User:ArchonMagnus/RfA Info

This page contains information that I've gleaned from WP:Requests for Adminship that seem pertinent for successful administrators. While the content may or may not be 100% correct, but it does seem to provoke friendly philosophical discussions on merits, positions, and ideology of administrators.

Remember that the dominant stance on adminship is that it is no big deal.

Questions

• Q: A vandal removes a warning template from his/her talk page. What may be inferred?

The vandal apparently had a chance to read the warning. More info may be found on Wikipedia:Talk#Own_comments.

• Q: What is the appropriate course of action regarding "cool down" blocks?

A cool down block should never be used, they typically have the adverse effect of further enraging a user. See Wikipedia:CDB#Cool-down_blocks. Remember, blocks are meant to be preventative rather than punitive.

Also see Wikipedia:Blocking policy

• Q: Is there any circumstance in which you would delete a page despite a {{Hangon}} tag?

It depends on the circumstances.

Yes - If the page contents meet the CSD criteria, and the {{hangon}} tag doesn't address the problem.

Yes - If the page contents blatantly are a G10 ({{db-attack}}) or G12 ({{db-copyvio}}.

No - If the page notability may be questionable, but the {{hangon}} tag gives satisfactory reason to postpone deletion while the article continues to take form.

No - If the page may at first give the impression of a G11 ({{db-spam}}). Many such pages can have the content re-worded to maintain a neutral stance without a promotional bias.

Good Q/A's from previous RfA

• From Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Camw

Optional questions from Aitias:

4. Is there any circumstance in which you would delete a page despite a Hangon tag?

A. Yes, if the page contents definitely meets the criteria for speedy deletion and the reason provided in the hangon tag doesn't satisfactorily address the problem. This would have to be judged on a case by case basis, but if a page is accurately tagged with a serious issue like G10 or G12 then I would proceed to delete the page despite the tag. For pages where notability is not asserted like A7 or A9 I think a more lenient stance is justified where the hangon tag explanation gives good reason to believe that an editor needs more time to bring the article up to a suitable standard.

5. What would your personal standards be on granting and removing rollback?

A. I would expect the user to have a reasonable level of experience in fighting vandalism, no significant and recent incidents of edit warring and to have shown consistent good judgment with their vandalism related decisions (to assume good faith where appropriate, overall accuracy and the notification of users with appropriate warning templates). This isn't an area that I want to jump into straight away, but if you want a number of edits that constitute "reasonable level" then I'd be looking for around 500, unless suggested by an administrator that is more experienced that I should do otherwise. That number would vary somewhat depending on the history of the user requesting the tool. The removal of rollback privileges would have to be carefully considered, but where misuse of the ability is evident then it would be an action that may need to be taken.

6. Under what circumstances may a non-free photograph of a living person be used on Wikipedia?

A. This is a complex area. The image would have to satisfy the Non-free content criteria. One of the criteria on the page that must be satisfied is "where no free equivalent is available, or could be created, that would serve the same encyclopedic purpose." - for living people the "could be created" means that the image would portray the subject in a way that was no longer possible to capture and is crucial and relevant to their notability. An example may be an actor with a specific look that they are noted for, perhaps at a younger stage of their life. The image would have to have accurate and detailed fair use tags and rationale behind it to be used and the image could only be used in articles.

7. An IP vandalises a page. You revert the vandalism and give the IP a final warning on its talk page. After that the IP vandalises your userpage. Summarising, the IP was sufficiently warned and vandalised (your userpage) after a final warning. Would you block the IP yourself or rather report it to WP:AIV? Respectively, would you consider blocking the IP yourself a conflict of interest?

A. I believe a fine line can exist between vandalism and a good faith talk page edit from a frustrated user who may not understand or know the relevant policy (an example being a user adding external links that are considered spammy). So first I would take care that I do not make a rash decision simply because it is my userpage being modified/vandalised, as I said earlier I don't take edits to "my" pages personally so I believe that I can distance myself from the location of the alleged vandalism and focus on the content of the edit instead. If I were in doubt I could take it to AIV for a second opinion, but in the majority of cases I feel like consideration of the blocking of an IP should not be a source of a conflict of interest for a responsible administrator.

8. Under what circumstances, if any, would you block a user without any warnings?

A. Under a very limited set of circumstances indeed. In the majority of cases (95%+) I have seen while working on anti-vandalism tasks, the edits are easy to revert and cause limited harm to the encyclopedia (aside from the time spent by people in monitoring/cleaning it up) and I'm happy to assume good faith and to go through the full set of warnings before submitting the user to be blocked. For a user to warrant such extreme action as a block without a warning the vandalism would have to be of a similar extreme nature such as blatant hate promotion, an obviously inappropriate username or other material that would seriously damage the encyclopedia (such as using a tool to seriously vandalise a large number of pages at a time). In other cases I would favor erring on the side of caution and giving the user a chance to turn into a productive contributor.