User:Samwalton9/RfA/Ad Orientem

Samwalton9's nomination

I'm proud to present Ad Orientem for your consideration for administrator rights. An active editor for over 3 years, he has shown through his 12,000 edits that he is exactly the kind of level-headed, thoughtful, and experienced Wikipedian we should feel comfortable giving the mop to. In a now cliché kind of way I saw Ad Orientem asking for administrator assistance with a matter and thought to myself 'He's not an admin?'; a thorough investigation through his contributions and editing statistics later, and I found myself encouraging him to put his name forward for adminship.

While the focus of his editing may not be content creation, Ad Orientem has enough mainspace contributions - including article creations (e.g. [1], [2], [3], [4]) and plenty of patrolling/improving ([5]) - for me to be confident that he understands what goes into writing a good article. Where you're more likely to find Ad Orientem contributing is at AfD and for the front page, particularly at ITN and WP:ERRORS. At the former, his voting is highly correlated with discussion outcomes ([6]), and in the cases where it wasn't, I always found a sensible rationale for his vote. At ITNC Ad Orientem does great work nominating, vetting, and improving candidates, and I think it is here (and at ERRORS) that he could do especially great work as an administrator. ITN is currently understaffed, and Ad Orientem is one of the most qualified users active there.

Most importantly for me, Ad Orientem is civil, thoughtful, and happy to admit when he's wrong. You only need to see the level of consideration that went into running here to see that he isn't going to be deleting the main page in a hurry.

Co-nomination

Ad Orientem was not an editor I had crossed paths with recently, but when I saw Sam's plea for him to consider adminship I shared in the now all too common cliché of believing they already had the bit. Ad's interest is in helping out on the Main Page, which could seriously do with an extra pair of hands (considering it's the first thing a lot of our visitors see!) - having made over 1250 edits to ITNC Ad Orientem is highly qualified to deal with the important task of ensuring relevant news information is placed onto the Main Page.

Ad displays a stunning amount of civility and clue, has a sparkling block log for his six year old account and has a clear need for for the tools. I hope you join me today in supporting his candidacy for adminship.

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: I have more than a few interests, however I would expect that ITNC and ERRORS as well as other Main Page related pages and issues would be major areas of focus for my attention. Unfortunately both have been a bit thin on admin coverage of late. However while I have done a lot of work at ITN my familiarity with the actual mechanics of updating the mainpage, which is quite properly fully protected, would be new to me. With this in mind I would expect to have someone holding my hand the first few times I stick my toe into that particular pool. I also periodically do anti-vandalism patrols. Beyond that CSD and RPP are areas where I feel that I could contribute with a minimal risk of breaking anything. All of this said, I think people looking at my record will conclude that I am not by nature an aggressive editor and I tend to look both ways, twice, before doing anything dramatic or jumping into a dispute. You should expect that I will be cautious in the use of the tools, especially so during the first three to six months as I get used to things and am confronted by problems or questions that I have not dealt with before.

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

A: An examination of my record will show two things. My interests have been eclectic and the bulk of my work has been behind the scenes. I am rather proud of my contributions at AfD, and ITNC. I also like to help out when I can at WP:FTN which is one of our more understaffed noticeboards. In the mainspace I was heavily involved with the cleanup of Dorothy Kilgallen which had become a coatrack for fringe conspiracy theories. That took a little effort including overcoming some PROFRINGE resistance. Additionaly while working on the Kilgallen article I became aware of her principal biographer Lee Israel. Not long after this, Ms. Israel passed over and when I went to update her article I was floored to discover that this fascinating (and somewhat dodgy) character didn't have one. Which I promptly corrected. In hindsight I wish I had sent that to DYK.

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: Of course, anyone who hasn't had an occasional disagreement, maybe even a very intense one probably hasn't been around for very long. My usual method for handling disputes starts with remaining cool even when the situation is getting hot. If discussion doesn't resolve our differences then I invite other editors to join and try to form a consensus, which once formed, I respect. In my experience if you remain calm in the face of short tempers others tend to do the same. That said, I'm not an iceberg. Late in 2015 a long simmering and for some, very annoying issue at ITNC came to a head. Unfortunately this also occurred at a time of great personal stress/emotion in my life as my dad had recently died following a long illness. Making a long story short, I popped my cork. After venting on the talk page I decided I needed to step away from the project for a while. At the time I was not sure I would be back. Happily I did return once my emotional and stress level returned to normal. Also somewhere in the archives of my talk page there is a thread where I got into a very testy and frankly less than civil exchange with another editor. I have always been deeply embarrassed by the incident and regard it as an object lesson in how not to comport myself.