Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Steven Zhang

Steven Zhang

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (?/?/?); Scheduled to end 12:25, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Nomination

Steven Zhang (talk · contribs)

Co-nomination from Pedro (talk · contribs). All, I'm delighted to offer a nomination for Steven. Firstly, and briefly some history. As Steve Crossin (talk · contribs) Steven made a, bluntly, catastrophic error of judgement by accessing the acounts of others (admin accounts) as well as alowing those admins to (briefly) use his account. Details are found here. This resulted in a ban from this project. Steven compounded his error by also accesing, albeit briefly, the account of another editor on simple wikipedia.

• It is important to note that all of this took place over two years ago.

I'm not going to gloss over these errors, and to his credit Steven has been open and honest about them. Whether it was immaturity, a lack of understanding of the ramifications - what's done is done. As I noted at his first RFA however [1] he didn't quit or RTV - he held his hands up and admitted his errors. So, moving on, I'm not convinced it's a question of "what's changed" since 2009 although clearly things have. It's a question of;

1. Has Steven done enough in two years to rebuild trust?
2. If we trust him would he benefit from the admin tools?

In answer I believe in two years of editing he has regained trust. Whilst Steven was not overly active in 2010 (around 500 edits) since May of this year he has fully re-engaged with the project.

Steven is very active at WP:SPI, WP:DRN and WP:AFD (including non admin closures) - clearly areas where the admin bits are handy. I think the overall account history (pre and post ban) also indicates plenty of content work, albeit much of it tidying and fixing - which are always worthwhile undertakings. Steven himself has elaborated more on his article and article support work in Q2 below. Admins will note his speedy deletion tagging is accurate and regular. Steven is cautious and acts with due dilligence - prime requirements with the admin tool set.

At the end of the day Steven would benefit from the tools and Wikipedia would benefit from him having them. I personally believe there is no risk of misuse or abuse of the tools, and only positives can come from granting him +sysop. Pedro :  Chat  10:17, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Co-nomination from Doug (talk · contribs).

I ran into Steve in June when I was about to block a user and found that he was trying to work with the user as a mentor. I found Steve's patience and style refreshing and, although the mentee was incorrigible, Steve worked very hard to help the user conform to proper Wiki behavior.

I have since seen Steve work with other mentees, quite successfully. Besides patience, Steve has a very detailed and rigorous plan which he adapted from the plan he had gone through when he first joined.

I've also watched as Steve has revamped the WP:MEDCAB board and single-handedly (as much as anything on a wiki is single-handed) created WP:DRN and made it into a relevant process for discussion of content disputes. Content disputes are very difficult, unlike WQA issues where the result is usually a matter of blocking someone or trying to get two users to stop talking, content requires two opposing sides to come together on issues that they really do disagree on. Steve has worked these issues so diligently that the Foundation is now talking to him about developing broader concepts and mediation mentorships.

The Steve of 2011 avoids controversial editing and drama, to the maximum extent possible, while at the same time eagerly taking on some of the toughest mediation cases.

Steve's work on DR and all the NACs[2] and CSD denials[3] he does (and showed me how to track!), show that he understands policy and has an obvious need for the tools.

I trust Steve as a Wikipedian and I trust him to properly use the tools of an admin enough to stake my own reputation on him. He is a great wikipedian and has proved himself coordinating the toughest DR issues and handling much of the grunt work of hte project. He would make a great admin.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 12:14, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept. I want to thank Pedro and Doug for their nominations as well as other users who have encouraged me to run for a few months, and for their trust and confidence in me. I will endeavor to answer all questions in a timely manner. Thanks, Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 12:20, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. Please answer these questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?

A: The main reason for me running for adminship is to try and help clear some of the work that piles up in the admin backlog. Initially I'd see myself working in the areas I'm the most confident in, being AIV, RFPP and SPI. I'd also work on closing debates at AFD and would ease myself into CSD. Over time I could see myself expanding to other admin areas such as requested moves, UAA, other areas of XFD and arbitration enforcement.

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

A: In mainspace the work I'm most pleased with is related to the TV series, 24, which I managed to get the main article to GA this year, and Martha Logan back in 2008. I also expanded Amanda Fraser to meet DYK status. Although it's not so prestigious, I'm also pleased with the wikignoming I've done as a patroller, removing poor information, adding cites, fixing spelling, all boring but I feel they're still important as they impact on readers and on the credibility of the project to our audience.

In projectspace a lot of my focus has been on dispute resolution and helping newcomers. In particular I'm pleased with the adoption of the the dispute resolution noticeboard, while still a relatively new process I feel it has been somewhat successful in its goals. I also feel the adoption program that I've used has taught new users a bit about how Wikipedia works, an example being Cloveapple (talk · contribs). Finally I've been involved in informal mediation and helping users in disputes at the Mediation Cabal, a few recent cases that I've been active in are Abortion, Holodomor, and Games for Windows.

3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

A: I have been involved in one major incident that caused me a lot of stress. As my 2009 RFA shows, back in 2008 I made a mammoth mistake of judgment, ironically it happened because I wanted to help as a newcomer and got caught up in my own misjudgment, and just didn't think about the issue of the community's trust I was breaking. A full disclosure is here.

The investigation found I had tried to use the admin access properly, but my return while banned to post even one IP vandalism revert and my willingness to make an edit for another user on Simple Wikipedia who emailed me their account details to do so, just showed that I hadn't learned the lesson back then.  While my 2009 RFA gained a sizeable majority of support (around 70%), I felt I had to withdraw since the opposes showed I had not yet made good and was not yet trusted as an admin should be.  I took some time to reflect and returned to full editing in May 2011, determined to make a fresh start and to try and do it right, and I hope the community will accept my apology for the past events of 2008. If I could change them I would.

After the stress of the 2008 events and the lessons I have learned from them, I feel it's unlikely I will have anything so hard again in terms of stress, perhaps the aftermath of these events have shown I try to accept criticism and accept responsibility for my actions. I can't think of other major disputes where I was personally involved as a party. Occasionally I may disagree with users, and I often have to deal with angry users in conflict when I am active in dispute resolution. I imagine if I entered into a conflict with another user I'd apply the same principles and techniques I use when trying to resolve other people's conflicts.

General comments

RfAs for this user:

• Requests for adminship/Steve Crossin

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

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

Discussion

Support

1. I think Steven is one of the most patient and civil editors I have ever come across. I'm not very knowledgeable about the qualifications for being an admin, but I know Steven has the character. HuskyHuskie (talk) 12:28, 5 November 2011 (UTC)