Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Hawkeye7 2

Hawkeye7

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (37/3/0); Scheduled to end 08:36, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Nomination

Hawkeye7 (talk · contribs) – Ladies gentlemen, please allow me a few minutes of your time to introduce Hawkeye7. This is a relatively long nomination statement, but Hawkeye has a long and distinguished track record (albeit with one black mark, which I'll some to shortly), so please bear with me. For those who frequent the military history project and the featured article process, Hawkeye of course needs no introduction. For those less familiar, Hawkeye is one of our best and most prolific writers; as of last count, he is responsible for 46 featured articles, over 200 good articles, and even more DYKs. This total includes multiple weighty articles on important subjects (like the Manhattan Project and Douglas MacArthur), with a focus on military history. He is a long-standing coordinator of WikiProject Military History, elected by a vote of that project's membership, and a regular contributor at FAC and other article review fora. Further, he is an accomplished bot operator, responsible for MilHistBot and FACBot which perform essential and tedious meta tasks that keep review processes functioning and free up significant amounts of time for their human coordinators. He wishes to help with fairly routine admin tasks of the sort that are sometimes neglected, as he grows tired of standing by while no admin can be found to (for example) populate the DYK queues or fix something on the main page.

Now to the elephant in the room: Hawkeye was desysopped by ArbCom in the Civility Enforcement case four years ago. He was the third of several admins in a chain of knee-jerk admin actions and as such was technically "wheel-warring". He was previously admonished for blocking an editor with whom he had been in dispute (the block was necessary and the editor in question was banned as a result of the same case, but Hawkeye should have sought help from another admin). Neither of these issues on their own would normally have led to sanctions from ArbCom, and many admins have made similar mis-steps that were never brought to arbitration, but both of these actions happened to be part of wider disputes which did end up at arbitration. Nonetheless, this is not a referendum on the desysop. Four years is a long time on Wikipedia, and Hawkeye has come a long way since then. He acknowledges the mistakes he made then and has learnt from them (I'm not the person to tell you about what he's learnt, I'll leave that Hawkeye). Indeed, he was a candidate in the most recent ArbCom elections, and quite a credible one judging by the results—he came 12th (of 21) with 55.69% support, making the highest-rated non-admin and placing him just below the nine electees and two incumbent arbitrators. Several guide-writers opined that his reputation had been rehabilitated and that he would stand a good chance at RfA.

Hawkeye has no desire to become associated with high drama as an admin, merely to beaver away in the background on important but oft-neglected tasks. His primary focus will continue to be on the mainspace. All things considered, I am strongly of the opinion that he should be given another chance with the tools. Thank you, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:44, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: : I accept the nomination. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:41, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I came to Wikipedia in response to an email requesting that I correct a Wikipedia article that I had written. My first thought was that I had not written any Wikipedia articles; but on checking I found that I had. An article had lifted some text from a web page of mine. I corrected the error. I created an account around this time, which was 2005, but did not normally log on. What I found was terrible. Everywhere I looked, on every subject, I found poorly-written articles. I was appalled. In 2006, Lindleyle encouraged me give Wikipedia editing a go on a more serious basis. Since my doctorate is in Military History, I started writing Military History articles. By pure chance, I had found one of Wikipedia's most active and friendly projects.

I try to pitch articles at the high school level. I remember everything that I was taught at high school. (At Christmas I met up with an old school friend and we recalled Pushkin poetry that we had memorised in Russian.) I was disturbed to discover that my nieces did not know about matrices. Have they been dropped from the syllabus?

Some of you may be wondering about my user name. It is not, as some people believe, after the character in M*A*S*H, but the comic book character of that name. If you bare not familiar with him, here are 24 Reasons Why You Should Be Reading Matt Fraction's Hawkeye. The characterisation is a very accurate depiction of my values. Especially nos 1, 2, 3, 5, 11 and 24. I always try to do what is right.

Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:21, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

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: The admin toolset will allow me to be more effective in the work I am already doing. I would like to help out in the places that always seem to have backlogs, like WP:RM, WP:UAA and WP:RFPP. I don't intend to be engaged at drama-boards, or to ever use the block button on anyone other than a bona fide vandal. It would be great to be able to help out at WP:DYK. I have in the past been involved in pasting up the DYK prep areas. It is a great place to get an overview of the article creation process on a daily basis; but really bothers me when DYK runs late, as editors often want their hook run on a certain date and timeslot. While most admin functions are backlogged due to a lack of willing hands, few cause as much disappointment as when DYK runs late.

2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?

A: Normally, I bring one article up to Featured quality, and concurrently create or improve a couple of smaller articles. In the case of Douglas MacArthur, for example, I spun off Douglas MacArthur's escape from the Philippines and President Truman's relief of General Douglas MacArthur. The latter lead me to restore Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. After my doctoral thesis was accepted, I drifted away from writing articles on Australian military history, although I continued to write the occasional article, such as Battle of Bardia (which involved reading through sources in Italian), and started on a huge project to overhaul the Manhattan Project articles. The main article is a good example of my work. Many of the sub-articles are now featured, such as Robert Oppenheimer, Niels Bohr and Enrico Fermi. I also became involved with the efforts to improve the articles on Australia at the Paralympics. I am particularly fond of Australia women's national wheelchair basketball team at the 2012 Summer Paralympics.

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: Generally, conflicts are over user behaviour rather than editing, but there have been some that caused real stress. One that comes to mind was when Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Justin Bieber on Twitter, a good article, was deleted under WP:NOT. My normal way of dealing with such things is just to walk away and move on. Like many things, this does not always work.

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You may ask optional questions below. There is a limit of two questions per editor. Follow-up questions relevant to questions you have already asked are allowed.

Additional question from MSGJ

4. Your acceptance statement does not mention the "elephant in the room". Will you use this opportunity to explain in detail what led to the controversial events four years ago, what you have learned, and how we can be sure they would not be repeated? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:02, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

A: I cannot explain in detail what led to the events, because I do not know the full story. In each case I wandered into a long-running dispute. In the most extreme case, racepacket mentioned my name (I do not know whether it was my real name or my user name) in connection with two other wikimedians. I inferred that one was his original harassment victim; the other, not on the English Wikipedia, remains unknown to me to this day. What comments he made were revdelled, and ArbCom did not share them with me. (Being on another project, I could not read them myself.) It was a clear violation of racepacket's interaction ban, and triggered another ArbCom case. Emails from ArbCom said that serious allegations had been made against me, but they were not shared with me. So I could not respond. But I took steps to ensure that these events cannot recur. First, there is my undertaking above that I am not going to use the block button. Second, I spend a certain part of each session reading through ArbCom and the drama boards, so I am not caught out by an ongoing situation. So much for myself, what about other people? So I ran for ArbCom on a platform of reform. It became clear that some people felt that I should not have been editing, much less running for office, without a successful RfA. Which brings me back to here. 14:29, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Additional question from Ritchie333

5. A new editor with 200 edits, all to article space, changes the last sentence to the opening paragrah on Walter Raleigh so it reads "He is also well known for popularising potatoes and tobacco in England". There is no edit summary. Three minutes later, an experienced editor with 5 FAs reverts the edit, also with no edit summary. Ten minutes later, the newbie re-adds the information, again with no summary. The experienced editor reverts again, this time with a summary "wrong". The newbie re-adds the information a third time, with a summary "i am confused, please watch blackadder there is an episode called potato about raleigh". The experienced editor re-reverts with a summary "FFS will you pull your head out of your arse and go and read some policies like WP:V, WP:RS, WP:LEAD and WP:DICK, now run along". You are the first other editor to discover this sequence of edits - what do you do?

A: Happens all the time. There is an article on my watch list called 0.999... We had to protect the article, notwithstanding the fact that it contains not only a series of proofs, but a discussion of the pedagogy. The newbie may have not bothered to read the article (many people only read the lead it seems); but in this case the newbie is not wrong; Raleigh is well-known for that. He just didn't do it. So I might try to defuse the situation with a suggestion on the talk page that it be changed to something like: He had been widely credited with introducing the potato to Europe, but modern historians dispute this claim. Which is in the article and supported with a source. A criticism of the use of a wiki to create an encyclopaedia was that it would fill with folk wisdom and common misconceptions. This hasn't happened. (No one has tried updating the Manhattan Project articles after watching the TV show, thank heaven.) The summaries can't hold too many characters, and newbies are often unaware of the use of the talk pages. Another is that article writing seems to involve amassing the correct arguments to deal with your fellow Wikipedians. The blizzard of abbreviations probably won't mean much to a newbie. Nobody has violated WP:3RR, but WP:BITE definitely applies here. I would like to see some evidence of expertise from the newbie though. Hawkeye7 (talk) 12:54, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Additional question from Liz

6. Regarding Q#3, you answered Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? but not How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future? Could you speak on how you deal or diffuse conflicts with other editors and how this has evolved over your many years editing and admining Wikipedia? Thank you.

A: The easiest way to diffuse conflict is to take it to one of the fora where large numbers of editors can see it and weigh in with their own opinions. I prefer to resolve differences of opinion through discussion. I wrote an entire OpEd about this process, related to the article on Albert Kesselring, a German WWII field marshal. My English-language sources had cultural biases that needed to be addressed. The article is very popular, and got close to 100,000 views as TFA; but research is exhausting when you need to work through sources in German. Which is why I haven't written any more articles like that one. I did read through a book in French for another article though. Even when you can read the other languages, you may not be aware of the ongoing conversations about the subject. Over time I have became a lot more used to the way people communicate on Wikipedia. I hew closely to the subject and the facts. If I don't think that the other person can be reasoned with, I will walk away. Unwatch the page, and go do something else. One thing I regret doing was in the Robert Oppenheimer article. At some point, I resolved a conflict with an overly-clever wording that could be read both ways. People pointed out that this did the readers a disservice. Hawkeye7 (talk) 13:26, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Additional question from Ottawahitech

7. I see this on your user-page: To be a good Wikipedian, be respectful, overly combative. self-critical, vulnerable, hortatory, ambitious and analytical. Above all, to be a good Wikipedian, edit and create entries." - The Cunctator Would you please elaborate

A:

Additional question from Rubbish computer

8. You go onto RPP and notice the following page protection requests. How would you respond to each of these?

• A town, somewhere – Full protection - Vandalized 128 times in the last hour.
• Joe Bloggs, Sr. - Semi protection - Persistent edit warring between 6 users, most of them substantially experienced.
• Greenish (color) - Semi protection - Got vandalized by 2 different IPs on the same day.
• Crayons, Inc. - Creation protection - Unambiguous advertising speedy deleted 4 times in the past week, also no indication of notability.
• Internet vandalism - Move protection - Has been moved without consensus.
• nkdjvnbd - Creation protection: why create this random string of letters? (Has never been created.)
• Foo - Move protection - Persistent move warring between 4 autoconfirmed users.
• Graphic graphs- Semi protection - Vandalized by several IP-hopping vandals over the past month (but the two main constructive contributors are IPs, who have reverted most of the vandalism before anyone else.)

--Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 17:21, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

A:

Additional question from Gerda

9. Even if you say you would block only vandals, I would like to know how you feel about {{user talk before you block}} --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:35, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

A:

Discussion

RfAs for this user:

• Requests for adminship/Hawkeye7
• Requests for adminship/Hawkeye7 2
• Requests for adminship/Hawkeye7 2/Bureaucrat chat
• Requests for adminship/Hawkeye7 3

• Links for Hawkeye7: Hawkeye7 (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
• Edit summary usage for Hawkeye7 can be found here.

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

Support

1. Sure, why not? By the sounds of it the desysop was very harsh, a long time ago, and I'm not aware of any accusations of troublesome behaviour since. Reyk _YO! 08:50, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
2. I don't always agree with Hawkeye7's opinions on some divisive issues. But for me there is no doubt that he is deeply devoted to the project and has contributed to it significantly. And as an admin, although he made mistakes, the good far outweighed the bad. I thought it was a harsh decision to desysop at the time and since then I have been convinced the project would have been better off had he remained an admin. Jenks24 (talk) 08:54, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
3. Four years is long enough, whether you agree with the original desysop or not. His highly creditable result at the recent Arbitration Committee election shows he has been completely rehabilitated by the community. Hawkeye7 is a content creator par excellence and a doyen of Wikiproject Military history. He is a committed and clueful member of WP who wants the bit back so he can make our boat go faster. Good on him for putting his hand up. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:00, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
4. Support per no big deal. --MurderByDeletionism^"bang!" 09:02, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
5. Support I see no reason that Hawkeye shouldn't have the community's trust for these tools again. Sam Walton (talk) 09:04, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
6. Hawkeye7 was a better administrator than most of us; I trust he'll be so again. —Cryptic 09:20, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
7. Support We need more admins, and I don't see anything objectionable. PeterTheFourth (talk) 09:50, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
8. Support: I have worked with Hawkeye quite a bit over the past seven years I have been on Wikipedia and I am confident that he would be a net positive influence as an admin. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:17, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
9. Support I have only had positive experiences from Hawkeye's work on Wikipedia, they are an excellent content creator and have good sense when it comes to project issues. Four years is a long time and people change, a second chance with some forgiveness is in order. I am confident that giving the tools to Hawkeye would be a net positive to the project. Winner 42 Talk to me! 11:47, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
10. Four years is enough. —Kusma (t·c) 12:04, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
11. Support - hardworking, committed to WP, an excellent content record and experienced with admin tools. One black mark from 2012, which I'm sure won't be repeated. -- Euryalus (talk) 13:01, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
12. I've encountered the candidate several times over the years and am delighted that they are willing to pick up the mop again. ϢereSpielChequers 13:23, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
13. Support - no problems with understanding policy or communication, as evidenced by answers to the questions so far. A clear need for the tools (assembling DYK queues) has been given. Concerns raised in the original RfA (principally a lack of edit summaries) have long since been resolved. I have looked carefully over the Arbcom case, paying particular attention to specific diffs and their timing, and concluded their findings of fact on Hawkeye7 were wrong, his actions were justifiable and could be backed with policy, and that he should not have been desysopped. In particular I want to emphasise that unlike a number of desysopped admins, Hawkeye took it with good grace and has carried on editing. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:52, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
14. SQL^{Query me!} 14:01, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
15. Uncertain he deserved desysopping in the first place and feel recent ArbComs have been too harsh in desysopping with minimal process. In any event, he deserves the mop and certainly won't abuse it.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:14, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
16. Support. Elephant first: The desysop was harsh, and the action that led to it was out of character. But I opposed Hawkeye7 in the ArbCom elections as the ArbCom desysop would have been a bit like Damocles and the pointy thing, and I thought it needed to be properly addressed via RfA first. Now that it's happening, I'm happy to offer my support to Hawkeye7, who has amply demonstrated his knowledge and abilities, his commitment to the project, his help for newcomers, and his kindly attitude. Quite an easy support, actually, the more I think of it. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:00, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
17. Support Jianhui67 ^T★C 15:10, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
18. Support I remember the desysop and the circumstances surrounding it, and believe that Hawkeye has learned from both. I also trust HJ's judgement as nominator. Miniapolis 15:13, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
19. Support I'm going to park here, because of the DYK offer, in combination with his process knowledge. I will look a little deeper, but I will be highly surprised to move from here. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 15:18, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
20. Support - Good editor, and will likely make a good admin. Mistakes are in the past. Reaper Eternal (talk) 15:23, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
21. Absolute support - we've all done things we're not proud of. Deb (talk) 15:24, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
22. Support Four years is more than enough time to forgive past transgressions. Looks like a net positive to me. --Ahecht (TALK
    PAGE) 16:06, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
23. I was one of the arbitrators who voted for the desysop back in the day (my very first case, actually). It's time to make Hawkeye an admin again. Courcelles (talk) 16:25, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
24. Support per Deb - We all make mistakes here and we all (hopefully) learn from them, I can't recall ever seeing Hawkeye being in any drama .... Anyway the past is the past!, Great candidate, No issues, Good bloody luck! :) –Davey2010^Talk 16:42, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
25. Support I am not wholly happy about the answer to Q.5 - although I feel both hypothetical editors should receive warnings, the answer did not so stipulate - but that aside, Hawkeye was an excellent admin, discounting the admitted elephant in the room, and I would be happy to see him reinstated. --Anthony Bradbury^"talk" 17:08, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
26. Support Well, Courcelles is convincing ;) It's been a long time, and Hawkeye has done a lot of good work since then. Opabinia regalis (talk) 17:48, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
27. Support Per HJ Mitchell and Courcelles .A clear net positive.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 18:15, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
28. Support Obviously familiar with the tools and not likely to misunderstand how to use them; absent the desysop situation, I can't imagine a solid reason to oppose. Given the time since the desysop, and Hawkeye's consistent contributions to the project since then, I think he can move, and has moved, beyond that event. Nyttend (talk) 18:26, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
29. Support per WP:NETPOS and WP:NOBIGDEAL. I see no reason to not give admin rights to a trustworthy, long-term contributor such as Hawkeye. —  dainomite   18:56, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
30. Support as appears thoroughly suitable, including when the desysopping is taken into account. Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 18:59, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
31. Support One mistake years ago does not outweigh his other, considerable contributions. —BorgHunter (talk) 19:04, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
32. Support Call me biased but HJM's noms have proved to be worthwhile (and I don't need any more reasons to support). --QEDK (T 📖 C) 19:43, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
33. Support I have expressed concerns over a few things with Hawkeye7 directly but unreservedly I have great respect for them and their work at Military History. Regrettably I don't think I ever shared this with them at the time of expressing a few concerns but it was done as I would with any of my respected colleagues. The issue around the ArbCom desysop was quite some time ago and I would trust Hawkeye7 with the sysop tools. Mkdw^talk 19:47, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
34. Support Class455fan1 (talk) 21:03, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
35. Support has a clue and won't delete the main page. The problems are a few years old now so I'm confident that giving Hawkeye7 the bit will be a net positive for the project. Pichpich (talk) 22:23, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
36. Support I have no doubts that the candidate will make a good admin. Gap9551 (talk) 22:36, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
37. Support. I don't think we should hold a four-years-old brief lapse of judgement against Hawkeye. I'm quite certain he has learned his lesson and will not do that again. Biblio (talk) 22:42, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Oppose

1. I had front row seats for the Netball debacle that ultimately lead to the candidates first admonishment mentioned in the nomination statement. The issue for me was not just the involved block of the now banned editor, but the somewhat forgotten block of Thivierr for violating the 3rr (they didn't actually violate 3rr although edit warring was involved). Hawkeye wasinvolved in the Netball article[1] and with the other editor edit warring, including being involved in the edit war. I know this happened four years ago, but after Hawkeyes response to a question at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates/Hawkeye7/Questions#Questions from Beeblebrox where Hawkeye7 says he didn't consider himself involved, I feel he still doesn't understand WP:involved. I don't know if I could trust this editor with the block button despite them saying they will only use it for obvious vandalism. AIRcorn (talk) 10:19, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
2. Oppose: First, I don't find Hawkeye has no desire to become associated with high drama as an admin,... to be comparable or compatible with running for Arbcom. Second: the stewed koala comment does not appear to be a one-off, although it may have weighed in the desysop of Feb. 2012. Hawkeye7 had been admonished by arbcom 8 months prior to that for blocking an editor; in violation of WP:INVOLVED at a June 2011 case. I haven't researched further; but, when I weigh all this together and I feel I can not support. Sorry. — Ched :  ?  16:36, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

   What swung it for me was this comment from Eric : "I don't actually have a problem with Hawkeye's block, other than that he blocked for the wrong reason". Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:43, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

3. Oppose mainly per Ched. Intothatdarkness 18:06, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

General comments

• I really don't know what role forgiveness and rehabilitation play in RfA. We have plenty of other Wikipedians that we could hand the mop to that don't come with all this baggage. I'd feel silly supporting an otherwise eminent Wikipedian only to get stuck with regret like I did over Kevin Gorman. If it's time for Hawkeye7 to come back is it also time for Piotrus to get the mop again, too? They're both excellent contributors but is desysopping a deal-breaker? Chris Troutman (talk) 22:11, 25 January 2016 (UTC)