by policy and consensus to grant administrator or bureaucrat access only when doing so reflects the wishes of the community, usually after a successful request at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship.” This is what requires us to have a human bureaucrat; it is not for the times when the consensus is obvious one way or the other, it is for the gray zone. Common practice is that over around 80% is clear, and under around 70% is clear, but that zone in-between is where the community relies on the judgment of its bureaucrats to best determine what its consensus is.

2. How would you deal with contentious nominations where a decision to promote or not promote might be criticized?

A. My first move would be to to discuss it with fellow bureaucrats, on an open page, where the bureaucratic consensus as to the community consensus can be followed and understood by all, as was done for my own unsuccessful second attempt. As there is bound to be those that will argue with whatever decision is reached in this kind of situation, having an open process and discussion makes the final decision more understandable which leads to much more acceptance. In the event I would be the only bureaucrat available to make this decision, I would do so with a detailed explanation of my thought process and which policies and guidelines were used to best capture the community's consensus, for the same reasons.

3. Wikipedians expect bureaucrats to adhere to high standards of fairness, knowledge of policy and the ability to engage others in the community. Why do you feel you meet those standards?

A. I have been an administrator on the English wikipedia for here for over 34 months. I have been considered worthy of that trust on the Commons as well. I have been trusted enough to be approached to mentor cases of editors as their last resort before community sanctions, and have been considered fair enough to be approached as such about editors whose issues deal with among our most difficult ones, such as the Palestinan-Israeli issues. I have been considered trustworthy, fair, and discrete enough to be allowed to volunteer on the m:OTRS list, where the most difficult and contentious issues that affect all Wikimedia projects, and are bound by the policies and guidelines of all of our projects, not just Wikipedia, are dealt with. Also, I have been considered honest, fair, and knowledgeable to be allowed to fight recidivist vandalism and sockpuppetry using the checkuser tool. I have done my best to both follow, as well as uphold, wikipedia policies and guidelines—both those that deal with article content as well as those that deal with inter-editor communications.

Questions 4-7

Optional questions from Jake Wartenberg adapted stolen from NuclearWarfare [1]

4. How would you close these RfA/Bs? If you opine for a crat chat, please express what you would have said there as the final determination of the outcome.

A.

• Carnildo 3 61%:

  Unsuccessful.

• ^demon 3 63%:

  I will respond to this one later.

• Krimpet 67%:

  Unsuccessful

• Danny 68%:

  As I opined (Support #127) I could not actually have closed that one. Had I not supported, I would have brought this one to chat. There are mitigating circumstances in this one due to Danny's previous position as an employee of the foundation that would have likely made him have more people who would be happy to see him fail than the standard editor (OFFICE blocks, etc.) and these need to be factored in.

• Ryulong 3 69%:

  I will respond to this one later.

• Gracenotes 74%:

  As I opined (Oppose #25) I could not actually have closed that one. Had I not opposed, this would be another example of where the bureaucratic chat is key, as this turned more into a referendum on attack sites than a discussion about the candidate.

• DHMO 3 (at this point in time) 79%:

  As I opined (Support #280) I could not actually have closed that one. Had I not supported, I would likely have closed as pass at that time.

• Riana's RfB 86%:

  As I opined (Support #91) I could not actually have closed that one. Had I not supported, I would likely have closed as pass.

5. One of of the bureaucrats elected in 2004 has yet to use any of the crat tools and others have used them very rarely. Do you think the bureaucrat position should have a minimum level of activity?

A.

6. Of the 3,500+ prior RFAs, only eight have ever had a bureaucrat extend the endtime; of over 100 prior RFBs, only two have ever had a bureaucrat extend the endtime. Under what circumstances and by what process would you extend an RFA in general?

A.

7. Francs2000, Optim, Eloquence, Danny, Ugen64, and WJBscribe were decratted at their own requests between 2004 and 2008. Of them all, the only controversial decrattings could be considered Ugen64 who resigned after a dispute over the promotion % for RFBs and Francs2000 who resigned after a dispute over tallying RFA results. Danny's remains the unusual case of him resigning both crat and sysop rights and later being re-RFA'd, all in connection with his ceasing employment at the Wikimedia Foundation. Which of these users would you re-crat if they asked at WP:BN and which would you require to re-run RfB?

A.

• Francs2000:
• Optim:
• Eloquence:
• Ugen64:
• Danny:
• WJBscribe:

Optional question from Letsdrinktea

8. Is 'JewsDidWTC' a disruptive username?

A:

General comments

RfBs for this user:

• Requests for bureaucratship/Avraham
• Requests for bureaucratship/Avraham 2
• Requests for bureaucratship/Avraham 2/Bureaucrat discussion
• Requests for bureaucratship/Avraham 3

• Links for Avraham: Avraham (talk · contribs · count · logs · target logs · block log · lu · rfas · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · checkuser · socks · rights · blocks · protects · deletions · moves)

---

Please keep discussion constructive and civil.

Discussion

• Editing and admin stats posted at the talk page. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 23:55, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Support

1. Gave my reasoning last time, and nothing's changed since. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 23:50, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
2. Same as Deacon. Avruch ^T 23:51, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
3. Support - We need more bureaucrats, and Avraham seems like an excellent choice. I see no reason to deny him bureaucratship. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 23:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
4. Support. Absolutely. Synergy 23:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
5. Support For sure. We need more 'crats- and Avraham will make a great one. PerfectProposal 23:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
6. Support Best of luck in your new role. ^_^ Meetare Shappy ^Cunkelfratz! 00:04, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
7. Support Sure! Jake Wartenberg :  Chat  00:05, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
8. Support clear net positive - there is a need at the moment definitely. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:06, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
9. Support. Avi is bright, experienced and hard working. He will make a good 'crat. Majoreditor (talk) 00:44, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
10. Support - Per my rationale last time around. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 00:55, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
11. Support - per Juliancolton and Majoreditor. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 01:01, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
12. Support Great thinker, very trusted. — JoJo • Talk • 01:10, 2 April 2009 (UTC)