Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/MB

MB

The following discussion is preserved as a request for adminship that has been automatically placed on hold pending a decision as to the outcome. Please do not modify the text. The result of the discussion will be posted soon.

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (147/41/7); Scheduled to end 14:29, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Nomination

MB (talk · contribs) – It is my great pleasure to nominate MB for adminship. MB has been editing since 2015; I noticed him while monitoring NPP, and I don't ever remember declining a single tag. He also does a tremendous amount of categorization and gnoming, completing the small but essential maintenance necessary to keep our articles top quality. In particular, MB has a lot of technical skills working with templates and parameters; goodness knows we always need more technically-minded admins. A perusal of the discussions he's been involved in shows a lot of positive interactions, and he clearly demonstrates the levelheaded temperament that is essential for being a good administrator. Deletion discussions in particular can get very contentious, and his comments at AfD and RfD are always well thought out and helpful for coming to a clear consensus. It's my judgment that MB will make an excellent addition to the admin corps. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:57, 30 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Co-nomination statement

There had been a hiatus in leadership for a couple of years when MB, an established content provider, drafted a NPP newsletter early last year to call attention to the ever increasing backlog. What ensued from his energy was the creation of a solid coord team who together have now addressed around 50 long outstanding bugs in the Page Curation and have organized drives which have brought huge backlogs to their lowest level ever.

Through his own initiative with the Open Letter action to the WMF which garnered 444 signatories, he obtained the attention of the two most senior people in the WMF, the CEO and the CPTO, and set a new precedent for direct community dialogues with them and obtaining progress.

Most previous NPP coords have had the much needed extra tools to efficiently manage the important content control processes. Please join with Blade of the Northern lights, one of the earliest pioneers of modern NPP and support MB's need for the mop. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:29, 31 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept the nomination, with thanks to The Blade of the Northern Lights and Kudpung for their kind words. I have never edited for pay or other forms of compensation, and do not have any other accounts. MB 13:54, 1 January 2023 (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 have been involved at NPP for five years, becoming a coordinator last year. Being able to view deleted articles is very useful when looking into likely recreations of spam articles and it would be more efficient to be able to do this myself rather than having to contact an Admin. I would also be able help other NPPers out in the same way, as well as assign and remove the NPP and Autopatrol perms. The Redirect autopatrol is another pseudo-right that only an Admin can add or remove. I could also process CSDs, especially deletion of redirects holding up AFC moves to mainspace and PRODs placed by NPPers on new articles. All prior NPP coordinators have been Admins. MB 13:54, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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

A: One of my favorite articles is East German balloon escape. I found there was no article about it so I wrote it and it has received 20,000 views both times it ran on OTD. Fred Thomas (athlete) is another “missing article”; I say that because there so many articles on athletes with questionable notability yet this one didn’t exist until I wrote it two years ago. Kerima’s ethnicity was publicized inaccurately for promotional reasons decades ago making it look as if she was Algerian. Research uncovered the true story, and Google now says she’s French. Firoza Begum is an article I found at AfD and saved.

Beyond content, my best work for Wikipedia is in stepping in as coordinator at NPP last year to fill a void. MB 13:54, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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: Conflicts of course happen. I avoid acting impulsively/emotionally and usually try to cite a policy/guideline that supports my position first, and then if necessary try to get a consensus by starting a discussion. For example, when I remove overly promotional text, and it is restored multiple times, I’ll ask the user if they have a COI. They usually don’t respond and if they restore again, I just escalate to WP:COIN. MB 13:54, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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 questions from Casualdejekyll

4. The most important part of being an administrator, in my personal opinion, is judging consensus and closing discussions. Do you plan to be active in this area?

A: I have never closed any kind of deletion discussion and don’t plan to work in that area, preferring to just contribute to the discussions. I have formally closed some Move and Merge discussions and will continue to do that. I have informally closed some non-content discussions by implementing the proposals. MB 00:15, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

5. If so, do you have experience (i.e. past closures) you can point to in this area?

A: Talk:James Bryant House and Talk:The Centaurus are uncontroversial Merges.Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Capitalization in section headers that start with numbers is a policy MOS change I recently implemented after assessing there was consensus for the change. MB 00:15, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Optional question from Rschen7754

6. What are your views on how WP:BURDEN and WP:NEXIST should work in practice in the NPP process, while factoring in WP:BITE?

A:. In my monitoring of NPP related commentary at various discussion boards, I am well aware that some editors feel NPP accepts too many poor quality articles, while others feel our acceptance standards are too high. We need to try to navigate between these two positions as much as possible. Sometimes, we accept an article with no sources and tag it with {{sources exist}} if the subject is clearly noteable, particularly if it is otherwise well-written. I support that. Often, our judgment is that an article shouldn’t be in mainspace yet and we Draftify. I support that too. Making the process less WP:BITEY has been a focus of mine at NPP. I recently had NPP policy changed to delay draftification for at least an hour (from 15 minutes) from the last edit to give an editor more time to work on the article. I initiated changes to the draftify script to make it guide the reviewer to provide useful simple-language messages to the author about what improvements are needed, and I co-authored HELP:NPR, a new simple-language help page specifically for new users who have tried to create an article directly in mainspace. MB 00:21, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Optional question from Liz

7. While I have a positive opinion of you, MB, I am skeptical of candidates who answer Question #3 as you did. Conflict, or the pontential for conflict, is a big part of being an active administrator. If you are an active admin, it can happen daily. You can't have a leadership role like you've taken at NPP without encountering some disagreement with your decisions. Rather than saying you avoid conflict, I'd like you to answer with an actual incident of conflict that occurred and discuss how you handled it, whether it was a positive or a negative experience that you learned from. If you gain adminship, you can expect angry editors to show up on your User talk page and before supporting, I'd like to see how you have handled specific conflicts when they happen instead of reading about your philosophy of how one should handle conflict. Thank you for putting your name out there for consideration, I wish you good luck with this RfA process!

A: I am a coordinator at NPP, but not the boss, so I don’t really get to make decisions. I make proposals and try to convince people that they are worthwhile. There have been plenty of times I have been unsuccessful, but I don’t see that as direct conflict.

As a reviewer, there are disgruntled users all the time, it comes with the territory. I consider most of this indirect conflict as well, that comes in the form of ignoring our messages, reverting, recreating, moving articles back, and so on. This is just part of NPP and we just have to take it in stride.

Of course I have had editing conflicts of the type I believe you mean. A specific incidence can be seen here when I innocuously changed an image caption and was reverted and tersely warned. I responded that the OP was out-of-line, and you can read their response. Sensing it was pointless to continue, I sought to involve others to get a clear consensus and started this discussion (just as I said in Q3). I can’t say I learned anything from this; I already knew it is best to just disengage and get second/third/fourth opinions. MB 05:37, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Optional question from Ritchie333

8. Please can you explain this edit and how the changes to “north” and “south” are “typos” (which, to someone unfamiliar with Wikipedia, would mean words clearly incorrectly spelled)?

A: The changing of the dash in north-south is not a ‘typo’, but a MOS fix applied by Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes. The tool however does report these as "typo(s) fixed:" in the edit summary. It has been suggested that this be changed to "replacements made:" (requested in Phab:T293555), however this is a volunteer-maintained tool with no active maintainers. There are many other open but dormant tickets on more important AWB issues, so this is unlikely to be addressed anytime soon. MB 14:56, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Optional question from Ritchie333

9. I'm concerned about User talk:MB/Archive 16#I am still asking nicely, where there appears have been a dispute between Elinruby and Kudpung over something on your talk page, which I guess involves something you did. Can you give us your side of the story over what this is about, ideally with diffs so I can understand what's going on?

A: Draft:Jublains archeological site is an article copy/pasted directly into mainspace from fr:Site archéologique de Jublains by an editor who claims to be an experienced Wikipedia translator. I added a needs translation tag and did a little other cleanup. Over two hours later, I ran AWB on the article which made many valid changes and some the author took issue with. Then they started the discussion on my talk page, complaining that the translation tag was pointless because they are 'the only French translator active here', it shouldn’t have a orphan tag because it wouldn’t be an orphan “when I am done”, and just generally complaining in some rather offensive language about me “meddling” in their work-in-progress. This could all have been avoided if they had just worked in Draft or User space until “they were done”. About 11⁄2 hours after my last edit, another editor did move it to Draft with the edit summary “Move to Draft space until this article is in English. This is a live encyclopedia in English, available to the whole world”. It has remained there ever since. MB 01:14, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Optional question from RZuo

10. what's the correct procedure to handle "an objection to moving a page to draft ns"? is there something you should do to Draft:Henderson County Bridge now?--RZuo (talk) 13:01, 2 January 2023 (UTC) Note on the significance of Draft:Henderson County Bridge: (according to User:Mz7 below) MB moved the page to draft. User:Jonnythommy created Henderson County Bridge the second time. MB changed it to a redirect to draft, and then had it deleted for csdr2.[reply]
"A page may only be moved unilaterally to the draftspace a single time." so it's categorically wrong to do anything other than afd if anyone wants that article deleted. what is backdoor to deletion? this is it. RZuo (talk) 21:34, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A: (10a) NO article is moved to draft by New Page Reviewers without informing the creator of the reasons. That said, it very much depends on the state of the article. It also depends on who is objecting: The creator, an uninvolved editor, or a fellow reviewer, and in what manner they are making the objection. Draftification is a somewhat vague process that has been unofficially debated for a long time without any official consensus for a “correct procedure” having been pronounced following a site-wide RfC and documented as policy. The best route in most cases would probably be to open a discussion with the creator and explain in even more detail why the article has been draftified and why it does not comply with policy. What happens next depends on the creator's understanding of the situation. Once they realize that it will be sent to AFD if it is returned to mainspace without improvements, they usually turn their focus to making improvements.

(10b) There is nothing I or anyone should do right now. The draft hasn't been submitted. I note that if it were right now, it would not be accepted. The draft is one paragraph with no sources and no clear claim of notability. At present, it is worse than some article requests (see the entry for Houston Belt and Terminal Railway – it has a source). MB 04:52, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"If an editor raises an objection, move the page back to mainspace". "A page may only be moved unilaterally to the draftspace a single time."--RZuo (talk) 07:29, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Optional question from DaxServer

11. What would you say would be your not-so-best contributions (converse of Q2). How have you tried to remedy them?

A: . Unsurprisingly, the first articles I created. This is an early article from November 2015. I see there are things like bare urls, a dablink, wrong heading capitalization. A year later, I had a track record of much better articles and was made Autopatrolled. I went back in 2019 and expanded Jedediah Sanger about 10x, and took it to GA. I have similarly improved some of my other early articles, but none as extensively as this one. I believe they are all in decent shape now. MB 17:10, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Optional question from Barkeep49

12. Is there anything you'd like to say in regards to the concerns expressed in the oppose section about your deletion work? If not please do ignore this question but since the conventions of RfA (rightly I feel) discourage direct response I wanted to make sure you did have a place to respond if you wished. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:21, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A: Thank you for extending me this opportunity. Project "governance" is filled with minimum requirements and best practices, and they often differ significantly. WP:BEFORE, while recommended, is not a requirement (i.e. WP:POLICY). NPP is faced with many thousands of new articles every month, and has only a small number of active reviewers. It is a thankless job, and baseless accusations like this drive people away. We actually accept nearly 90% of the articles, but the other 10% is still a large number. It is simply not possible to follow every "best practice" and spend the time it would take to do a thorough search, and deal with paywalls and language translations. NPPers are not obligated to do the research that should have been done by the author. We have to use our best judgment and make decisions quickly. NPP should be considered triage – accept or not. If not, we utilize all the deletion processes, draftification, redirecting, and merging as appropriate. Every one of these is subject to some form of community review. CSDs are reviewed by an Admin. Everything else can be contested by anyone, and they often are. Sending articles to AFD actually provides the most visible opportunity for community input, so I don’t see it as a "last resort" at all; it is often the best way to reach a consensus determination about an article that will "stick". Because there is no abuse of policy, there is no real need to oppose or cast doubt on my knowledge and use of the NPP processes or claim that I am likely to abuse the admin tools. I am firmly on the side of new users who in good faith want to create articles (that are suitable), but the burden must be left to the creator to write the article, and write it to minimum standards. I know some people will not like this answer, while most NPPers will probably think "right on". As I said in a different answer, we get accused of being both too strict and too lenient. If you want to please all the people all the time, you shouldn’t be in NPP. MB 00:29, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Optional question from HouseBlaster

13. How does your answer to Q10 relate to WP:DRAFTOBJECT (which is technically on a {{supplement}})?

A: Articles created by new editors that are steered to use AFC are not accepted unless they demonstrate notability with sources. Sometimes, when their articles are declined, they move or copy/paste them to mainspace on their own. Other more savvy editors know they can bypass AFC and create articles that would never be accepted at AFC directly in mainspace. These all come to NPP. If we find they have some potential, they are commonly moved to draftspace, with information on how to improve them such that they would be acceptable. Some editors ignore all the advice and just put it back without any improvement whatsoever, sometimes multiple times with slightly different titles in an attempt to avoid scrutiny. At this point, there are few options. BLAR may be a possibility in some cases. That can remove the inadequate article from mainspace, but does so more “bluntly” than draftification. We can send it to AFD, which has been pointed out is already overburdened. AFD is appropriate for articles without potential. But these are articles that we think could become acceptable (although not definitely), having been draftified once. Moving them back to draft is appropriate to afford the author the ability to improve them. There are editors willing to give feedback to help develop these articles. Yes, Draftobject says that not to do this, but that was written based on a few short discussions between a few editors and is not the result of any well attended RFC sufficient to make it a policy. I believe double-drafting is appropriate in some cases with editors whose actions do not show any good faith willingness to adhere to basic policies like WP:N and WP:V. A second draftification can get them to take notice and start communicating. This is an area that needs discussion, clarity, and an actual policy. “Double-draftification” has never been discussed in any depth anywhere and a consensus never pronounced. MB 05:47, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Optional question from Vanamonde93

14. Are you willing to avoid unilaterally deleting articles under speedy deletion criteria, with exceptions for copyvio and attack pages? That is, only deleting a page if someone else has tagged it, and otherwise tagging it yourself but not deleting? I find it a helpful practice myself, and it would (I hope) address some of the opposers' concerns. Vanamonde (Talk) 03:53, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A: Absolutely, and as most of my time is taken up with the coordination of NPP, and preparing material for the meetings with the WMF on the design of the new landing page and interactive Article Wizard. I don’t have time to do much reviewing myself or working the admins’ CSD backlog. I need the admin tools more for checking deleted pages when they are brought up in edge-case claims of wrong deletion.

As a professional software engineer working in an industry where system outages were not just inconveniences, but could cost lives. It was mandatory that any change, no matter how trivial, be reviewed by another engineer. I am very much of the mindset of not acting unilaterally. Every tag I have placed, whether CSD/PROD/AFD/etc. was done knowing that it was not actionable on its own – there would always be at least one other person to affirm or deny my “proposal”. I have no desire to circumvent that even if I could. In fact, I have been brainstorming ways to change the NPP process such that two reviewers look at articles selected for various treatment to ensure there is a “mini-consensus” within NPP before moving to delete or accept an article. MB 12:03, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Optional question from Barkeep49

15. What obligations do you feel an admin (or other tool holder) has when they make an error with the tools that impacts dozens or even hundreds of pages? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:49, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A: I suppose that would depend on the nature/seriousness of the error. In general, they should try to fix the error first and if for some reason they were unable to do so on their own, seek help. I can't think offhand of any new admin tools I would have access to that could cause such a problem, at least not in the work I would be doing. MB 03:40, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Optional question from John Cline

16. Would you be willing to modify your custom signature so as to include a link to your talk page in it? Please elaborate regarding why you would or would not be willing to implement such a change. Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 22:58, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A: I would be willing to modify my signature to include a talk page link. I prefer simple signatures, and I have added some color to mine so I could more easily see my own comments in discussions. If adding a talk page link would save someone a click, I could do so. For the record, no one has ever asked me to. MB 03:48, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Optional question from Adumbrativus

17. Do you have any comment you would like to make regarding how you dealt with the dispute at Help:Unreviewed new page discussed below by Extraordinary Writ? Adumbrativus (talk) 10:19, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A:

Optional question from Novem Linguae

18. How often do you perform WP:BEFORE when nominating an article for deletion?

A: When reviewing new articles, it is often necessary to search for sources when the ones present, if any, are inadequate to determine notability. I do this all the time. I have even accepted articles with no sources on occasion and added a {{sources exist}} tag - obviously I did a before. I almost always do searching before sending articles to AFD. In my answer to Q12, I said spend the time it would take to do a thorough search. Perhaps the word “thorough” should have been emphasized. What I meant was that it is not reasonable given the volume and time constraints at NPP to be expected to always do a thorough enough search that would find every source later dug-up by others at AFD. “Before” searching is an art with lots of variability. Different people will find different sources. Even with the same sources, different people will reach different conclusions about their reliability and depth of coverage. Some good faith nominations will close as keep and that happens to everyone.

There are exceptions. I will use Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Replacement (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) from Oppose#4 as an example. It could appear by looking at the discussion that this was a sloppy nomination. However, the complete story is that this 15-year old article was tagged with {{notability}} since 2014 and had no references (other than ELs), was BLARed as NN, and then un-BLARED which put it in the NPP queue as a “new” article. I looked at the history and saw there was a long-standing question on notability, and that two established editors had a recent disagreement and I sent it to AFD to get a wider consensus to resolve the matter. Isn’t that an appropriate use for AFD? We tend not to have discussions about notability on article talk pages. MB 18:43, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Optional question from TonyBallioni

19. As this has become a contentious RfA, I'm using this question to give you the opportunity to respond to any of the concerns raised as you see fit without getting into a back and forth with anyone in the voting sections. Completely optional, but think its a courtesy we should offer people

A:.

Discussion

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

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

Support

I have not interacted with the candidate directly, but I often see them around, and I don't have any concerns regarding their behaviour. Their content creation is good, they are civil, and seem to have a good temper. The only thing for me is their rare participation in technical aspects of Wikipedia, but this is not a big issue. —usernamekiran (talk) 14:33, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly, I will post a rationale in neutral section in a few hours. —usernamekiran (talk) 21:02, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support – some of the best have come from NPP (yes, I am biased when it comes to NPP) but there is no denying this candidate is among our best. To say MB is qualified would be an understatement. Adminship is a no-brainer. Atsme 💬 📧 14:42, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
+1 to everything you said. —usernamekiran (talk) 17:56, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I have seen them around NPP, and particularly the proactive open letter regarding NPP's dire need of maintenance and support from WMF. I would like to hear your feedback, as a veteran editor on how documentation for transcluding/substituting templates could be easier. I saw you struggled a bit earlier with transcluding this RfA. It is in no a deal breaker/concern for me, because I trust you to be cautious with tools you are not familiar with, when acting in mod capacity. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 14:48, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Reaffirming my support. The opposes are thoughtful, but I am concerned what kind of message this sends. NPP is largely thankless work, and it is much easier to sit on the high-chair and nitpick a few of the thousands of speed decisions MB has made, but the direction of this RfA has a chilling effect on people stepping up to NPP or volunteering for adminship altogether. In short, thank you for volunteering and for putting through this. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 01:40, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support A good candidate who will make an excellent admin. The editor has a very solid grasp of policies and has done excellent work at NPP. scope_creep^Talk 14:50, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Reaffirming support in the light of more recent opposes. The oppose side, seem to be looking for a saint which is worrysome as I see virtually no evidence of wrongdoing and nothing that would stop the editor being an excellent admin. This is an individual who processes articles at scale as part of the NPP group, the type of process where there is bound to be edge cases, that at best, are fringe. scope_creep^Talk 15:46, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support looks good. — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 14:59, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, precious --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:09, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, amazing editor. _signed,511KeV ^(talk) 15:23, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support no concerns. Sarrail (talk) 15:26, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Minorax^«¦talk¦» 15:31, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support No concerns and an amazing editor. Thingofme (talk) 15:32, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support No objections. Good luck! --Vacant0 (talk) 15:32, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
— Trey Maturin™ 15:37, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support net positive.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 15:46, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support as co-nom. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:56, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support LGTM NW1223<Howl at me•My hunts> 16:16, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Trustworthy editor, trustworthy noms. Will be an even bigger help with the mop. Miniapolis 16:32, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
* Pppery * _{it has begun...} 16:38, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Great work at NPP, not worried about their AfD match rate; arguments show good understanding of the process even when in the minority. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:40, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support no problems. Sheep (talk • he/him) 16:48, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support per noms. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:51, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - No issues. Comr Melody Idoghor (talk) 16:51, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. A prolific and accurate problem-fixer with good uses lined up for the tools. Enough content creation to satisfy those who consider that important. Certes (talk) 17:12, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. The new year only minutes old; this sort of candidate is a good portent for the days ahead. Fully qualified. BusterD (talk) 17:16, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support No issues, net positive. -Kj cheetham (talk) 17:20, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nom. Zsinj^Talk 17:24, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 17:45, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Reaffirming my support. Being a NPP reviewer means that you PROD and tag more articles for speedy deletion, therefore it would be impossible to have no sub-optimal noms for any user. Regarding the blanking-and-redirect case that Sdrqaz brought up, I found that the right course of action for that situation was never discussed. So I will do so here. The draft in question: it has no sources, and the subject name in the body of the article contradicts with the title. This is clearly not ready for mainspace, so MB moved it to draft space. The author then does a cut-and-paste move to mainspace. I find this to be an obvious case of gaming the system. According to the "NPP guidelines" (not a real policy or guideline), you are not supposed to move it back to draft space if the page author objects to it. But we can't waste editor's time by putting it through AfD or PROD on pages that required little effort to create. (The draft in question had most of its information copied from this page, and it is easy to mass-create pages from databases like those) Looking at the talk page and contributions of the user who created the draft, it is very likely that the user would not be actively working on the page where they could be adding the sources shortly after, so I believe it was fine to do what MB did.

I totally agree with what Bduke said that adminship is no big deal, and I don't really care if an RfA candidate is a deletionist or inclusionist if it is not at the point where their regular admin actions would be influenced by this sort of belief. (e.g. WP:SUPERVOTE or invalid rejection/deletion in response to CSD tag) This RfA was always an easy decision for me: I see a candidate that would clearly help the project as an admin as they have shown with their contributions to the project, so I support. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 15:09, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: Great nom statements, looks like a swell editor. May this new year bring more great candidates like MB. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:04, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I think MB will be a helpful administrator. Schazjmd (talk) 18:05, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Fully qualified candidate, who has taken on an important role. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:49, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Net positive. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 18:51, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: yes. jp×g 18:56, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. As a fellow NPP coordinator, I've worked closely with MB and I have every confidence he'd do a great job as an admin. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:00, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Impressive work, level-headed, and no concerns after reviewing their contributions. Best of luck! Lord Roem ~ (talk) 19:01, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. MB has done excellent work in managing NPP, and I am certain he will bring those skills to the administrative side. The Night Watch (talk) 19:07, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - gladly, net asset to the project, no issues.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 19:43, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Happy New Year and Best of Everything to You and Yours! P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^put'r there 19:45, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Volten001 ^☎ 19:47, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support as the nominator, of course. Sorry for the delay, my day hasn't quite gone as planned. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:53, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Good way to start 2023. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 19:55, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support A definite plus for the project. No concerns about being entrusted with administrator tools. — Archer1234 (talk) 20:01, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - A perfect fit for the job: trustworthy, competent, good disposition. Thank you for volunteering. Netherzone (talk) 20:53, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - the wub "?!" 21:44, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Not a jerk, NOBIGDEAL. Excellent work at NPP. Additionally, it seems we are averaging 1 RfA candidate/day in 2023. Maybe we can keep this up? House Blaster^talk 21:44, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
DanCherek (talk) 21:55, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Looks good to me. -- Kicking222 (talk) 22:30, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support—I believe we would benefit greatly from having this editor as an administrator. Kurtis ^(talk) 22:56, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Reaffirming my support in light of the opposes. While I think MB could stand to be a little less eager to nominate articles for deletion, I don't see the examples listed as egregious enough to preclude him being granted adminship at this time. Kurtis ^(talk) 10:53, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support All of my interactions with this editor have been positive, and will make good use of the tools. Mdewman6 (talk) 22:57, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Leijurv (talk) 23:07, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, this is exactly the sort of nomination that gets 2023 off to the right start. BD2412 T 23:15, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Elli (talk | contribs) 23:40, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, no concerns. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:03, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I trust these noms, and anyone who does that much for NPP deserves our unending gratitude. Toadspike (talk) 00:12, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I have interacted with and seen MB a few times over the past year and have never once seen anything problematic in any way. I think having this editor as an administrator would be a benefit for Wikipedia. - Aoidh (talk) 00:23, 2 January 2023 (UTC) 'crat clerking note, Aoidh has moved to neutral, keeping this here for record-keeping. Primefac (talk) 21:06, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've also interacted with MB numerous times, and I've found him to be exactly the kind of editor we need as an administrator. I do not think opponents' comments below provide enough evidence to counterbalance MB's positive qualities. Even though he has !voted in favor of deletion in most of the XFDs where he participated, his !votes largely align with the outcomes of these discussions, and his rationales tend to be well-reasoned, Although I may not be a deletionist myself, I feel like giving MB the tools would be positive for Wikipedia, and not giving him the tools would be a net negative for the project. –Epicgenius (talk) 00:51, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to reaffirm my support as well. I am not as concerned by his response to question 12 as other !voters are. Instead, I see his response (which reads, in part, "Sending articles to AFD actually provides the most visible opportunity for community input, so I don’t see it as a 'last resort' at all; it is often the best way to reach a consensus determination about an article that will 'stick'") as rather reasonable. I understand that some editors may not like the fact that an article is nominated for deletion without a WP:BEFORE search. However, unless MB plans to use the tools to unilaterally delete articles without discussion, or unless MB has had a particularly bad track record with his nominations, his interpretation of WP:BEFORE is not a deal-breaker for me. I do not see either situation being the case here (oppose !voters have singled out some nominations, but they are a small proportion of the overall number of nominations he has made). – Epicgenius (talk) 14:06, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Tol (talk | contribs) @ 01:13, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support An NPP veteran who would be an asset with the tools. Looking forward to passing the baton. ^Complex/_Rational 01:57, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I've had amazing interactions with them and have full confidence in their ability to understand Wikipedia's PAGs. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 02:25, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support mostly on the basis of the noms and the user's talkpage as an "Administrator without tools". I'm willing to revise this for now if the current oppose proves to show a pattern. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 02:37, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 02:38, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support No reason to think this user would abuse the tools --rogerd (talk) 02:39, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not a jerk, has a clue. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:52, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Per my comment on MB's talk page. — Wug·a·po·des — Preceding undated comment added 03:24, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Has a clue, not a jerk, no big deal — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 03:38, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Why not? -FASTILY 03:42, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support MB is an editor who has done lots to help around the site, especially NPP, and would greatly benefit from the tools! echidnaLives - talk - edits 04:02, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen the comments in the oppose section, and wanted to reaffirm my support. I believe, while there may be minor issues in terms of deletion, this doesn't take away from the terrific work the candidate does in NPP and surrounding areas. When you look at the past 3 months in their CSD log, the only blue links are ones that have been recreated or redirected. Looking at the PROD log, it's pretty much the same, with a few exceptions, which aren't enough for me to think differently and were long enough ago to ignore. While their XfD stats lean towards delete a lot of the time, these are often correct, as Epicgenius says above, being correct 77.8% of the time, which is an outstanding statistic.

At the end of the day, this is a trusted user, who would do well from the tools. I'm sure they'll be extremely cautious when using the mop, and will take time to learn and become familiar with the toolset that comes with being an administrator. I hope that more editors will support this excellent contributor, and I wish MB luck as we go into the final ~60 hours of this RfA! Thanks, echidnaLives - talk - edits 01:00, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support MB is good at both teamwork (i.e. discussions) as well as solo work. I've noticed MB being polite in situations where a less competent editor might either blow up or avoid the discussion altogether. Should make a good admin. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 04:23, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support solid experience and thoughtful answers to questions. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 04:37, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support – trustworthy, good content creation, has a plan for the tools. Aza24 (talk) 05:36, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. No concerns. ––FormalDude (talk) 06:11, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Good tenure, good edit count, impressive hat collection and barnstar collection. Is obviously competent to use the tools. -- œ^™ 08:23, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Looks good. - SUN EYE 1 08:40, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I may sound like a broken record, but I thought MB was admin already. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contribs)} 09:30, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Banks Irk (talk) 15:51, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
~~Support~~. I trust the nominee to know their limits and use caution with the tools. casualdejekyll 16:31, 2 January 2023 (UTC) Moved to Oppose.[reply]
Support. Supremely qualified. Plus full confidence that Blade would have done their homework.--RegentsPark (comment) 16:47, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support No concerns, and I find the three (at the time of my support) opposes unconvincing.Intothat darkness 17:04, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Reaffirming my support, and also like the answer to Q12. Like it or not, articles are often only improved once they hit AfD. I still have no concerns and remain unpersuaded by opposes. Intothat darkness 20:31, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Despite the opposes, I think MB will be a net positive as an admin. ceranthor 17:10, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - trustworthy editor. PhilKnight (talk) 17:27, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Anyone looking to have more "simple-language messages" would be a good addition to the admin group. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 17:29, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support LGTM. JPG-GR (talk) 17:33, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: This is one of the easiest support votes I've ever cast. They're an incredibly valuable contributor and I have zero concerns trusting them with the admin tool set. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:24, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support noting concerns raised by opposing editors, but believing that editors do not need to be perfect before becoming admins. Mccapra (talk) 18:31, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support If not MB, then who? I have no concerns. ─ The Aafī (talk) 18:51, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - no real concerns, despite the opposes. Giant Snowman 18:58, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Three opposes at this time of this support have no merit. First user, a former IP, brings up not considering redirects over PRODs. Okay, whatever. I'll have a side of toast with that. Second user clearly has an axe to grind and is upset. Which, frankly, ARS is typically a very battlefield kind of crowd and everyone is exhausted with their tactics - it's like a hit and run. Third, we're denying admin because a user once changed a new article to a redirect to a draft article and then nominated it for deletion 3 hours later? Come on people! RFA already sucks, we don't need to find trivial matters to screw with candidates. And let's be honest, we don't have a rush of new candidates coming to RfA in droves that we can be this picky. @MB: Curious, do you cough into your hand or your elbow? Just want to make sure there are no more trivial skeletons in your closet that someone might oppose over.--v/r - T P 19:09, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Minimizing my oppose with your silly soliloquy is unbecoming of an administrator. And saying my valid concerns are axe grinding is a form of PA. I said just such a thing in the past and was forced to strike it or risk a block. The fact that some volunteers have their concerns on wikipedia marginalized and scoffed at is evidence of a problem with the project. How about just carry on with your rubber stamp party wthout diminishing other volunteers. Lightburst (talk) 19:19, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Please stop spreading ad-hominems around RfA. Other people have been banned by Arbcom for it in the past.--v/r - T P 19:45, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - When I see MB edits in my watchlist, I know I don't have to worry about them. Frankly I am glad to see someone becoming an Admin who seems less interested in many of the Admin powers and responsibilities. MB's answers above are also confidence inspiring. (Tparis: I fully agree with you, but remember, we were all IPs once!) Mr.choppers | ✎ 19:29, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: great content creations and evidently competent. My main criterion is temperament and I've seen no issues—including some calm responses to deliberately aggressive or aggravating comments. I have no more interest in their AfD "vote accuracy" than in their IQ or star sign: all are terrible as indicators of anything. Spotchecking some AfD comments shows they are sensible and founded in policy. We should be more than happy to help everyone who works at NPP in any way we can. I'm delighted to see the current backlog size—let's keep it that way! — Bilorv (talk) 19:40, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support – Seen them around and they have been consistently civil and level-headed. Experienced and a good addition. Ovinus (talk) 19:42, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: I'm pretty sure I had an interaction or two between them and they were all positive - no concerns from me. --Harobouri • 🎢 • 🏗️ (he/him) 19:45, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Terasail ^[✉️] 20:06, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Has a clue, works in good faith, makes this project a better place. The concerns brought up are isolated cases and not enough for me to vote against. MX (✉ • ✎) 20:10, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support great help in proposing and implementing useful measures for new page patrol Atlantic306 (talk) 20:39, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support will be a net positive to the project. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 20:52, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - No reason not to. Garion96 (talk) 21:17, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Many Admins I resepct say yes, so do I. - FlightTime (open channel) 21:51, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I had an old account for 6 years and I was a frequent editor on it, and I have seen this user around a lot. They are a very kind, experienced, and helpful person, I personally see no reason to oppose them. Signed Plantman (talk) 21:59, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Solid editing history and great work at NPP. Hughesdarren (talk) 22:44, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support There are a couple of opposes by editors I respect but I do not find them wholly convincing. Black Kite (talk) 00:08, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. While most of my interactions with this user have been negative, Wikipedia wise this canadite knows the functions.`~HelpingWorld~`^(👽🛸) 01:11, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Satisfactory answer to the question by Barkeep. I agreed that NPP is a triage, not the final arbiter of the deletion process, and sending something to AFD is not a "wrong" process. ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 02:18, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@SunDawn completely agreed. And I am nothing but grateful to Mb's work in NPP and for volunteering to run. I hope more people are inspired to join WP:NPP and that Mb also takes the concerns here seriously and takes more care with AfD nominations, particularly when people present additional sources or make WP:HEY improvements. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 02:29, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The response to question 12 alleviates the concerns raised by the opposers in my view. Curbon7 (talk) 03:14, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Not a jerk, has a clue. Oppose rationales taking issue with PROD and AfD are nitpicking processes that are lossy by design. Objections to MB's CSD tagging ignore evidence of gaming the system and blatant NOTHERE, promotional editing by the creators of the content in question. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 05:50, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. It is refreshing to see the response to Question 12. NPP is a thankless task, made more difficult by people who can't be bothered doing the work but are more than happy to criticize those who do. I find the candidate's contributions and communications skills to be satisfactory. Risker (talk) 07:10, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I was already planning to support based on the username alone; the Q12 response only affirmed my feelings. Just to touch on the PROD issue, obviously it's impossible to know for certain ahead of time that no one would oppose your PROD (PROD must only be used if no opposition to the deletion is expected), but a quick skim through their PROD log shows that they're getting it right most of the time. Plus, the criteria for admins on deletion or not is pretty set, either it meets the PROD criteria and it's deleted, or it doesn't and it's kept. Legoktm (talk) 07:29, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support (EC). Per the discussions above re: PROD, NPP, etc. JoelleJay (talk) 07:32, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I've been mulling over whether or not I should say anything in this RfA, and if so, what. I had a look at some of MB's stats before the opposes came in; I noticed a couple of AfDs started that had closed as "keep", but I thought only one was seriously egregious, and only then because a participant asked MB to reconsider their !vote after the article was improved, to which they didn't respond. I also saw the A7 on a redirect that was quickly self-reverted - that in itself is not reason to oppose. So I don't really agree with SoWhy that these are egregious examples showing a lack of trust; admins are allowed to make silly mistakes occasionally, provided they recognise them and don't dig their heels in. And per the answer to Q12, NPP is a thankless task and no matter how good a job you do on it, people will find your one mistake and lambast you about it. I asked my two questions because they arose from incidents on MB's talk that he appeared to have left talk page stalkers to deal with, so I couldn't determine how he responded to conflict directly. However, I found lots of other examples where MB was polite and helpful to people. If I had to give one piece of advice to MB it would be - always, always err on the side of good faith when dealing with users; even if you are convinced they are part of the biggest spam-writing sock farm Wikipedia has ever seen, as an administrator it really is worth keeping the peace and not giving anyone ammunition. I realise this is more a "support because I can't think of a convincing enough reason to oppose", but that's basically how I feel about this. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 11:37, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Reaffirming support in the light of more recent opposes. The content dispute at Help:Unreviewed new page and related talk page discussion is sub-optimal, but I don't think MB is most at fault there; if a user sees an admin and a former admin having a blazing argument and decides "well if that's the level of discourse we've got, I'll pitch it at that", it's a relatively marginal case. If MB was in a dispute with a new / inexperienced user and that user was being unfailingly polite, then that would indeed be suitable grounds to oppose. As it is however, I think it's not quite enough to convince me that MB cannot act with the appropriate decorum for administrators when necessary. As I said before, I'm on the fence, so I can easily see why people might have a different view, and I would urge people to just let others have their say on this and avoid any appearance of badgering, however justifiable it might seem. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 12:21, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
$Salvio$ 13:53, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support My only concern about this candidate is that MB's actions will be closely scrutinised by the opposers and they will need to keep themselves squeaky-clean in order to avoid that flak that many of us get for making the odd mistake when we are trying to carry out our role diligently. Deb (talk) 13:55, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, a hardworking candidate. zoglophie 14:28, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support as per Ritchie333. --TadejM ^{my talk} 14:31, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. They have a demonstrable (if weak) contribution history of content, and I find their answers insightful and reasoned, which pushes me to support. Additionally, BEFORE isn't a requirement for AfDs and I'm supporting partially on the basis that the candidate is right and opposers are dead wrong on that point. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 14:32, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support MB has a proven track record, the vast majority of which displays good judgment. No concerns on my part. Girth Summit _(blether) 14:37, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Pretty weak arguments to oppose, IMO. Nigej (talk) 15:14, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: MB has worked in difficult areas and has made some people angry. No one who works in such areas can get things done and completely avoid that. If New pages patrol had more workers and more support, certainly some things could be done better, but as it is, we must navigate between doing it perfectly and preventing overwhelming garbage from getting into Wikipedia. Give him the mop, so he can do the good work he's doing better. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 16:24, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I don't see any major issue that should prevent MB being an effective admin. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 17:04, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Handing this editor a mop seems a net gain. As others have noted, use caution with deletion. VQuakr (talk) 18:32, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support thanks for volunteering to work on Wikipedia! jengod (talk) 18:34, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: I hardly ever take part in RfAs (for exactly the same reason why I don't want to undergo one, either!), but I chanced upon MB's answer to Q.12, and it resonated with my experience of NPP so much so that I wanted to cast my !vote in support. --DoubleGrazing (talk) 19:18, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: After reviewing our interactions, I found some borderline articles that he tried to improve rather than CSD or PROD. So I think he is not so much of a deletionist from my perspective. I did not see any that suggest a strong desire to wanting to delete. HandsomeBoy (talk) 19:40, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support We are editors. Editing includes culling and pruning as necessary. It is only when editors are willing to do that job that readers get a better encyclopedia. They are capable and willing to wield the mop and it's time we trust them with it. 21:14, 3 January 2023 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Slywriter (talk • contribs)
Support. For as long as I can remember (which is a very long time in wiki-years), taking part in deletion processes can be the kiss of death at RfA. I've carefully read the opposes. A lot of them are thoughtful, but I'm seeing disagreements about inclusion philosophy more than (in my opinion) about competence to follow policy and not make it up on the go. The candidate has stepped up and done good work in an area of need, and fellow NPP editors regard the candidate's work very positively. So I'm coming down as a support. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:59, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
support per Tryptofish--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:35, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Definitely a plus as the individual responsible for creating the NPP open letter. Musashi1600 (talk) 23:55, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support per clue, competent and no big deal. And what Tryptofish writes is to the point. Gog the Mild (talk) 23:57, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support cause nobody is perfect --Höyhens (talk) 01:57, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support MB is a very experienced and competent editor. Many of the editors in the oppose section are focusing on a small handful of questionable actions and blowing them out of proportion. Partofthemachine (talk) 03:16, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Somewhat hesitant support. I reviewed all the discussions listed in the oppose section below. I'm not too happy with those diffs, in particular with some of the PROD tags; I do think there were obvious redirect targets that were missed, which suggest a slapdash approach. And the answer to question 12 isn't reassuring in this respect. I would have liked to have seen at least a little self-reflection there. However, I believe the issue is being overblown in the oppose section. It's rather unfair to ding the candidate on every AfD that was closed "merge" or "redirect"; SoWhy's argument imply, perhaps without meaning to, that some of those AfDs are policy-violations by virtue of having been closed with a consensus to merge, which simply isn't correct. Merge targets aren't obvious, multiple targets may be possible, or AfD participants may think of a creative solution that the nom didn't see. And that's okay; editors aren't expected to be perfect. Furthermore; while my personal view is that there should be very good reason not to do a minimal WP:BEFORE, we cannot deny the community isn't of one mind on this issue, and I don't find it reasonable to oppose the candidate based on that. I see a candidate with a demonstrated track record of helpful contributions to Wikipedia, and one who will in all likelihood be a WP:NETPOSITIVE with the tools. I also give some weight to the nominators, who have extensive experience with NPP. Vanamonde (Talk) 03:50, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Per noms, Netherzone, Bilorv, Legoktm, Rosguill, User:SchreiberBike and Tryptofish. Donner60 (talk) 04:22, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. A good candidate who will make an excellent admin. --Bduke (talk) 05:50, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support per the candidate's answer to Q12; it is simple incontrovertable fact that there is no community consensus to make WP:BEFORE a hard requirement. Editors who believe otherwise should seek an RFC to establish that fact, rather than trying to scuttle AFDs over it. I urge the closing bureaucrat to disregard any !vote that solely states this interpretation of WP:BEFORE and the candidate's answer to B12 as a reason for opposition, since any opposition based on that is groundless due to overtly misstating policy and community consensus regarding it. --Aquillion (talk) 06:04, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Anyone regularly involved in deletion discussions is bound to have critics. Nobody is perfect. Overall, a net positive contributor. utcursch | talk 07:24, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Looks good to me, satisfied with the responses.—*Fehufangą (✉ Talk · ✎ Contribs) 10:49, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
support good candidate, some of their first edits are still current 2006toyotacorrola (talk) 13:35, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I'm impressed by their NPP work and AfD stats, and they generally seem to have a level head on their shoulders. After reading discussion in Oppose votes below, I don't believe that any concerns raised are serious enough to warrant opposing. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:45, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Satisfied with responses and the pragmatism. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:07, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Many opposes seem to be interpreting the candidate's attitude as "I just send articles to AfD without spending a second on looking for sources, I don't care, it's not against the rules"; I don't think that is his attitude in reality. Searching for sources can range from entering it into a search engine to doing a lot of work (MB specifically said a thorough search is not feasible to always do), and speculation that no search was carried out is just speculation. I think some of the negative characterisation in the oppose section has led MB to give an overly defensive answer to Q12. I don't really see something to suggest the candidate cannot be trusted with the admin tools. PJvanMill)talk( 19:35, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The opposes point out some definitely concerning edits but I think the candidate will be a net positive. Making mistakes or having a different opinion on WP:BEFORE doesn't mean someone will be a bad admin. Especially with their answer to Q14, I don't see any mistakes he might make as an admin causing any significant harm, and I see a lot of good in an active NPPer being able to admin. Galobtter (pingó mió) 20:27, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Per Tryptofish, Partofthemachine, utcursch. --JBL (talk) 21:33, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support absolutely suitable, a really valuable member of the NPP team and would be a good addition to the admin group Josey Wales^Parley 21:55, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Clearly a strong candidate. Eusebeus (talk) 22:02, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support MB does great work at NPP, and access to the admin tools would help them be more effective in this work. MrsSnoozyTurtle 22:04, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Benefit-of-the-doubt support. MB has my respect and appreciation for their work at NPP, and editing history more generally. That said, the issues articulated by Sdrqaz, SoWhy (including his response to Kudpung in the discussion below Oppose #7), and Ivanvector are significant and concerning for someone who could be interpreting deletion policy and judging consensus in deletion discussions. As a result, I was set to oppose. However, I understand why MB has taken such shortcuts (Q12) and am reassured by the answer to Q16 and the fairly restricted use for the sysop bit proposed in the answer to Q1, and so am willing to extend benefit of the doubt and support. Martinp (talk) 03:10, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support along the lines of Ritchie333 and Vanamonde93. MB does excellent WP:NPP work and my interactions with them has been positive. They also have solid mainspace editing and 2 GAs. That said, the oppose said raises valid concerns regarding WP:BEFORE and WP:ATD considerations regarding some AfDs and CSD taggings and the draftification and R2 requests. IMHO some of these AfDs and draftifications are not ideal, with the latter potentially being in a grey area. They have also made a fair number of obvious mistakes regarding CSD tagging, though many of those are promptly self-reverted and thus not a major concern IMHO. Moreover, MB's replies in the discussion Extraordinary Writ highlighted is also not the best. While I am an occasional WP:NPP reviewer and could emphathise with the answers to Q13 and Q12, I don't agree with 100% the viewpoints, especially the ones on WP:BEFORE. Nevertheless, IMHO those are mostly minor and not egregious enough for an oppose. Overall, MB's participation on AfDs is still decent, with a passable match record in the 70s range, and makes reasonable and policy-based arguments, even when they are in the minority. Therefore, while the concerns are valid, IMO MB would be still be mostly a WP:NETPOS if given the tools, so I would support with hesitation and benefit of the doubt that they would be appropriately cautious with the delete button should this RfA be successful, which is partially reassured by the answer to Q14. Thanks. VickKiang (talk) 06:54, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - New Page Patrolling is difficult and MB does the job well. I have no concerns with regard to the matters raised by SoWhy and have confidence that MB will make a good administrator. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:57, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Some good points made in the oppose section and I expect MB will take these to heart. But with lots of good NPP work, looks like a net positive. —Kusma (talk) 12:21, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support -- solid contributor and a well qualified candidate who would not abuse the tools. Thank you for volunteering. --K.e.coffman (talk) 17:51, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I'm happy for MB to become an admin. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 18:09, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support – The candidate has done great work, and without doubt deserves a mop. — JFG ^talk 18:39, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Good job, no concerns. Ruy (talk) 20:24, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support LGTM --DannyS712 (talk) 20:28, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I have reviewed the concerns about the AFD issues carefully, and I figured that the best way to check if this was a substantial enough reason to warrant concern was to directly compare their AFD nomination stats against those of the sitting arbs. What I found was revealing: when looking at each of their past 500 AfDs, MB's AFDSTATS report returns that they are "correct" (i.e. match the green) more frequently on articles they nominated for deletion than Barkeep, Beeblebrox, Cabayi, CaptainEek, Guerillero, Izno, L235, MoneyTrees, Primefac, SilkTork, Worm That Turned, and Wugapodes. As MB's AfD stats are "better" than the vast majority of the ArbCom, and being elected to the ArbCom is a more trusted position than being appointed to adminship, I don't find the arguments relating to errors made in nominating articles for deletion to be all that convincing (though I would encourage them to put a bit more effort into WP:BEFORE in the future). I also don't find arguments related to the behavior/civility of their noms to reflect upon the candidate; we're vetting the candidate's suitability for adminship, not their noms' suitability for adminship.
In any case, the editor shows (to me) that they are competent and that they understand the level of trust and accountability that is required for holding the admin tools. I think that they're more than ready for their mop. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 23:55, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My ears are burning. (Well, not that much, if you toss the no consensus result, my stats are still better, hah!)

Comparing stats like this is another form of WP:EDITCOUNTITIS. The numbers should be used as a baseline to inform further research of the specific person at hand (WP:OSE) or to point out radical variances from the general Overton window our deletion forum works in, not be used in some weird comparison to current administrators (though current administrators will variously tell you that they're worse off/better off than a candidate's stats at AFD to support their opinion that a candidate should(n't) be an administrator). AFD fundamentally exists because we are, in the singular, bad at identifying why a page should(n't) exist when that page is in the gray area between "clear keep" and "clear delete". It's there to allow the community to help figure it out, rather than one person operating in isolation. Taking those numbers as gospel (in defense of a candidate) accordingly misses the point.

Were I to spend significant time thinking about this discussion, my primary concern would be the issues identified not with any performance at AFD, because one does have backup there (incidentally I strongly oppose the notion that BEFORE is mandatory even though I perform my own checks in good faith), but the other issues identified with the user's NPP work, especially and specifically related to use of speedy deletion. Even there though, we have WP:DRV to serve as feedback for administrators, at which point we should be looking at how this user intersects with new users, who may not know of their options for recovery of a page (perhaps another point of interest being that this user does quite some work as part of NPP).

Lastly, anyway, ArbCom isn't elected because they make good/bad decisions at AFD (I would guess, anyway, the delight of a closed election is that you can't tell negative or positive why someone was elected). That seems like a fairly incorrect group to compare to, even if convenient for you to identify the users of interest. Izno (talk) 00:37, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, by no means do I think this is a perfect metric (it's more of a heuristic as to whether a user's completely outside the bounds of consensus), but my point in listing all the arbs was more that the arbs are a highly trusted group of administrators. They're not selected for AfD, but all of them happen to be admins that maintain a good level of support from the community, and that opposition on the basis of AfD percentage being too low was extremely silly; the whole AfD logic in the first oppose exemplifies the thing I was writing against—its own logic would put up much higher bars to adminship than would be passed by the majority of the highly respected admins who currently sit on ArbCom, even though those arbitrators are all obviously fit to be admins (the status of each ArbCom member as being obviously fit for adminship is why I picked ArbCom, not because deletion "correctness" in some way is related to how good of an arb one is).

I'm somewhat less concerned than opposers about the speedy deletion given the candidate's answers to questions above; people are naturally more aggressively tagging CSDs than they are when executing them, and the explanation is honest. Bad speedy deletions can be a bit worse than bad AfD closures due to the lack of documentation/deliberation by the community—it's nigh impossible for an editor without access to the deleted text to even discover the CSD'd article, let alone challenge it as a bad deletion—but the user seems to be competent and humble enough to know when they should consult others before pulling the trigger on a CSD-tagged article. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 04:39, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not that I consider this a particularly good metric, but...ouch... GeneralNotability (talk) 00:56, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I have run across MB on several occasions, all have been good experiences. GenQuest ^"scribble" 00:21, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I see no reason to believe that he will misuse the tools. The opposers make valid points, but they are not enough to sway me. Hang in there MB! You've got this! Scorpions13256 (talk) 01:55, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support trusted user with a need for the tools to support their activity at NPP. Polyamorph (talk) 05:12, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I've had the privilege to work on numerous new articles with MB, where I had identified a topic seemed to be pretty significant yet omitted from Wikipedia, but creating a DYK-worthy article would require a good amount of work. In some of these I had gethered miscellaneous facts and sources, but MB went on to do the difficult work, doing further research and writing organized well-written articles. A couple of the shared DYKs are on this list of MB's DYKs that achieved high numbers of views. And I've interacted with them on many other articles and issues, including some where I took an opposing position in an AFD. They have always acted with skill and integrity. I am shocked to see in this RFA discussion suggesting MB was "wrong" by not doing more "wp:BEFORE" in AFDs. Yes they have nominated a number of AFDs where I voted Keep in opposition, but their AFD nominations were always reasonable. It seems to me that MB does do wp:BEFORE type research constantly before making any comment with me in discussions, and I think they're doing that all the time in their NPP and AFD activity which is quite valuable to the community. In their relatively recent AFD on new article "Skinner Building" that some have made too much of in this RFA, I feel strongly that their AFD nomination was well-justified. I practically only ever !vote "Keep" in AFDs, but agreed with the nomination and !voted "Delete". In that AFD, and in other AFDs where I disagreed with them, the discussions were productive and civil and the AFD decisions reached were reasonable. Their Q12 answer is fine. MB is a strong and prolific content developer, the kind of editor that we most need in the Admin corps IMO, and they are skilled and respectful in the people skills too. I would be honored to have them as a friend or co-worker or supervisor in real life. If this RFA is not accepted, it would be disrespecting a good and kind and capable and proven editor with no serious strikes against them AFAICT, and I would not like to see that. Frankly, I think this RFA community should see the obvious and support. --Doncram (talk,contribs) 05:45, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Oppose. User:MB/PROD log for 2022 shows that the user is not careful when considering redirects as an alternative to deletion. PROD should be uncontroversial and should be used only when an article should be deleted. Editors interested in administrating areas of deletion should know how to blank-and-redirect things instead of simply deleting them. We need to build the web, not destroy it. Their AfD stats only shows them aligning with the community about three-in-four times on AfDs that were closed with a consensus. MB is only only slightly better when looking at nominations created by the user, and many of those nominations (such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Naranjo Museum of Natural History and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Devil's Right Hand) do not look like any effort went into them to find sources before nominating the article for deletion. Much like MB said here, people with a low "success rate" should proceed more cautiously and have a better understanding of where the community stands—especially if one wants to become an administrator. God keep our land glorious and free (talk) 15:45, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
MB's Afd stats are not particularly bad nor is their prod log stats, considering the areas they work in. Prods by definition are contentious and its incorrect to state its only for uncontroversial deletes. If that was the case, the process wouldn't be used. I see you only created your account at 15:25. For clarity, what is the IP address you edited under previously, please? scope_creep^Talk 16:03, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Scope creep: By Wikipedia:Proposed deletion, PRODs are supposed to be uncontroversial. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 16:12, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Scope creep:

1.WP:PROD says that Proposed deletion (PROD) is a way to suggest an article or file for uncontroversial deletion. Your claim that Prods by definition are contentious and its incorrect to state its only for uncontroversial deletes" is false.

2. Regarding what is IP address you edited under previously: I was on a dynamic IPv6 Rogers Communications range and living in a New Brunswick city centre. I've been moved to a Bell Canada IPv4 when I recently moved to another part of the province (and I think this one is static). What about you, Scope Creep: may I ask your internet provider and where your IP address geolocates to?

God keep our land glorious and free (talk) 16:43, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, that isn't what I was meant. It states on your on your userpage "Formerly a longtime IP editor." It was that IP on Wikipedia that I was looking for, so I could look at your contributions. scope_creep^Talk 16:55, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Please see my talk page, @Scope creep. God keep our land glorious and free (talk) 04:56, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

User:Scope creep It looks like you are mistaken in your assertion that "Prods by definition are contentious and its incorrect to state its only for uncontroversial deletes." Per WP:PROD, "Proposed deletion (PROD) is a way to suggest an article or file for uncontroversial deletion [...] PROD must only be used if no opposition to the deletion is expected." Thinker78 (talk) 20:15, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There is nothing in the text of WP:ATD that requires editors and closers to prefer merge/redirect over deletion, and the current consensus seems to be the opposite, that each of these options should be given equal weight. Avilich (talk) 16:33, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This was God keep our land glorious and free's third edit ever, made on the same day as their first edit. I tagged as an spa, but RZuo undid it without explanation. I guess it's preferable to have this longer comment tacked onto the bottom. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:35, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I was sorry to see MB was up for administrator. I did work with MB on Bass Lake (Watauga County, North Carolina). Background on that: I had tried to convince Cones Lake AfD participants that they had ivoted Keep based on references for another lake. Nobody listened. Next MB sent Cones Lake to AfD again based on my arguments in the original AfD. So I started an article for the correct lake. Beyond that one article on Bass Lake, the majority of my experiences with MB have not been positive. Here are just a few recent examples. When NPP was backlogged I offered to help and MB's comments had me excluded based on my AfD match rate. MB is also an anti-WP:ARS (article rescue) editor and he said this about the group: "...they collaborate to "win" by any means and then disappear without actually improving the article". MB had to know that this was a complete falsehood, but they made this inaccurate statement in an anti-ars ANI thread. MB has demonstrated that they will not be an impartial administrator. Lightburst (talk) 02:21, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As a lead coordinator of NPP, I’m not certain this user would be able to patrol from a purely neutral standpoint based on their record at AFD - This comment doesn't seem to be about your match rate (which is 70%), but about your !voting to keep more often than to delete (2:1 ratio), which is a rather more pernicious reason to prevent an editor from receiving permissions. I say this, because MB is not claiming that you lack the competence or accuracy, but that you are not capable of neutral editing because of that record. That has squat to do with match rate. You can contrast MB's AfD record which is heavily skewed to deletionism and his 'accuracy' is barely better than yours.[1] Mr rnddude (talk) 03:26, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Articles end up at AfD specifically because in most cases their suitability for the encyclopedia is usually correctly challenged and probably the vast majority do end up as 'delete'. That's the whole purpose of the exercise and why the system was created. It's a fail safe instead of NPP being simply a binary process; AfD does its job and that's why indeed a few articles do get kept or merged. The statement about MB's ANI comment justifies a thorough read of that case before singling out it as an RfA oppose rationale and certainly read more than the closer's accurate statement. - many well known admins made similar comments. If I had seen this comment - as I do still occasionally comment at PERM - I would have endorsed it. I sense there is more to this oppose vote than is wholly appropriate. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:09, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That is a rather cryptic thing for you to say about my concerns - ~~you yourself were desysopped for cause and you also have a history of questionable admin noms.~~ Lightburst (talk) 17:54, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You definitely do not want to respond to Kudpung's rebuttal with ad-hominems in an RfA.--v/r - T P 18:55, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I was the lead nominator here, so if you're going to attack anyone's record that's me you're looking for. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:28, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I cannot support a candidate who replaces an article with a redirect to draftspace and tags it for speedy deletion as a cross-namespace redirect, or one who thinks that "Recreation by same author of declined Draft:Newport" is a valid speedy deletion rationale. I can accept someone who tags pages in a way that is in the grey area of discretion, but things like tagging an article as a duplicate of a draft (apparently as an experiment, while being unsure of the policy when it was clear at the time) are simply bright-line policy violations. This is a shame, given that he has taken up the difficult role of coordinating NPP, but this is about whether an editor should be given access to administrative tools and not about whether he is a good editor. Sdrqaz (talk) 04:14, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Sdrqaz Replacing a newly created article with a draftspace redirect, then tagging it for deletion per R2 is a normal part of NPP. Also, the A10 tagging seems to be justified, as the Draft was deleted for promotion and the article was a recreation of that. Both the draft and article were created by the same (banned) user. It may not of been the correct criteria, but it should of been deleted none the less, so it doesn't really seems like a policy violation. echidnaLives - talk - edits 05:24, 2 January 2023 (UTC) See below - I now understand the oppose, striking comment. echidnaLives - talk - edits 08:56, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Essentially, regarding the R2 issue, the page Henderson County Bridge was created in mainspace twice. The first time, MB validly draftified the article at 02:54, 13 December 2022 by moving the page to Draft:Henderson County Bridge without leaving a redirect behind—nothing improper there. However, at 11:53, 13 December 2022, the original creator recreated the page in mainspace with the same content. This time, MB redirected the mainspace title to draftspace, then tagged the page with {{db-rediruser}} a few hours later. This is indeed a bit of an unorthodox way of using R2—technically, in order for a page to qualify for speedy deletion, all historical revisions must also qualify under a speedy deletion criterion (otherwise, the solution should be to revert back to the non-infringing revision). In my view, R2 can't be used as an alternative to AfD after an editor objects to a draftification by recreating an article. Mz7 (talk) 06:51, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Mz7 explains what happened with that redirect above. Given that R2 is one of the more "easy" criteria for an administrator to carry out, they're typically deleted very quickly (four minutes this time). As he writes above, it is a very poor shortcut to actual discussion, with the community weighing in.
The article that was tagged was not G11-worthy. Maybe two sentences that should have been removed, but not unambiguously promotional. The sentence "It may not of been the correct criteria, but it should of been deleted none the less, so it doesn't really seems like a policy violation." appears to contradict itself – if you're asserting that the wrong criterion was used (I don't think it's that simple), then there's the policy violation. I would also hope that administrators (and the wider community) would not just be satisfied with a page being deleted, but that they were deleted for the right reasons. Sdrqaz (talk) 07:03, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Understood. I can not see deleted pages, and couldn't see the whole picture, making it somewhat unclear. Thanks, echidnaLives - talk - edits 07:16, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The editor in question also said "I have never closed any kind of deletion discussion and don’t plan to work in that area". Given that, I feel like it's easy enough (for me at least) to say that they'll take caution and avoid repeating these mistakes - they say they only want to work in permission granting and want the tools for deleted contribution viewing, and while I'm sure they'll branch out eventually (pretty much every admin does as far as I know), I'm confident that they know their limits and will do great work with their tools. casualdejekyll 16:47, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how that is relevant, given that my opposition is based on speedy deletions and not deletion discussions. As the candidate himself states while answering Q1, they do intend to work with speedy deletions. Sdrqaz (talk) 17:10, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've reviewed the instance you brought up and I find the candidates actions to be wholly appropriate. Article was created and lacked references, formatting, and needed work. Candidate moved it to draft space w/o redirect. Original creator recreates the article, Candidate initially adds a redirect but then nominated it for speedy delete. What in this chain of events is so egregious that they are unfit for adminship?--v/r - T P 19:04, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@TParis: See also my and Mz7's replies to EchidnaLives, but to directly answer your question: because it's effectively editing to try to make a page seem eligible for speedy deletion – akin to someone blanking an article and adding {{db-nocontent}} to it, which is highly inappropriate. We have had consensus that draftification should not be "backdoor" deletion (part of deletion policy), and NPP guidelines (#3b) that say that if a draftification is contested, you should not do so again. The candidate, who is a coordinator of that project, has disregarded all of that and does not seem to understand how that's wrong. Sdrqaz (talk) 02:57, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
With all due respect, Sdrqaz, I agree with TParis because what I see wrong here is the strong defense of a noncompliant article. The person who moved it out of draft is where you should be focusing attention, not criticizing MB for doing the right thing. Why have NPP reviewers if they cannot do their job? Liken it to stripping admins of the ability to block vandals and see what happens. If the community wants to keep every article that is not sourced, incomplete, poorly written, promotional, etc. then let's just do away with NPP all together. Why keep it? It is a thankless job, the backlog is growing after we worked so hard to get it down from 18,000 - yes, 18,000 articles, and the responses I'm seeing here now are a long way from supporting a hard working group of editors who are the last line of defense in keeping trash out of the encyclopedia. Sad, but to make it worse, we have to put up with unwarranted criticism over noncompliant articles. It is a "can't see the forest for the trees" situation, and it's not like we're running out of trees. Atsme 💬 📧 10:54, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My "strong defense" is not of a "noncompliant article". I'm defending the community's right to hold people accountable for their actions, and the responsibilities that come with privilege on this project. If I make a mistake with deletions, I expect people to scrutinise me. I expect myself to apologise too, and not wave away concerns as "baseless accusations" or say that there is "no abuse of policy" when it's occurred.
NPP reviewers' jobs are not to edit to make a page seem eligible for speedy deletion. How is blanking, then redirecting, then tagging an article as a cross-namespace redirect not in clear violation of both the spirit and letter of our policies? How is that different to blanking an article or redirect and tagging it as blank? Or removing all sources and relevant information and tagging it as having no significance? I'm sure that the candidate acted in a way that he thought helped protect the project, but he did not do the right thing by misusing our policies.
These rhetorical extremes – that we're somehow hobbling all of NPP by insisting that they don't game the system – are simply unrealistic. I know it's a thankless job – I've been active in speedy deletions both before and after I became an administrator – but an "at all costs" approach is untenable. Sdrqaz (talk) 05:53, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. To quote WP:CSD (as I should have in my !vote), A page is eligible for speedy deletion only if all of its history is also eligible, so making a page seem eligible for CSD – such as what has been observed with R2 – is very much at odds with the speedy deletion policy in the letter as well as the spirit. ^Complex/_Rational 01:12, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I don't recall interacting with this user but reviewing their edits shows a lack of understanding of basic deletion related policies and concepts. Some examples:
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Devil's Right Hand: AFD nom less than 3 months ago with a clear failure to follow WP:BEFORE (cf. Talk:Devil's Right Hand#Sources)
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Skinner Building (Seattle): AFD nom less than 2 months ago that demonstrates that the candidate apparently never read the first sentence on WP:AFD (in the big infobox) that says "For problems that do not require deletion, including duplicate articles, articles needing improvement, uncontested redirects, or POV problems, be bold and fix the problem or tag the article appropriately." (emphasis added) Not to mention WP:ATD-M
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Garland J: AFD !vote to delete when the nom (also erroneously) already pointed out that there are multiple people who might be referred to as such and thus the DAB makes sense.
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of heliports in Antigua and Barbuda: Another WP:ATD-M fail from less than 2 months ago
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Downshift: AFD nom from less than 1 month ago with multiple valid ways to handle the page (redirect, keep or merge), none of them requiring deletion
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gittemeier House: Another apparent WP:BEFORE fail from last month
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Replacement (Buffy the Vampire Slayer): WP:BEFORE fail
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Touched (Buffy the Vampire Slayer): Another WP:BEFORE fail. Also, if the candidate truly believes that "nothing indicates what is notable about this episode" when the article contains the phrase "In the first lesbian sex scene ever on American network TV", this also makes me worry that they will not be able to apply WP:A7 correctly
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Weena (Rotterdam): Another clear WP:BEFORE fail
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/YST Transit: WP:ATD-M fail
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cúrate Bar De Tapas: WP:ATD-R fail
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/PS Etona: WP:ATD-M fail
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of restaurants in Baltimore and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of restaurants in Cincinnati: Delete !votes indicate candidate has not heard about WP:NOTDUP and/or misunderstands WP:NOTDIR
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lone Butte Ranch, Arizona: Candidate actually identifies potential merge/redirect target correctly but still !votes "delete"
- PROD for a suburb that can, should and has been merged to the city's article
- PROD (also) for "unsourced for almost 10 years"
- PROD without checking the history (self-reverted)
- PROD where ATD-R was possible and preferable
- PROD and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/DYNG: Double WP:ATD-R fail
- PROD and PROD: Two WP:ATD-R fails for the same redirect target
- PROD Another example of not checking the history
- Trigger-happy A7 without checking the history (self-reverted)
- BLPPROD without checking history
These examples paint the picture of an editor who is quick to nominate articles for deletion instead of putting in the work of checking whether they can be fixed, be it by checking for sources and adding them or by exploring alternatives. Such behavior is concerning in an editor but it's alarming for an administrator who - especially when it comes to speedy deletion - will oftentimes be the one to "pull the trigger" (with little to no oversight in practice). I understand that in their answer to Q4, the candidate has said they don't want to close deletion discussions but in Q1 they indicated an interest in working in CSDs. I don't see how they could though because either they know deletion policy or they don't. Thus, at this point in time and with this many (recent) examples of mistakes and trigger happy nominations I cannot in good conscience support this user getting access to the ability to delete other people's contributions. Which is sad because they otherwise seem like a good editor. Regards So Why 20:53, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've just randomly looked at three of your concerns. The Trigger-happy A7, as you noted, he immediately corrected it. He did what you wanted him to do. The Union Jack PROD, PROD is meant to be for uncontroversial deletions and, frankly, I still think that article doesn't belong. Its only source is pretty weak at best. And the process worked, someone opposed. Honestly, I'm tempted to AfD it right now. Regarding the Garland J one, his rationale is solid. It's such an extreme niche thing to put a J after a justice's name that you'd have to be in or around law to know. I won't fault him for having a blind spot - one that only came to light for me as a result of trying to understand the controversy here. v/r - T P 21:50, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, they did revert it. But they wouldn't have to do so if they had checked the history first (which is what we expect admins patrolling CSD to do). Same goes for the Union Jack article. You can question the notability of the subject and that is valid but being unsourced, even for a long time, is simply not a reason for deletion per WP:NEXIST and WP:DEL and I would expect someone running for admin to know that. As for the Garland J, the candidate wrote "There are not multiple people commonly referred to as "Garland J"" despite the fact that the comment before theirs made it clear that there are in fact multiple such people (two of which were in the DAB at the time of the nomination). Regards So Why 09:24, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to look into any of the rest of these, but your assessment of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Downshift (which I participated in) is quite strange and certainly unfair on MB given that much of the opposition is based around being trigger-happy or not looking into the details. As to the options that could have been considered, certainly boldly redirecting it to somewhere would have been disruptive and out of process given that it had just been at RfD, and not one person advocated this at the AfD discussion. Keeping is of course always an option, but then MB's argument for deletion was pretty strong (a DAB page which doesn't follow the requirements) and the primary keep arguments, while perfectly valid, were along the lines of "useful"/IAR, which I certainly don't think justifies criticising bringing this to AfD (which is supposed to be a discussion after all). As to merging, I'm not sure what it could have been merged to, and there was no discussion of this either in the AfD (and again, I think it would be inappropriate to boldly merge an article only just created as a result of a different discussion). So then while some (or perhaps most) of the issues you've raised above may be valid, I think anyone citing them in their opposition should take care to look into these a bit more carefully. A7V2 (talk) 05:11, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Their own argument was (in part) that "Downshifting (lifestyle) [...] should move to Downshifting, with this title redirecting there", so they did not argue for deletion of the page but changing it into a redirect. WP:AFD however is not the forum to bring pages to if you think they should be kept in another form (cf. Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Rename AFD). The correct place for that discussion would have been Talk:Downshift if there had been opposition to simply making the change and it's not unfair to expect an admin candidate to know that. That said, if this were the only example I could find, I would not have opposed. Regards So Why 09:31, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On the one hand, what you are saying here is not the same as what you said above about this case. On the other hand, I disagree that it is inappropriate to suggest something other than deletion as a nominator at AfD. WP:BLAR states that an option where users cannot agree is to either discuss on the talk page, or to nominate the article for AfD. And the findings of Special:Permalink/998395765#Request_for_comment:_Proposed_blank_and_redirects is that for controversial cases (which this would obviously be, given the article had just been created as a result of a different discussion), whether or not to BLAR should be discussed at AfD. There is also an older discussion Wikipedia talk:Speedy keep/Archive 4#Should we permit deletion nominations advocating for a redirect? which found there is a consensus to allow AfD nominations which advocate for redirection. I don't doubt for a second that many of the concerns are valid (indeed, I can contribute this strange RfD nomination) but in this particular case I just don't see it. A7V2 (talk) 22:39, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@A7V2: Yes, WP:BLAR does say that but it requires that "users cannot agree" with a blanking and redirect. The candidate has however not blanked or redirected nor tried to discuss this, either at the talk page or at the RFD. They just took it to AFD despite not actually arguing for deletion. As I said above, this is not the most egregious example and I would certainly not oppose over it alone but it fits in the pattern of misunderstanding deletion policy. Regards So Why 10:28, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

PS: The evidence presented by Extraordinary Writ (oppose #26 at this point [2]) further solidifies my opposition. This kind of WP:OWN behavior is incompatible with what the community should look for in an admin. Regards So Why 10:33, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Oppose basically per SoWhy and Sdrqaz. While I am aware that this editor has done good work, and I don't believe I have interacted with them much, I think the opposes by SoWhy and Sdrqaz, two experienced and trusted admins, are sufficient to give me some pause. Hopefully~~if this RFA is not successful,~~ they will take those lessons to heart for the future [regardless of the outcome, editing per request on talk Andre🚐 22:09, 3 January 2023 (UTC)]. Nobody is perfect and they seem overall a good editor and a net positive for the project with their work, but I would like to see attention to the issues noted. Andre🚐 21:29, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just want to add on that I find the below opposes by Ivanvector, ComplexRational, Extraordinary Writ and Elinruby all give me more reason to oppose at this time. Andre🚐 21:09, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose MB Seemed to be a good candidate, but there are few too many fresh red lights.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 21:46, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify my oppose after MB's answer to Q12. WP:BEFORE might not be a policy, but ignoring recommended practice is not what I expect of an admin. WP:BEFORE was not ignored once or twice some years ago, but several times in recent months. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 09:58, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For me it is confusing that several respected editors appear to have contradictory opinions regarding WP:BEFORE. Then also that other respected editors don't share the candidates view regarding WP:BEFORE but support a candidate who defends that he did not do a WP:BEFORE in answer to Q12 and since the 5 January also to Q18. What if now editors nominate articles for deletion without a WP:BEFORE and cite this RfA as an example? I would understand anyone who follows the reasoning and defended practice of an admin (much more of an NPP coordinator) and therefor oppose the candidate. Maybe their answers were just unfortunate, but the potential of more nonsense AfD's like the one on Buffy (Q18) I just can't support.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 22:19, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per SoWhy. Clicking the link to the Wikipedia search for reliable sources doesn't take much effort. Others had no trouble doing it. Dream Focus 22:13, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@SoWhy, Andrevan, and Dream Focus: Sorry to disappoint you, SoWhy, but there has been no abuse of policy whatsoever, and Andrevan, no misuse of tools. WP:BURDEN is the policy. Nether the deletion policy itself nor WP:BEFORE state that ‘before’ is mandatory. Oft cited, especially brought up at ANI (to mention just one recent example) and the community has more than once rejected it as a requirement. Whether or not it should be a requirement will need to be put before the community in a major RfC. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:42, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
When something comes up, is he going to rapidly click through it, or take time to look through all the information and consider all options? Dream Focus 22:47, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Kudpung: so now we are dismissing our guidelines and best practices? All of these failures of WP:BEFORE subject the volunteers to additional work and they are disruptive. They also may inadvertantly get content deleted. My often repeated refrain during RFA is that admins are here to protect content and content creators. I have no confidence that this candidate will do either. Lightburst (talk) 23:14, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It also wouldn't kill the people creating said articles to follow policy by, let's say, providing actual sources. I've only ever created one article, and it was 11 years ago, but I somehow managed to do just that. Unlike WP:BEFORE, WP:V and WP:N are core policies. Also, as I'm not only an admin but an oversighter, I can say with confidence there's a good amount of admin work that quite pointedly involves not protecting content and the people who create it; anyone who's ever seen deleted content can attest there's a lot that's best hidden from public view and forgotten, I've seen "articles" and "contributions" that would make your stomach turn. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:20, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I said anything about misuse of tools, but I do agree that failing to observe BEFORE or that AFD is not cleanup is not what I want from an admin Andre🚐 23:28, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've already stated that there is no failure to observe policy. You have it your way, but it's not a valid oppose and it's an odd to an RfA for someone who is actively engaged in getting NPP improved. ~~Do you want him to drop that? (Rhetorical question)~~ Perhaps reading some of his answers to the questions might help. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:22, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Bare minimum adherence to letter of policy has never been the standard that we expect for admins: neither now nor when I was a bureaucrat. Reading his answers only affirms my oppose, which is entirely valid. I expect some diligence to be done before draftifying+CSD or AFDing summarily as it's that much more difficult for new users to navigate if the user is an admin. As far as NPP, I said I think he's doing good work overall and I hope he continues. On the other hand, if he's holding his participation hostage contingent on adminship. You and I both as former admins know that adminship isn't everything, and there is plenty of productive contribution to make to the project as a regular extended-confirmed user. Andre🚐 02:07, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, if "adherence to policy" is the sole criterion on which to evaluate potential admins, we have really lost our way. Dishonesty in most circumstances and disclosed paid editing are all allowed by policy and yet I suspect they would instantly tank a RFA. Some !voters want a GA or FA and those opposes seem to be counted as valid too. --Rs chen 7754 06:12, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Kudpung: I respectfully disagree. Yes, WP:BEFORE is not strictly part of the deletion policy but it is clearly the synthesis of the policies that ask editors to "Try to fix problems" and that tell us that deletion is not an option if "editing can improve the page". Which is why, for example, the editing policy also contains a clear command to consider "Doing a quick search for sources and adding a citation yourself" when encountering an article lacking sources. As Andrevan and Rschen7754 correctly point out, the standard we (should) expect from admins is more than just slavishly follow those pages marked "policy" without demonstrating any insight of why we have those policies. If your only argument is that the violated pages are strictly speaking not part of the letter of the policy itself, you might want to reconsider your support. Regards So Why 09:09, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose WP:BEFORE, while recommended, is not a requirement (i.e. WP:POLICY). NPP is faced with many thousands of new articles every month, and has only a small number of active reviewers. is not the attitude I want to see from an admin. This is a significant problem I have seen from NPP recently. Also agree with SoWhy. --Rs chen 7754 01:39, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose with regret, because the candidate would likely not misuse the tools. But it's a WP:NOTYET for me. The sheer amount of issues identified by SoWhy convinces me that the candidate still needs oversight as regards key Wikipedia policies and practices, e.g., regarding the use of deletion, merging, notability (WP:GEOLAND, etc.), and so on. I encourage the nominee to carry out diligent work, not to prioritise quantity over quality, and 'll be glad to reconsider in 6 months or so. — kashmīrī ^TALK 02:47, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:When not to link to WP:NOTNOW. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 13:25, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe WP:NOTYET should redirect to Wikipedia:Not quite yet as that is probably what Kashmiri intended to link to. Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:06, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NOTQUITEYET is exactly what I meant. Thank you, and apologies for the confusion. — kashmīrī ^TALK 21:24, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per SoWhy; I also find it concerning that the proportion of blue links in the CSD and PROD logs increases over time, meaning that either a) MB has gotten a bit more rash with his deletion proposals/tagging recently, or b) the old noms were (on average) eventually deleted by a different process from what MB did, suggesting a lack of knowledge of the exact deletion processes notwithstanding a "gut feeling" for what should or should not be deleted. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 04:03, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Do note that I am not opposing due to BEFORE issues; while it's certainly a best practice and I highly encourage MB to take it into account in his future NPP work, it's not a policy as others have said and MB is legitimate (if suboptimal) in not working with it. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 04:10, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW John M Wolfson, I'm not sure the rate of accuracy for PROD drops significantly if you account for the number of those blue links that are currently redirects. Similarly, their CSD log shows accuracy above 90% throughout 2022. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 05:58, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Rosguill that's fair, but assuming those redirects are valid it still has poor implications for BEFORE adherence (especially since PROD is supposed to be for uncontroversial stuff). – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:16, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. People should be careful and detailed before they delete the hard work of others—this is supposed to be the place for all knowledge to be made freely available to the world. A pattern of trying to delete articles instead of improving them worries me. Maine 🦞 05:57, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In some cases the subject could be unnotable, you cant improve an article when you cant find sources for it.`~HelpingWorld~`^(👽🛸) 06:41, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but the person running for admin still does this for notable subjects. Maine 🦞 06:50, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Maine Lobster: I haven't made my mind up about MB yet but I feel compelled to point out that some things need to be deleted. That's why we have admins in the first place. A lot of things, in fact. I do very little deletion compared to many admins and I've still managed to delete 15,000 pages (about 10 times the number of articles I've created); that's not even in the top 100 and there are admins out there who have deleted over half a million pages, yet the encyclopaedia still has 6.5 million entries and there are 57 million pages on the website and nearly a million files. Separating the wheat from the chaff is an essential maintenance task, and "A pattern of trying to delete articles" is to be expected from an editor who specialises in that task. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:59, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes pages about notable subjects need to be deleted. Since people have been tossing around the guideline WP:BEFORE, another just as applicable guideline is WP:TNT; even if something is about an ostensibly notable subject, what's there is often completely worthless. In several of SoWhy's examples, I'm seeing absolute trash that people dumped on Wikipedia and then people demanding already overstretched NPP reviewers clean up their mess, often without lifting a finger at these AfDs to do it themselves. If an editor dumps a bunch of unattributed or poorly sourced text into the middle of an existing article, the community doesn't generally take kindly to screaming about "deletionists" who remove it or preemptively start discussions to remove it; I don't understand why so many people have this through the looking glass mentality about new articles. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:28, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP:TNT is not a guideline, it's an essay. At this point, it's probably better to let people have their say, rather than trying to refute them. Both as a pragmatic matter of what will assist the nomination and per Wikipedia:ARBBLUDGEON.Jahaza (talk) 01:42, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@The Blade of the Northern Lights Where am I "screaming about 'deletionists'"? Maine 🦞 03:20, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
this user often moves articles to draft but still doesnt know Wikipedia:Drafts.--RZuo (talk) 07:29, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What? Someone who moves pages that aren't yet ready to be articles to draftspace knows exactly what draftspace is for. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 14:22, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Enthusiasm for speedy deletion is IMO one of the worst manifestations of zealotry to "clean up" Wikipedia. Martindo (talk) 12:41, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I will bear that in mind the next time I delete such good-faith draft creations as User:Dansmacksshayintheass/sandbox, Draft:The Battle for The Polish River, and User:Niggredicque. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 13:02, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, come on, you should know that Martindo is talking about Sdrqaz's oppose. @The Blade of the Northern Lights - you're putting up strawmen. casualdejekyll 22:51, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per concerns raised by SoWhy //Lollipoplollipoplollipop::talk 13:52, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I am not impressed by the insistence that WP:BEFORE is not policy. Thoroughness and adherence to good faith are the most important qualities I look for in an NPP reviewer. It is true, best practices like WP:BEFORE cannot always be followed given the volume of new articles in the queue. But I expect from an administrator that he or she follows them as closely as possible. I therefore think that the answer to Barkeep's question does not fully allay the significant worries raised by SoWhy. ~~What's more, the candidate doesn't mention Good or Featured Articles in their answers or on their user page. I don't usually support candidates without either.~~ Despite their good overall work at NPP and their excellent nominators, I'm not convinced MB should be an administrator at this point. Modussiccandi (talk) 19:27, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Modussiccandi MB has two good articles according to this tool. The Night Watch (talk) 20:49, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I apologise wholeheartedly! Modussiccandi (talk) 21:13, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying that WP:BEFORE is a policy and the candidate is incorrect, or that you don't like the fact that the candidate is correctly pointing out that it is a policy? ~T P W 16:28, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I find this a surprising follow-up: I admit without hesitation that WP:BEFORE is not policy (it is true, best practices like WP:BEFORE cannot always be followed...). My criticism, like many of those below, is concerned with the candidate's attitude towards this important practice. Modussiccandi (talk) 17:23, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for clarifying, despite your surprise. I asked because I couldn't tell from the exact words you chose. ~T P W 16:35, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose concerned about giving someone with this deletion history speedy deletion rights. Jahaza (talk) 19:30, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Oppose noms such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Naranjo Museum of Natural History reflect a perfunctory search and a rush to delete when there is no reason to do so. This is not a BLP where deletion was pressing that they couldn't do a BEFORE, and I'm not impressed by MB's doubling down here that it's not policy. It's good practice. Rushed noms could be indicative of poor decisions, and I don't think we have time for that as a community where there aren't enough admins active in the various fora where these decisions are brought up. Star Mississippi 19:41, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per SoWhy ResonantDis_tortion 19:58, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
per concerns regarding deletion expressed above. ansh.666 21:05, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I'm rather alarmed that the candidate's response to Q12 suggests that long-established community best practices can be ignored in favour of speed when faced with a backlog. WP:BEFORE is not a mere suggestion, it's the bare minimum expected of editors endorsing articles for deletion by listing them at AFD, based on years and years of discussions and debates. It's not something to be passed off with a condescending hand-wave because the process you happen to invest your time in has a backlog. We all invest our time in various community review processes here, and many of them are short of volunteer resources. If you don't have the time to spend to do the review expected of an NPP reviewer, you leave it for another NPP reviewer; you don't just skip the review and make it some other backlog's problem, and you certainly don't ignore that process' documented minimum standards because you're "busy". What does this mean for the many admin processes that are frequently backlogged? What if the candidate encounters a backlog at WP:RFPP, are all protection requests automatically actioned? What about WP:PERM, does the candidate just grant WP:PM to everyone who asks? And what about WP:CSD, if there's a deletion backlog are all articles flagged {{db-a7}} automatically deleted? WP:ADMINACCT says that admins are held solely responsible for every action they take - there is no room for expecting someone else to clean up after your "I'm too busy" mistakes as an administrator, and I don't see that the candidate fully understands that. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 23:39, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As has been pointed out over and over - WP:BEFORE is NOT policy. Years and years of discussions and debates has resulted in it NOT being promoted to policy or even a guideline. Which means it IS a mere suggestion, is NOT required, and is considered "best practice" at best! Those of you who disagree with its status, fine - propose, once again, it become policy or a guideline. But do not fault a candidate who ACCURATELY categorizes it as...optional. Because it is. v/r - T P 00:50, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@TParis: Something not being a policy does not mean you should ignore it. Best practices don't need to be policies to expect editors to follow them (e.g. WP:BRD, WP:POLL, WP:NOTHERE etc.). If a candidate were violating WP:BRD all the time, no one in their right mind would support them just because "WP:BRD is not a policy", would they? Also, as I pointed out above, BEFORE is synthesis of both WP:PRESERVE and WP:ATD, i.e. the policies that tell editors not to delete what can be fixed. So if the link to WP:BEFORE is all you see as wrong with the opposition comments, replace them with links to WP:PRESERVE and WP:ATD instead (in your mind). And I do think we can fault a candidate for doubling down on it instead of reflecting on the concerns brought up and addressing them. Regards So Why 08:43, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What I see wrong is the selectively choosing something that isn't a policy over two core policies: WP:N and WP:V. I'm willing to concede that WP:ATD exists but there isn't any evidence that Nom has acted egregiously. Only that in the realm of discretion, you'd lean one way and they'd lean the other. I view their actions as reasonable and well within the norm and I'd offer the same benefit of the doubt towards you. Just because it's not your way doesn't make it wrong. I'd hope others would offer the same grace but I see a lot of hard stances being taken here. v/r - T P 17:11, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@TParis: Well, I did point out that WP:PRESERVE and WP:ATD basically say the same thing as WP:BEFORE and those are the editing and deletion policy. And if we wanted to wikilawyer about semantics, I could point out that WP:N is not in fact a "policy" at all but "merely" a guideline. But the point remains: There simply is no dissonance between WP:V and WP:N on one side and WP:PRESERVE and WP:ATD on the other side. All of these policies and guidelines contain clear instructions to the effect that deletion is not the answer to surmountable problems (cf. WP:N's WP:NEXIST and WP:V's WP:BURDEN (which explicitly contains "See also: Wikipedia:Editing policy § Try to fix problems")). It's not "taking a hard stance" to expect an admin candidate to know that and to act accordingly. Regards So Why 18:42, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose with regret. The answer to Q12 does not sit right with me and many of the links above only confirm my concerns. Hat to Sdrqaz and Ivanvector's articulation of the issues here. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 23:44, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Ivanvector. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 01:21, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose (moved from support), with regret, in light of the issues raised by Sdrqaz and SoWhy. As a fellow NPPer, I have a very hard time overlooking these. I took a closer look through MB's CSD log and discovered a long pattern of responding to challenged moves to draftspace by restoring the redirect to draftspace and tagging for R2. That directly contradicts WP:DRAFTIFY: A page may only be moved unilaterally to the draftspace a single time. If anyone objects, it is no longer an uncontroversial move, and the page needs to be handled through other processes, such as deletion, stubbing, tagging, etc.. I fully understand that WP:BEFORE can be time-consuming and NPP is a load of thankless work, though such practice short-circuits discussion and is suggestive of using draftification as a backdoor route to deletion (WP:ATD-I is part of the deletion policy), which goes against the advice given at WP:NPP#Care and WP:NPPDRAFT. There were also a couple of hasty A7s and moves to draftspace that I found, but they appear to be isolated occurrences, so I'm willing to look past them.
In addition, I'm not satisfied with the answers to Q10 and Q12. Any objection to draftification means another process should be used – the answer to Q10 overlooks the fact that "forcing" something into draftspace is inappropriate once an objection has been raised, and describing the process as vague misses the point of the question. For Q12, the answer suggests emphasizing speed over quality, which is never appropriate: again, I understand that NPP is an expensive, thankless, backlogged process, and BEFORE is not straightforward in some cases; however, rushing things through deletion processes in the interest of a faster triage is not the answer. The answer to Q12 also gives me a strong impression of wikilawyering – specifically the notion of Abiding by the letter of a policy or guideline while violating its spirit or underlying principles – and although I don't expect perfection, I'm just not comfortable seeing such a pattern or mindset, especially were it to carry over to admin actions. Even if some practices are not formally codified as policy, their emphasis in the NPP tutorial and newsletters must carry some weight.
In fairness, this is not entirely MB's fault, as the patrolling admins have the responsibility of not enacting inappropriate CSDs. However, I would like to see more careful consideration when marking pages for deletion (after deletion, potential damage is less easily reversible), and active demonstration of best NPP practices from an NPP coordinator. ^Complex/_Rational 01:33, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So... if MB nominates something for deletion it's a problem, and if MB moved something someplace where it can be worked on without being deleted it's also a problem? A lot of those moves out of draftspace are by users who aren't familiar with basic policies and guidelines; sometimes it takes a bit of insistence to get the point across. There's no Office of Draftifications that I know of, while there is a policy that says not to get caught up in "the process" in order to do something that will improve Wikipedia. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:40, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"A page may only be moved unilaterally to the draftspace a single time." Is that or is that not the rule? Because it sure seems like this user and the NPP aren't observing this. Andre🚐 03:29, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Andrevan, I'm not looking to badger you, I'm just answer your question: It is neither a policy nor a rule. There isn't even a vestige of an RfC for consensus on it. In fact where it appears, it was made up as a user's unilateral wishful thinking because they 'thought' it was implied from a 'synthesis' of scattered discussion threads. And if it were a rule or a policy, there are clear exceptions - that's why we have IAR, which is a policy. Among the tens of thousands of patrols the NPPers make, the number of times they allegedly do not 'observe the rules' is negligible in the extreme. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:29, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. It is not a rule, or a policy. However this is not an IAR or exception situation in my mind, and I am a great admirer of IAR. The point is that for a new user, contesting a draftification should not be met with a unilateral re-draftification. I will grant that is not policy and not a consensus. It is my view and the view of a few essays, that the NPP process of re-draftifying articles over a contesting of that draft is undesirable for improving the encyclopedia and is not a best practice for an admin. I recognize that NPP is a lot of work with a huge backlog full of garbage and crap. But what I would expect from an admin is to also to engage with users. It's possible that this view is out of sync with some or much of the community. I came from a Wikipedia without a draft namespace and without a speedy draftification of new stubs. And while it keeps out the riff-raff, I've also seen perfectly well-sourced articles die in draft despite meeting GNG. I don't know the solution to that and I don't want to pin that all on MB, but I think that my opposition reflects my desire for a better bedside manner attending to this, and a reasonable expectation despite it not being an official policy. Because the point of IAR is to remember and respect the spirit of the encyclopedia than ANYONE can edit. Not to ignore the ideals for expediency. In fact you should ignore the process to embrace the ideals and not vice-versa. Andre🚐 04:41, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Moving from support for the reasons provided by SoWHy, Sdrqaz and ComplexRational. I havent had the best interactions with the user. But looking at his AFD discussion votes and deletion requests, this user needs to recheck the Wikipedia:Deletion policy. Some of his answers make me question his mod request as well, like how ComplexRational described it, it gives a strong impression of WP:LAWYER.`~HelpingWorld~`^(👽🛸) 01:44, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Ivanvector - Irrespective of whether it's policy or not "WP:BEFORE, while recommended, is not a requirement (i.e. WP:POLICY)" is not something I would ever expect to see from a candidate at an RFA, BRD is a guideline but it's still followed, NOTHERE is a guideline but it's still followed, BEFORE is a guideline but is still followed. I expect someone's going to reply chapter and verse telling me that BEFORE has been the subject of discussions before and that no consensus has ever been reached ... and to that I say I'm not bothered - I've always been told to do BEFORE before nominating any article and that's something I've always done and I would expect others to do the same irrespective of whether it's policy or not. –Davey2010^Talk 08:58, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree with everything the opposers here have said: many of the points about draftification, WP:BEFORE, ATDs, etc. largely involve grey areas where the community hasn't spoken decisively, and I can't really fault the candidate for his position on them even though I personally disagree. But the two recent issues Sdrqaz raises – the replacement of an article with a speedy-able redirect at Henderson County Bridge and the incorrect tagging at Draft:Newport Tashkent (which was declined as "not a valid speedy deletion criterion") – are pretty clearly at odds with policy, and that's concerning for someone who wants to work in the speedy-deletion area, especially since the candidate doesn't seem to think that there's a problem here (see Q10/12). And I don't think these are unrepresentative incidents: looking further, I see a hasty BLPPROD of an article (Harout Bedrossian) with a valid external link (WP:BLPPROD only applies if there are no relevant sources in any form (as references, external links, etc.)) as well as an incorrect R3 tagging at Melbourne Airport railway station, Melbourne from just last week. Obviously I don't expect perfection, but I'm seeing a pattern of questionable nominations here, and that's worrying.
I'm also uncomfortable with the interactions at Help:Unreviewed new page, which MB created, and its talk page. Joe Roe made a number of good-faith improvements to the page, which MB promptly reverted wholesale with the edit summary "Restores simplier version, proposed changes should be discussed on TP". After some discussion on the talk page, Joe Roe made another bold edit that sought to resolve MB's concerns but was again reverted with "No consensus. You can't put your preferred version back multiple times and ask other to make incremental changes. You need to propose incremental changes on the TP and get consensus first." When Joe Roe asked MB on the talk page to "please tell me what it is you don't like about this edit", he was met with accusations of disruption and quibbles about the definition of copy-editing rather than an explanation of how exactly the edit was harmful. In this exchange, I see what looks like ownership behavior, reverting due to "no consensus", a misunderstanding of WP:BOLD, and an unwillingness to work coöperatively and fix the problem—none of which gives me confidence that MB would handle conflict well as an administrator. On balance, while I certainly appreciate MB's NPP work and other impressive contributions, there are enough red flags here that I must regrettably oppose. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 09:02, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - One of the earliest diffs posted in this section gave me an unpleasant feeling about the candidate. The evidence presented by SoWhy, the assessment of Ivanvector, and the candidates answers to question 10 and 12 further reduced confidence. The schoolboy conduct of the 'lead nominator' puffing out their chest and saying 'come at bro!' alongside every other sardonic comment they've left here all but eliminated any possibilty of support. The above oppose by Extraordinary Writ just seals it. The answers to both Q3 and Q7 are outed as untrue. Neither the candidate nor either of the nominators have left an impression of good temperament consistent with expectations of an administrator. Mr rnddude (talk) 09:59, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I am retracting my support. Although their answer to my question gave me hope that they would make good use of the tools, I am no longer confident in them - particularly, their apparent lack of respect for BEFORE (which, yes, isn't a policy, but it IS a good idea) gives me fear that they will be too aggressive in deletion and need to gain more experience there despite their lack of interest in the area. I am generally a "we should give the mop to basically everyone" person, but consensus is by far the most important part of adminship, in my opinion. I already was supporting on the understanding that they were not a good judge of consensus but would respect it (a position that gave me pause to take), but I can't trust them to respect it anymore. casualdejekyll 12:44, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Regretfully. I had originally intended to withdraw my support and move to neutral due to the badgering of oppose !voters by the nominators. This really is not okay. However, rather than staying neutral, I am moving to oppose. I have found MB's answers to some of the questions uninspiring, particularly q12. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 15:48, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose per question 9 above. The user's answer is somewhat inaccurate and furthermore still dismisses the issue, saying I "claim" to be an experienced translator. I don't want to bog discussion down with what should have been a minor and easily resolved incident, (which is my point here) so I will try to be brief unless someone asks me a question. Here's the TL;DR: I misclicked, and dumped an incomplete translation into mainspace. This threw errors, I am sure, yes. MB ran AWB with a misfiring new regex he probably didn't know about yet. Without checking the article, its history or his output. Or answering my requests to please stop as he was causing edit conflicts and making the situation worse. Then he welcomed me to Wikipedia~~and invited me to the Teahouse.~~As discussed below, my bad, I thought this was included in the canned template) Kudpung insisted MB was correct, and that all of this was appropriate. Bottom line, they both came across as fatuous self-satisfied mansplainers, and MB as unwilling take responsibility for editing faster than he could read. Somebody else noticed this kerfuffle and pinged me over to the AWB ~~Noticeboard~~ talk page, where the regex problem was amicably resolved by, I believe, John of Reading. The article still sits in Draft because that is not how I do translations, and it was a pro bono project to begin with, so...shrug. I guess it can wait until we get another French translator. It's not like there isn't an ever-increasing backlog of Romance language translation work, and nobody else working it. I remain completely unimpressed by this user's uncollaborative attitude and unconcern about the accuracy of his account of events, and strongly recommend against putting him in a user-facing position of authority. Elinruby (talk) 19:03, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You begin by saying that the answer is "somewhat inaccurate" but your post doesn't identify any inaccuracies. (It is clear that you and MB have different perspectives and judge different parts of the interaction to be most important / salient / emotionally resonant.) --JBL (talk) 21:39, 4 January 2023 (UTC) Noting a response to this by Mr rnddude below. --JBL (talk) 19:52, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I can say for sure that a teahouse invitation to an editor of 16 years with many thousands of edits comes off the wrong way, but this seems to me like a situation where all participants have done near equal wrong, in my opinion. Mistakes and communication errors happen. My main concern about MB is that they have had these communication errors in multiple instances and do not seem to be an accurate judge of consensus. casualdejekyll 22:40, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Elinruby. I checked the last 1000 diffs on your user talk page and I'm not seeing where MB invited you to the Teahouse. Perhaps I'm missing something. Would you mind linking to it? Also I am concerned that you accuse him of being a "mansplainer" without evidence. Is there a diff where any kind of gender was mentioned in any of your interactions with MB? Sorry to nitpick but I just want to make sure that this situation is being described accurately and fairly. Thanks in advance for any clarification. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:34, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Novem Linguae: Thank you for the thoughtful questions. This was ... let's see, possibly August. I will find the diffs though if someone wants to see them. It may take several hours as I have been referencing and currently have many many windows open on this mobile. Re "mansplaining": I considered not using the word, given its gender overtones, but could not think of another way to convey the experience of having someone explain listing an article at WP:PNT to me, when for years I have worked, off and on, *from* the list that this template produces. I do not know what either of these editors believes my gender to be, although many people make assumptions based on the name. For the record, I identify as "they" but do not care what pronoun people use for me and am frequently called "he" and "mate" as well. I am not asserting that gender had anything to do with the behaviour. Nor am I ruling it out. But I want to clarify that I used the word in the descriptive, not diagnostic, sense. Stand by for diffs. I will answer the other two editors above later also. But sure, I made a mistake, Mis-clicked. Said it above, said it several times in the interaction, which I originally approached (see "A kitten for you" and "I am still asking nicely") from the attitude of oops, I understand why you keep slapping templates on this mess I just made, but my last edit was minutes if not seconds ago and I just lost a bunch of changes in an ec, again, so don't worry, I got this. Check on the article in ten minutes if you don't trust me, but hey let me fix my mess. The correct response to this, according to me, is not to run an English-language spell-checker when you are complaining that the article contains untranslated French text. I doubt his silence was malicious; I actually don't think he was at the keyboard. Which is a problem, but the one I am trying to point out here is that of not simply saying on his side oops, I don't know why it changed "a eu" (had had) to "an eu", either, that is weird. I have no idea what Kudpung was thinking when he insisted that "an eu" was an improvement, so that could have been better, absolutely, and no doubt there was a more tactful way for me to respond than to demand that he tell me what it meant. But I am not asking for the tools, MB is, and the question was, "how do you handle conflict."? I am here to say: not well, and lest I seem "disgruntled" maybe I should point out that I commented on Tamzin's RfA and gave him/her five stars for conflict resolution. Elinruby (talk) 00:34, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am editing links into my previous remarks where appropriate, to save on scroll. This is a fairly good summary of my issue at the time, particularly "being actively translated at the time." (The previous problems with NPP that I mentioned date back to my work on Panama Papers, and actually predate MB's tenure there, I realize now. An example that epitomizes these for me: trying to explain to someone who only ever writes about rugby that Congolese can be notable even if they have funny names and embezzle from people in places the editor has never heard of. That is a hard problem to fix and predates MB, who is not responsible for prior events). More in the same thread; I am scolded for the manner in which I help Wikipedia, and don't take it well. Elinruby (talk) 13:14, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Elinruby, MB has only ever made three edits to your talk-page, all in November and all concerning this same topic [3]. None of them invite you to the teahouse. (@Casualdejekyll: FYI since you mentioned this in your comment just above.) --JBL (talk) 00:47, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@JayBeeEll: Shrug. I will be back with diffs having refreshed my memory. Maybe he just welcomed me to Wikipedia, if these don't automatically happen together. That's a quibble. Point is, he clearly didn't read the article history, or either my user or talk page, maybe not the text either, then made edits that were clearly inappropriate, apparently on an automated basis. How many other people has he done this to that didn't stick around to find this thread? Everyone I have ever tried to recruit to Wikipedia either told me I was nuts or else told me a story about being completely dismissed in this manner, and said nuh uh". Elinruby (talk) 01:08, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not wishing to make a rebuttal (which I’m not), and not really wanting to say any more on this RfA which will take its course, but since I was now pinged pinged and mentioned twice against the advice you were given by others, I think it's only fair that the participants here on all sides have an opportunity to see the actual context to understand the issue more clearly, and the style of your communications. For one thing, as a bilingual English-French speaker I can assure you that at least this assertion is fundamentally incorrect: …when he insisted that "an eu" was an improvement. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:13, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
if you are offended by being pinged, then I apologize. I personally prefer to be notified if my name is mentioned in an unflattering manner which I may dispute, as in MB's response above about the incident, where he dismissively and falsely accused me of copy-pasting. I will refrain from notifying you in future. The advice given to me by others had nothing to do with pings. It was that I was within my rights to ask you to stay off my talk page because you kept escalating, but that I should drop the stick and stop posting there about the hallucinatory idea that "an eu" is meaningful English, since I have asked you not to post there. Which indeed seems fair, except that I had just deleted the entire ridiculous exchange, while my talk page stalker was composing that advice. I mentioned you above because, to be fair to MB, the claim that "an eu" is English was you, not him. I am unsure what to make of you doubling down on this. Are you saying you didn't say it, or that you were correct? If the latter please *do* illuminate me as to its meaning. You may well be a bilingual French->English speaker but you definitely aren't proving it with that statement. It isn't French either, btw. If your statement is that it didn't happen (later note:see "I am still asking nicely"), welp, I am back to edit in some links and diffs, and I'll start there. Elinruby (talk) 10:38, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Elinruby, @Kudpung – I don't want to sound impertinent but would you mind taking your grudges to Talk?

For the uninitiated ones, the disagreement has nothing to do with MB's qualifications for admin tools. The story is that a semi-automated tool operated by Kudpung made a correction of what it took for a typo on English Wikipedia, whereas it actually was a passage in French that Elinruby had just added mistakenly while translating the article and was about to remove it. Both are now trading accusations as to who is more at fault: Elinruby for working on live articles or Kudpung for changing text without checking its language and not giving sufficient time to undo the mistake. Adding insult to injury, Kudpung placed a Wikipedia welcome template on Elinruby's Talk, while Elin is a well-established editor...

So, let me politely suggest a move to the Talk or, even more aptly, to the Dramaboard. — kashmīrī ^TALK 15:51, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually, no. All of the actions you ascribe above to Kudpung were taken by MB. So yes, the incident is relevant to the discussion. (Your summary of the original train of events is otherwise fairly accurate however. Wrong subject for the verb, though) And since he, no doubt sincerely, misportrayed the incident in this RfA it also speaks to his ability to understand and process constructive criticism. Following the exchange in question Kudpung for some reason chose to jump onto my page and make wild accusations and insults in an acronym-peppered screed about how I should take the advice of my betters and accept that an errant spellchecker knew best. Much, in fact, as he has in a fairly aggressive manner jumped into a number of threads above, shrug. The problem however has gone from "Well MB sure doesn't listen" to "MB just completely mischaracterized an interaction with me in a very public venue, without, incidentally, notifying me" and is now at "MB's momma-bear buddy is in attack mode again and just doubled down on claiming what I said isn't true." I am not sure what to do about this. JayBeeEll asked me to explain what was inaccurate about MB's summary, which I was about to do, having demonstrated that Kudpung said what he said. I think that MB or one of his supporters should impress on Kudpung that he isn't doing MB any favors. This entire discussion would be greatly improved without his bludgeoning, imho. If someone would like to remove his reply to me and the exchange that follows that, I would be completely fine with that. #But my reputation for telling the truth is important to me and I don't think it's reasonable to expect me to not respond when it gets trashed like this, especially as I've been asked to elaborate. I am open to suggestions. Elinruby (talk) 17:25, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is grossly untrue: ...wild accusations and insults in an acronym-peppered screed about how I should take the advice of my betters and accept that an errant spellchecker knew best. and reflects the style of your other comments I linked to. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:33, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I derive no benefit from involving myself here, but I've gone over the article's history, MB's response under Q9, and the replies here. I'm impelled to defend both MB and Kudpung here, in spite of being opposed to the candidacy and having qualms with the candidate and both of the nominators. Your conduct in that dispute was less than acceptable and deserves a hiding. For instance, you responded to Jonesy95's courtesy note that he had moved the article to draftspace with a snide remark calling into question whether he even speaks English.(relevant thread)
You also mischaraterize Kudpung's statement that ""a eu" is not a typo to "an eu"" is indeed correct. He was agreeing with you that 'a eu' was not a typo and should not have been changed to 'an eu'. He was not, as you have repeatedly claimed, suggesting that 'an eu' is English. Indeed, what's galling about that is that you should have been able to tell because "a eu" is not a typo to "an eu" are your own fucking words.
I have a remark for MB too. It is disrespectful to undermine Elinruby's credibility as a translator of the French language as you have in question 9 ("claims"). It is behaviour unbecoming of an editor, let alone a hopeful administrator.
Last, but not least, JayBeeEll you indicated that Elinruby did not note any of the inaccuracies in MB's response to Q9. I shall note one for you. Draft:Jublains archeological site is an article copy/pasted directly into mainspace from fr:Site archéologique de Jublains ... is inaccurate. Check the initial version of the article(here) and you will find that sections of the article had been partially translated, though very far from complete.
Tl;dr - Elinruby instigated part of the conflict in that dispute with her ascerbic responses ; MB's response to question 9 is indeed somewhat inaccurate ; Kudpung is being unfairly maligned ; if anyone is a victim here it's Jonesey95 taking insult for no other crime that leaving a courtesy note. Mr rnddude (talk) 19:44, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks @Mr rnddude, you devoted more of your life to this than I was ready to with mine. I'm sorry for any inaccuracies in my earlier summary. I agree with your assessment and would also share my perception that Elinruby unfortunately came across quite aggressive in ~~her~~ their interactions, both there and here. Yes, linguistic precision and high attention to detail are invaluable qualities in a translator or interpreter, and any disrespect to them may rightfully attract wrath. But to live in a community, one that also Wikipedia is, friendliness and acceptance of mistakes of fellow community members always go a long way; much further than snappy precision and self-conceit. Howgh! — kashmīrī ^TALK 20:09, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that. You have hit the inaccuracy that most concerned me: people get righteously blocked for copy-pasting into a live article, whether from English or French. And this in a forum of dozens of administrators who will be assessing my worth in any further disputes! Without notifying me. There are other, smaller, issues, but I am content to leave it at that. It is enough. I do however want to take issue with "instigated". I started the conversation by giving him a kitten for crying out loud ;) and essentially said my tool misfired, now yours did too, haha, now let me fix it, please. If that isn't being nice, then gee, I guess I will return to where I am happy, putting verbs in sentences. As an aside, this discussion has gotten some people working on the draft! I noted this when I went to look at it just now, to get a link to make the point you just made. I got all excited and finished what I was trying to do at the time it was draftified. The state of the article at that point can of course still be seen in the history. It was far from copy-pasted French, shrug. And yes, I admit I was rude to Jonesy, who had just created yet another edit conflict in which I lost yet more complicated translation. Not his fault though; he had no way to know that or that I was still boggled by the previous exchanges, I agree. I do also disagree with your assessment of Kudpung's behaviour, but I don't hold it against you.<jk> I do however prefer to be able to explain a lack of help at PNT without being lectured about OWN, or IDHT, or any of the other nonsense he spouted. I believe someone else called it juvenile chest-puffing come at me bro stuff. I tend to agree. What was wrong with saying "I am agreeing with you, take yes for an answer"? Assuming you are correctly imputing his meaning. He still hasn't deigned to tell me what he is talking about. But that is Kudpung not MB, sure. We are talking about what it is like to interact with MB, however, and as an editor who does far more good than harm, I am answering it. First MB ignores you, then he blames you, and then his buddy comes over to your talk page and accuses you of things that can get you blocked. Sorry, not ideal, not at all. I quit Wikipedia over this and was only lured back with a framework for a shiny new project, a nice safe walled garden, as it were. Dealing with MB was like watching a vintage car be fed into a car-crusher by the Terminator on automatic pilot, after lovingly rebuilding the engine and rehabbing the interior. Not recommended. I now return this RfA to its regularly scheduled hagiography. pinging @Ritchie333: who asked Question 9, which all of this is in answer to:ICYMI, no reply required please as I am no longer watching the page. Thanks for asking. Elinruby (talk) 21:09, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Wasn’t too familiar with this candidate, so at first, I planned to put my name under !neutral until I learned more about him. Now I have. His answer to Q12 makes me uneasy. Just because something isn’t policy doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do it. Also, regarding the examples that other opposers have brought up— I looked through a few and these are valid concerns. For example, Using AfD for editing issues, rather than those of deletion, doesn’t indicate an understanding of process deep enough for me to feel comfortable giving him powerful deletion tools. I know that tone can be hard to convey through text, so don’t think I’m trying to sound mean or discourage MB from trying again in the future. There are just some things that he needs to address before I can !support. ◇HelenDegenerate◆ 23:17, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - For many of the same reasons as IvanVector. -- Dane ^talk 00:56, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per above. I cannot someone with that attitude. --SHB2000 (talk) 01:02, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose after reading some of the AfD nominations that Sowhy presented. BBQboffin (talk) 06:32, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose My concern, which I think more generically handles some of the opposes that people are making and maybe some of the light supports, is escalation vs. deescalation irt conflict resolution. As an admin, people are going to disagree with you, sometimes get very upset, and in the worst case senario, things will go to hell. MB seemingly wants to help, and I acknoledge that is showing. What I can't shake though is when faced with opposition, the user tends to escalate the issue further instead of trying to come to a reasonable compromise or even appologizing for the mistakes (Q15). Don't get me wrong, there are absolutely times to raise hell. But consistently escalting issues will snowball into larger issues. While MB seems content on at worst just using the right for viewing deleted revisions, they still represent a general administrative behavoiral standard, one that especially needs to be observed if they do step into the other admin areas eventually. We already have enough admins who follow the exact same concerning behavoir, we don't need any more. So per Q3 and Q7-9, I can't support at this time. -- Amanda (she/her) 09:47, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, particularly per Extraordinary Writ (talk · contribs) and Mr rnddude, possible/potential issues of judgment and article ownership. Particularly not per the question the of the role played by WP:BEFORE or the usual ARS handringing over imaginary 'deletionism'. Best of luck for the future MB. Depending on what happens here, I doubt you'll find your next RfA insurmountable, with a few tweaks to your approach. SN54129 16:17, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose candidate has the requisite commitment, but needs to adjust a couple of things before becoming an admin. I agree with most of what has been said in the Oppose section, and would add that I found the daisies in a sewer analogy troubling. I'm not one of those who thinks that Before always needs following, I'd be happy to make an exception for corporate entities with some sort of sticky CorpProd. But I prefer admins who set an example of good practice, long long ago I learned to add references because others were fixing my work, I like to see that sort of attitude at RFA. Ϣere SpielChequers 17:02, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Far far too deletionist, doesn't do BEFORE etc., admits to blatantly defying WP:DRAFTOBJECT with no qualms. We can't have admins breaking the rules in the name of cleaning up Wikipedia or reducing backlogs. Unless he cleans up his act I cannot vote for this candidate. Also, admins must be accessible, and the candidate still hasn't made a talkpage link in his signature despite a request more than 24 hours ago. Admins cannot be rogue elements unilaterally doing whatever they want because it suits them, serves their purposes, or furthers their own highly personal vision for Wikipedia. Admins need to demonstrate that they carefully follow the rules and guidelines before they even apply for RFA. If they don't like the rules and guidelines, then lobby to have them changed, don't subvert them at your whim. Softlavender (talk) 02:20, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Then what is the purpose of WP:IAR, if not to do things to improve the encyclopedia? Admins aren't supposed to be bean counters, sometimes things need to be moved or deleted even if the non-existent Office of Speedy Deletions and Draftifications wouldn't formally approve. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:11, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You already pestered another oppose voter about this; why did you not pester all of the oppose voters who opposed for the same reasons? Please see Bruxton's comments below. Admins are not supposed to take the law into their own hands and operate as unilateral lawless, ruleless, guideless scofflaws. If anything, they are supposed to err on the side of caution, and not double-down when reverted or opposed or disagreed with. Softlavender (talk) 04:06, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you (generic you in all instances) aren't willing to stand your ground when someone disagrees with an admin action at least sometimes, you need to consider whether that's really the right line of volunteer work for you. Just because someone doesn't like it doesn't make it wrong (indeed, it would be impossible to delete almost any page because someone considers it wrong and will cite some sort of policy/guideline/essay in an effort to give that position some gravitas), and the unpopular decision is sometimes the right one. That comes with the territory. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:52, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what you are talking about. I'm not talking about standing one's ground or not; I'm talking about operating collaboratively and cooperatively and respectfully within a group system that operates by consensus and best practices, and where admins are expected to be accountable and accessible and to operate with circumspection and to serve as an example to other editors. Again, please read the comments directly below by Bruxton. Softlavender (talk) 05:16, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose My oppose is based on temperament and process concerns. Several of the candidate's responses to editor concerns are confrontational and dismissive. I assume that any administrator candidate will be on their best behavior in an RFA and that is why the answers are troubling. Yes editing history and the knowledge of processes are both important, but the right temperament is equally important. If I summarize the candidate’s thoughts on WP:BEFORE, it can be skipped because it is only a best practice - not policy - and because NPP is overwhelmed and understaffed and thankless. When many editors expressed concern over the candidate’s understanding and application of WP:BEFORE, Barkeep49 gave the candidate to explain but instead they doubled down (question 12). The candidate said, "Because there is no abuse of policy, there is no real need to oppose or cast doubt on my knowledge". I was surprised that the candidate would ignore best practices in the interest of expediency. In my opinion a backlog does not give an editor the right to ignore protocols.
Regarding temperament, the candidate has dismissed the concerns of fellow editors in this RFA by saying the concerns are "baseless accusations" and I think that is one example of a temperament concern. Several editors here were also troubled by the temperament of the candidate: Extraordinary Writ presented a clear example (oppose 26) of a what I think is a temperament concern. And Mr rnddude also called out the temperament of the candidate in their (oppose 27) saying, "Neither the candidate nor either of the nominators have left an impression of good temperament consistent with expectations of an administrator". Ivanvector also called out a concern which is an example of temperament when they said in oppose 20 (about WP:BEFORE) "It's not something to be passed off with a condescending hand-wave because the process you happen to invest your time in has a backlog”. I think MB is making some meaningful contributions on Wikipedia and I hope they take some time to reflect on the many concerns about process and temperament which were raised in this RFA. Bruxton (talk) 03:09, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per ComplexRational. Double sharp (talk) 03:25, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Reluctant oppose per Extraordinary Writ's first paragraph. I say reluctant because I think, in a perfect world, the CSD ecosystem would have room for an admin like MB. But we already have enough admins who exceed bright lines in the criteria for speedy deletion (and like Sdrqaz I see an important distinction between that and admins who make deletions in "gray areas" or, I'll add, who make conscious decisions to IAR). The fact that non-admin new page reviewers have so much de facto power when it comes to BLARs and draftifications, thanks to contradicting community guidance, is already alarming—and also not MB's fault. The amount of unreviewed unilateral power at CSD is worse still. In other words, to the extent MB has shortcomings, they should be surmountable ones, but sadly for reasons external to this situation they are not. If this RfA is unsuccessful, I hope MB takes under advisement what's been said here and run again in 6-12 months, and also hope the community discusses more ways to instill accountability in the new page review and CSD processes. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 04:12, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

Neutral at this time. I have not been !voting on RFAs recently, and I have not adequately weighed all of the possible benefits of this request; I have a positive impression of this editor. Yet I am inclined to oppose per the answer to Q12 stating that WP:BEFORE should not be considered required because it isn't policy. WP:BEFORE should be understood as an extension of Wikipedia:Deletion policy, which prominently lists as deletion reasons points including "articles that cannot possibly be attributed to reliable sources" and "articles for which thorough attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed". The policy page also notes, "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page." I understand that WP:NPP has to deal with a large volume of articles, and of course WP:AFD is a community process for generating consensus. However, I think there are really two issues here.
One is the indication that a different process should be overburdened because of the volume at WP:NPP. Nominating an article for deletion causes (=forces) a larger number of editors to invest their time and energy into determining the appropriateness of the article; in some cases that will improve the article, and in other cases the result will be deletion, but as a matter of courtesy, it makes sense that the editor taking the time to make a deletion nomination should have actively gone through the process of considering the alternatives to deletion before asking many other editors to put their time toward weighing deletion. The answer states that editors nominating articles for deletion are "not obligated to do the research that should have been done by the author", which is correct—but telling someone else to do the research is also the effect of creating an AfD without checking for sources.
The second issue is the idea that the objections to not applying WP:BEFORE constitute "baseless accusations" and constitute "no real need to oppose or cast doubt on [MB's] knowledge and use of the NPP processes or claim that [MB is] likely to abuse the admin tools". If this nomination succeeds, I suggest not responding to negative feedback in this way. Of course administrators often have to deal with bad-faith accusations, which is a pain. But I see no indication that the objections here are in bad faith, and administrators should be willing to recognize that there are reasoned opinions behind such negative feedback. (In fact, things will often go more smoothly when you don't call accusations baseless, even when that's your true opinion of them.) Dekimasuよ! 02:23, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"WP:BEFORE should be understood as an extension of Wikipedia:Deletion policy" - This has been continuously shot down. Here and Here. It should be not be considered policy unless it is made policy by community consensus which, as this RfA has shown, it continues to lack. If it was policy, it wouldn't be at WP:AfD, it would be at WP:Deletion Policy. WP:N and WP:V are the relevant policies and should be referred to instead of WP:BEFORE.--v/r - T P 03:40, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My comment above was not sufficiently precise. Yes, WP:BEFORE is not itself required by the policy, and my initial response was not intended to imply that there are policy violations involved here. However, checking for sources is a logical extension or application of the parts of the deletion policy that I mentioned above, and many of the comments on the discussions you linked note that something like this can easily be a best practice without being explicitly codified in policy. Regardless of the existence of any “WP:BEFORE” shortcut, I believe there are significant disadvantages to offloading the question to other editors without an initial check, and I do not think they should be dismissed out of hand. Dekimasuよ! 06:16, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ignoring WP:BEFORE wastes the community's time and chases editors away. I don't see why we wouldn't expect admins to neither waste the community's time nor chase editors away. --Rs chen 7754 06:21, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm unhappy about the attitude that appears to be displayed in the last paragraph of answer 12, starting with "Because there is no abuse of policy, there is no real need to oppose", continuing with "I know some people will not like this answer" and ending with "If you want to please all the people all the time, you shouldn’t be in NPP." ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:10, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral - I'm moving my "Support" to "Neutral" which is unfortunate and I really don't like doing it, but some of the points brought up by others and the answers to some of the questions (partcularly Q12) are enough to give me pause. Not enough to outright oppose the nom, but enough that if I had waited a few days and seen this RfA in its current state with information I didn't know previously, I likely would not have dropped my name in the "support" bucket so quickly. - Aoidh (talk) 15:18, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral — I am sitting on the fence on this one. Best, Reading Beans (talk) 15:44, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not really concerned about the supposed reckless behavior when tagging articles for deletion. As an NPP, I too sometimes place tags that I know are questionable because I know that another person will be vetting them, so it's not a big deal if I mess up; I would obviously be much more careful if I were deleting the page myself, and I trust MB has the sense to do so as well, as his answer to Q14 suggests. I am more concerned about evidence presented by Lightburst and Extraordinary Writ that MB is at times abrasive, as well as a lack of positive indication that MB is receptive to feedback from others (such as complaints presented here); these are red flags for me in admins. I want to feel safe supporting, so I'm going to park here for now and keep watching the developments. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 16:15, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral - While I have prior awareness of MB, we've not had a particularly large amount of interaction, so this is mostly based on this RfA, as someone who has a large amount of AfD activity. MB's Q12 answer is commendably clear - it doesn't muck around, trying to extract a few more (!)votes, but specified their position, their reasoning, and accepts the consequences of that. Up front, I will say that I had planned on being a weak oppose prior to such a good answer - albeit one I disagree with. BEFORE isn't policy, but is only not so because it's oddly broad in its writing. A practical summary of what most AfD regulars do for BEFORE would likely be added without too many issues (and perhaps should be). They fairly note that NPP traditionally has huge backlogs, and perhaps there are no solutions, only tradeoffs. But this tradeoff is only partially at the cost of incorrectly deleted articles, but is also at the cost of more work for AfD participants. Often that will be duplicated work, so I'm not sure the project as a whole saves here. The question of how much beyond the bounds of policy an admin should go to make things easier for the editors as a whole is one with myriad fair answers, and would be unfair to oppose under, but I also don't think I align sufficiently to support. I will note that I don't believe the CSD complaints are evidence of a sufficient (non-self-fixed) error rate that I would be appreciably concerned. Nosebagbear (talk) 23:30, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
NEUTRAL - I have never not given a support !vote for RfA. I was torn between "weakest of support" or neutral (which I understand is a non !vote). I went through all the AfDs submitted by MB that resulted in keep (listed by SoWhy). It appears that MB is more of a "letter of the law" person than a "spirit of the law." In the AfDs s/he submitted, it appeared that as the article stood and strictly by the guidelines of WP, the articles did not meet standards. That, in itself, I don't have an issue with. I have a problem with two things: 1) strict interpretation of rules/regulations/laws is not the hallmark of a good leader, 2) Some of the articles s/he sent to AfD were very before-ish (to be fair, most were not). Regardless, the ones that were obviously BEFORE could have been fixed easily. It seems like it was easier to list it in AfD than do the work to fix the article. For now, for me, I'm neutral. It's me... Sallicio!^{$\color {Red}\oplus$} 19:21, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

General comments

The ideas that participation in the deletion processes is an inherent disadvantage or that new page patrol dooms an RfA is simply untrue: many candidates with those backgrounds have been highly successful in the past year alone, with multiple passing with 100s and in the high 90s. The issue with this candidacy is his record in those areas, not that he participates in them. Sdrqaz (talk) 03:41, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As an old wikipedian who gave up being an admin because of old age, this discuss worries me considerably. Becoming an admin should be no big deal. This discussion is likely to put potential admins off from applying. We might finish with not enough admins. Come on guys, it is no big deal. This candidate will be a fine admin. I have no past connection with this applicant. --Bduke (talk) 07:25, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I understood WP:NOBIGDEAL to be a concept that had fallen out of favor with some in the community somewhere along the line. Having followed this discussion and others before it, it seems that my supposition has been corroborated. StonyBrook _babble 23:38, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I fully agree with Bduke - we need more admins, make it easier to get in and then limit their powers should they prove incapable. How about some kind of junior or interim admin status? I would love to be able to do some low level things but I would never in a million years want to put myself through this process, and I can't imagine why anyone else would either. Mr.choppers | ✎ 03:09, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You may be interested in some of the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2021 review/Proposals, in particular "7A Limited adminship". There are also proposals there for probation and unbundling. The community has ideas but consensus remains elusive. I don't believe any of the mentioned ideas passed. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:23, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
One thing I would like to mention is that the candidate made the bulk of their 328,392 edits in the past 4.5 years. To me this is way too many edits per day/month/year, and the candidate needs to slow way down and learn to understand Wikipedia's guidelines and policies and best practices better. They also need to learn to interact with other editors in a mutually cooperative, productive, and respectful way. Right now only 2% of their edits are to talkpages, and I daresay most of even that is notifications and warnings, not discussions/engagement. There is something missing in the candidate's temperamental makeup, and I think this is caused by too many edits too fast, and insufficient engagement/discussion. I also think spending some time lurking at AN and ANI might be instructive for them. Softlavender (talk) 04:42, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Softlavender, It's not got anything to do with too many edits too fast, because they are mostly semi automatic AWB edits and AWB is not used for NPP or admin related tasks. Some editors who use AWB have edit counts in the millions. The use of AWB, as WereSpielChequers knows only too well, is essential for cleaning up exactly the king of errors that make even worthy articles look amateurish. It's pretty much a proofreading tool. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:54, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above adminship discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.

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