User:TonyTheTiger/RFA3Essay

I have twice run for administratorship: 1, 2.

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

A: I recently got my 2nd assist at WP:AIV with block nomination for this edit on Britney Spears, which resulted in an indefinite block. I may help here at times. However, I have been spending so much time on WP:CHICAGO related things I can't promise. I have reduced my role at WP:XFD where I use to regularly comment and vote for my first 15-20,000 votes. Now, my most likely traditional administrative roles would be at WP:DYK and possibly helping close WP:PR where automated reviews now seem to be special treatment. There are also occasional times where I could better administer WP:CHICAGO (especially resolved discussions) if I were an admin. However, despite my recent hiatus from XFD, I still see myself getting involved in WP:AFD.

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

A: My best contribution is first resuscitating WP:CHICOTW to the point where it regularly produces respected content and then bringing more life to an impotent WP:CHICAGO. I probably would have given up on this effort if it wasn't for the hard work of Speciate who constantly finds things that make the effort seem worthwhile while going about his role of Chicago-related mopmeister. However, I have had editorial success at all levels ranging from WP:HEY & WP:DYK to WP:GA, WP:FA and WP:FL.

Both of my most recent HEY successes have been greatly assisted (1700 East 56th Street and power pitcher/control pitcher). However, my HEY contribution to the latter came mostly immediately before reaching WP:AFD while restoring a redirect, creating a template to better incorporate the article into the project, and beefing the article enough to stand a chance at WP:AFD. I have accumulated 23 DYK credits (many due in part to the work of my WP:CHICOTW colleagues). These are constantly changing and can be found here. I overlooked the DYK feature until after I had already created dozens of interesting articles. I believe I could have 50 if I had understood the feature earlier in my WP career.

If you are interested in particular pages you can see the results of my work on my user page. My current credits as the leading editor (or in a few cases 2nd leading) are: Campbell's Soup Cans, Chicago Board of Trade Building, List of recordings preserved in the United States National Recording Registry, All-Star Final Vote, List of Chicago Landmarks. My current credits (also mostly as the leading editor) are: Seymour H. Knox I, The French Connection (hockey), Joffrey Tower, Wigwam (Chicago), Rock N Roll McDonald's, Marquette Building (Chicago), Gilbert Perreault, Chris Young (pitcher), 108 North State Street, Washington Square Park, Chicago, Blackstone Library, Paul Cornell (lawyer), Chicago Theatre, Hull House, Rookery Building, Crown Fountain, Timothy Blackstone, Burnham Park (Chicago), Washington Park (Chicago park), Near South Side, Chicago, Union Stock Yards, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, AT&T Corporate Center, Douglas Park (Chicago), Historic Michigan Boulevard District, Arts Club of Chicago, William W. Powers State Recreation Area. I would like to emphasize my primary role in almost every one of these credits that you can confirm with this tool. This does not count articles like Tiger Woods where they are GAs in spite of my minimal efforts:-). Using this tool you can also see I am the leading editor at Barry Bonds and Donald Trump, which are two of the eleven articles I monitor for vandalism. I am also the leading editor at several other pages such as Trump International Hotel and Tower (Chicago). I hope to see success in my recent WP:FAC nomination of Chris Young (baseball pitcher). When I last ran for administrator, I had earned my first successful WP:FA and WP:FL. Since then, I have been able to shepherd Chicago Board of Trade Building and List of Chicago Landmarks to FA and FL status successfully on behalf of WP:CHICAGO. I should probably at this time note that the edit count tool above may mislead you into overestimating my contribution to Chicago Board of Trade Building because User:LurkingInChicago was formerly User:ChicagoPimp and the counts do not aggregate properly. I have on behalf of WP:MLB shepherded All-Star Final Vote to FL status and Chris Young (pitcher) to GA status as well as served as the leading editor of Barry Bonds and Héctor López in addition to creating the Category:World Series championship templates and three of the first seven templates in it (1955 Brooklyn Dodgers, 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers, 1988 Los Angeles Dodgers). I hope these contributions somewhat offset WP:GA/Ring New York Yankees (Truly not GA/Red out of Dodger-Yankee rivalry) and WP:FARing Ted Radcliffe and Steve Dalkowski. I believe I have been a good contributor to the project. I am also pleased to have passed my first GA as a reviewer (Manu Ginóbili).

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: As I approach 25,000 edits I have had a few significant controversies. One you will see in my signature. Some would say I have overdone it a bit keeping this in my sig for so long, but it may remain there. Personally, I have been in a few disagreements and I believe it is proper to acknowledge what the misunderstanding is so that all involved can gain an understanding. Something like this is appropriate when you are the at fault party. I imagine my signature will remain in its somewhat ostentatious form as long as I remain unsure whether the point has been taken.

Basically, we WP:CHICAGO tag all articles bearing any of these categories. In some cases, the connection to Chicago is less strong than one might want. However, we have in the course of following this procedure chanced upon several articles we were able to help. We have guided some toward WP:GA (Hillary Clinton born and raised in Cook County, Illinois). We have delisted some GAs such as Bertrand Russell. We have also placed some articles at WP:FAR such as Pioneer Zephyr. In addition, we have taken to adding {{ArticleHistory}} or {{WikiProjectBanners}} to articles like Bobby Fischer. I have attempted to track down a shepherd for a Stephen Colbert WP:FAC. I have sent very few articles to WP:AFD, but I probably should have sent a few more through the process. We are another set of eyes on even low importance and loosely affiliated articles. There is no harm to an article to have our tag with an importance=low parameter. There is benefit to additional oversight on an article. Sometimes the oversight does not amount to much more than reverting edits like this. It is not an attempt to hijack articles or even their talk pages. Tagging articles is important to the monitoring of Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chicago#Reviewed_content. As uncontroversial as these goals are, this topic almost went to WP:DR over Jon Corzine (debate here, here and here), which was the only hotly contested subject of our domain.

This brings me to a much larger controversy arising from my role as Director of WP:WPChi. Again I think there is a problem on the acknowledgment of resolution of the issue. However, it has evolved as follows. Of the nearly 12,000 articles that have Cook County related categories and thus have been tagged by our project a few lead editors have contested the propriety of adding {{ChicagoWikiProject}} to the talk page. Our general policy has been that if the contesting parties believe that Cook County related category is important enough that it should be in the article, then our tag should be on their talk page. The most hotly contested of these articles was Jon Corzine, which as stated before nearly went to WP:DR. I am satisfied that Corzine's page has become stable, but this is the second instance where the counterparty refuses to state clearly a resolution on a dispute with me.

Another hotly contested debate was the Chris Young (pitcher). The main contestant was Ksy92003. However, once things got rolling Bjewiki, Nishkid64, Epeefleche, Hornberry, Sanfranman59, and Basar all got involved. I participate in many internet era sports WP:FAC debates. I have a philosophy of requesting box scores or game recaps of any internet era game that was notable enough to be specifically mentioned in an article. I believe in heavily citing articles when possible because of the reputation wikipedia has among the general citizenry for often getting facts wrong. This rubs many the wrong way. I am a firm believer in WP:ATT, WP:RS, and WP:V. This is exhibited in my history of sending WP:CHICAGO and WP:MLB articles to WP:GA/R and WP:FAR mostly for substandard referencing. Thus far every article I have sent has either had to be significantly revised or delisted. With respect to Chris Young there was extensive debate on whether the article was both over cited and whether it contained too much minutia. The debate occurred in many places, but is summarized at the current FAC.

At DYK, I have rubbed many the wrong way by using {{CUR-CHICOTW}} in article space the template has been toned down significantly from earlier (more controversial) versions as a result of the discussions regarding its propriety as a substitute for {{underconstruction}} in light of WP:ASR. I think the series of modifications to the template has finally made it palatable.

I have on two particular articles been accused of WP:OWN. Gilbert Perreault is currently open for discussion. The aformentioned Chris Young (pitcher) is currently at WP:FAC. I think there is a difference between owning an article and trying to defend interesting editorial content.