Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jackmcbarn

The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a successful request for adminship. Please do not modify it.

Jackmcbarn

Final: (137/25/3) - Closed as successful by Acalamari at 20:06, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination

Jackmcbarn (talk · contribs) – Fellow Wikipedians, I proudly present to you Jackmcbarn as a candidate for adminship. For those of you who are unfamiliar with him, Jackmcbarn is one of our most prolific technical editors. In his 15 months as a registered user on the project, he has racked up more than 20,000 edits, and become a mainstay of the technical community at Wikipedia and elsewhere in the Wikimedia movement. He has also become highly active in new page patrol, recent changes patrol and several other administrative areas.

I first got to know Jackmcbarn through his module work. Jack was a real inspiration for my module-writing; he has a real gift for writing software and he has extensive experience with all sorts of programming languages. On top of that, he is very good at explaining technical things in an easy-to-understand way, and I have always found him friendly and approachable. I've collaborated with him on Module:Arguments (used on over 12,000,000 pages on this wiki alone) and Module:Protection banner (the module that powers all of our protection templates), and I have nothing but good things to say about both experiences. To put it simply: he is the real deal. He is also prolific: he has made 1,400+ module edits, and as well as the two modules I have mentioned above, he is the author of Module:Location map (the module that powers all of Wikipedia's push-pin maps), Module:Video game reviews, Module:Infobox military conflict, Module:Redirect for discussion (which handles all of our RfD nominations), and Module:Effective protection level (the first module or template to accurately detect the protection level of any page). There are several more, and I could go on, but I think I have made my point.

Jackmcbarn is also active in the development of the MediaWiki software itself. He is an admin at mediawiki.org, a regular contributor to the Scribunto extension (the software that makes Lua modules work), and a regular contributor to the core MediaWiki software. He even has "+2 rights" on the core MediaWiki software, which means that he is able to give final approval before code is released. This is unusual for non-WMF staff, and shows the high degree of trust that the developer community have placed in him. As a consequence of his development work, Jackmcbarn has a very good knowledge of the MediaWiki namespace, and I have enacted several edit requests for him there. He has also made many requests for additions to the title blacklist and the spam blacklist. Giving him the admin bit would allow him to make these edits himself.

He is also an advanced JavaScript programmer, and has written several user scripts, including User:Jackmcbarn/editProtectedHelper and User:Jackmcbarn/advancedtemplatesandbox.js. (By the way, any template editors out there should try advancedtemplatesandbox - it is extremely useful.)

Technical work is not the only area in which Jackmcbarn has been active. He has a very impressive CSD log, currently numbering at 965 entries and with a very high deletion rate. His PROD log, currently at 144 entries, shows a similar story. His AfD record is solid, and his comments in individual discussions, while they can be on the short side, show that he has a strong knowledge of the deletion policies. He also has 304 edits to RFPP (lots of them templates and modules), 278 edits to AIV, 242 edits to UAA, and 161 edits to Wikipedia:Edit filter/False positives/Reports. I think his administrative work shows that he would have very good use for the admin bit, and also that he would use it well.

The one thing that Jackmcbarn doesn't have is extensive content creation. However, he has done his fair share of reviews at AFC (see here for some of them), and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that he has recently written the Self-XSS article and taken it to DYK. The small amount of content creation shouldn't be held against him; Jack's main creative contribution to the project is in writing code, and we could certainly do with more technically-minded admins. I think making Jackmcbarn an admin would be a large plus for Wikipedia, and I hope that you will join me in supporting his candidacy. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:45, 28 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Co-nomination from AmaryllisGardener

I've seen Jack around Wikipedia alot, and I thought surely he was already an admin, with the high level of trust (as Strad pointed out, the unusual "+2 rights") he has already. I was the user that recommended he run for RfA. A long CSD log with pretty good deletion rate + experienced with code + knowledge of admin (even checkuser!) rights + lots of edits = a great candidate for adminship. And believe me, I was looking for potential candidates because RfA has been dead lately, but that doesn't mean that I recommended he run out of desperation. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 14:12, 28 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Co-nomination from Steel1943

Wikipedians, I am proud to be one of the conominators for Jackmcbarn's running for adminship. ...And, in all honesty, the primary nominator had essentially stated everything I wanted to say about Jackmcbarn's accomplishments and more. Jackmcbarn has fixed a lot of technical issues that the English Wikipedia has had to deal with ... until Jackmcbarn comes to the rescue, and very willing to proactively and by request. A few of the great additions that I can confirm that Jackmcbarn has attributed to improving are Module:Redirect for discussion (created to allow transcluded redirects to not transclude the RFD template when they are nominated, a very helpful function for heavily-transcluded template redirects), various map modules, and other important fixes to the way that the Wikimedia software runs on the English Wikipedia. As explained above, Jackmcbarn's proven technical skills are an asset to pages in the MediaWiki namespace. In fact, if anything, the permission to allow Jackmcbarn to edit the MediaWiki namespace, per their proven useful edit requests, is alone one great reason why Jackmcbarn getting handed the "mop" just seems to be the incredibly right thing to do. So, with that being said ... coding experience alone ... plus solid statistics in deletion forums on Wikipedia ... plus all of the other great gifts that Jackmcbarn had already provided the English Wikipedia (and even Wikimedia as a whole), are all great and solid reasons to promote Jackmcbarn to administrator! (I was planning on giving a much longer nomination statement; however, the primary nominator, Mr. Stradivarius, almost literally took all of the words out of my mouth, and then said even more. I couldn't have said it better myself.) Steel1943 (talk) 02:28, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:

I accept, with thanks to Mr. Stradivarius AmaryllisGardener, and Steel1943. Jackmcbarn (talk) 20:00, 29 October 2014 (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. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?

A: I expect that I'll mostly be doing gnome tasks like editing protected templates or MediaWiki pages that I'd otherwise have to request someone else edit. Also, I'd be able to perform complicated history merges and splits when necessary, and I could figure out why private edit filters give false positives. As far as common admin backlogs go, I'd try to take care of RPP, AIV, and UAA, and listen to #wikipedia-en-revdel on IRC.

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

A: I feel like I've mostly done a ton of little things to improve Wikipedia, but there are two that stand out among the others: protected edit requests and location maps. I've significantly streamlined the process for users to make protected edit requests in the following ways:

I made improvements to the interface messages MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext, MediaWiki:Cascadeprotected, and MediaWiki:Protectedinterface to make it easier for users to get to the page where they submit their edit request.
I fixed Template:Submit an edit request to automatically fill in the name of the page to be edited, which fixed a long-standing problem where edit requests were unnecessarily denied because it wasn't clear what page was supposed to be edited.
I modified Module:Protected edit request to ensure that active requests are always placed in the correct category (full, template, or semi), even if the wrong request template were used or if the protection level were changed.
I split, combined, and reworded messages in Template:EP so that when edit requests are denied, the requester can more easily understand what they must do to have future requests accepted.
I created editProtectedHelper to allow users to respond to edit requests much more quickly and to more easily give the most appropriate response.

I've also made the following improvements to location maps, making them significantly faster to render and easier to use:

I converted Template:Location map and its many subtemplates to use Lua, which sped them up immensely and fixed many pages appearing in Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded.
I converted several of our map data templates from large switch statements to actual data, and I created a guide allowing others to easily do the same.
I completely redid the structure of our very large maps of the Syrian Civil War and other ongoing conflicts, allowing them to be displayed in articles without breaking other templates appearing in them.

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: The biggest conflict I've been in here happened when I marked an edit request to revert myself as "Not done", which led to an AN discussion. I managed to keep my cool, and it didn't end up with any action, but since then, I've been a lot more careful of WP:INVOLVED.

Additional question from Mkativerata

4. Your top-edited article is Qnet, a fairly high-traffic page in both viewing and editing. You have taken a particularly active role in editing and maintaining the page. Could you please explain that role in more detail? In particular, how, over the last year-and-a-bit, have you made the article better?

A: That page gets a lot of SPAs trying to whitewash it and add promotional content, and I've been trying to keep it neutral and encyclopedic. Because of its nature, most (if not all) of my edits there were reverts. Jackmcbarn (talk) 20:49, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Additional question from Rcsprinter123

5. According to this tool, only 19% of your edits have been to mainspace articles. The nomination statements give good explanations for this, as you have helped a lot on the more technical side of things. In your own words, can you explain why and how you are interested in being HERE?

A: I got my start here reverting vandalism, which is pretty obviously WP:HERE. I'd describe the purpose of my technical work as making it easier for content creators to create content, and allowing it to be presented more efficiently to readers. My coding and gnoming work are also given as examples on WP:HERE. I wrote this response before the phrase "interested in being" was added, and then EC'd while saving. If you'd rather I answer the new version, let me know. Jackmcbarn (talk) 21:27, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really mind, I was just trying to get a general sense of your reasons for helping. Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (drawl) @ 21:29, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Additional question from Ais523

6. Suppose you're trying to clean out a backlog at CAT:PER and come across a request for an apparently uncontroversial change to an article or policy that has been protected due to edit-warring, with two or three users on the talk page supporting it. As an uninvolved admin cleaning out the CAT:PER backlog, do you make the change? If so, what do you do when the inevitable horde of people claiming that you're abusing your admin rights to enforce the wrong version starts complaining at you? --ais523 04:27, 30 October 2014 (U T C)

A: If anyone's opposed the change, I'd deactivate the request and ask for a consensus to form before implementing it. If not, then I'd make the change (although if the topic area was really contentious, I may let it sit for a little while first). If the "horde" has actual opposition to the change, I'd revert myself, as sort of a WP:BRD by proxy, and then wait for further discussion, just as I would if it had opponents originally. Jackmcbarn (talk) 14:13, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Additional questions from Carrite

7. You indicate HERE that you edited WP as an IP account... Is this accurate or have you ever had any other named accounts? In order that we may review the whole of your editing history instead of merely the last 15 months of it, would you kindly point us to some of your IP editing?

A. I've contributed from the account that I had usurped (although I didn't really do much then), in addition to from IPs. I'd rather not reveal my old IP addresses for privacy reasons. Jackmcbarn (talk) 14:41, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Carrite, Fylbecatulous, GamerPro64, and Konveyor Belt: As Dirtlawyer1 suggested, I would be willing to reveal this information privately to a few trusted users (any steward, sysadmin, or local admin listed at meta:Identification noticeboard) for them to check. Would this be acceptable? Jackmcbarn (talk) 20:20, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

8. I have noticed from your CSD log that in October 2013 you proposed New R. S. J. Public School for speedy deletion as G11-Unambiguous Promotional Material. Was this an error on you part, and if so, why? What is your understanding of the consensus about articles on schools which has emerged at Articles for Deletion? Carrite (talk) 15:36, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I've undeleted the history of New R. S. J. Public School Senior Secondary, (the actual target of the CSD noted above) to aid discussion. --j⚛e decker ^talk 16:03, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A. I do not believe that tagging was in error, especially since the article was deleted because of the tag for that reason. (It was later recreated without the issues that led to its first deletion.) Although there's a consensus that articles on secondary schools should never be deleted for lack of notability, it's perfectly fine to delete them for other reasons (such as, in this case, being pure advertisements). Jackmcbarn (talk) 20:22, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

8A. Wouldn't the preferred course have been stubbing out the offensive content and leaving the non-offensive basic detail as an article on this secondary-school-of-confirmed-existence? Or alternatively: marking the piece as "patrolled" and then flagging at the top for COI and/or Promotion (which is probably the quicker play for a page patroller trying to work fast)? Carrite (talk) 16:35, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A. I suppose I could have reduced the whole article to the single sentence "New R. S. J. Public School Senior Secondary (abbreviated as NRSJPS) is an independent school in Allahabad, India." That's really all that was salvageable from the revision I tagged for G11. Since the entire article was spam, though, I felt that it would be better for the next author to truly start from scratch rather than from a substub, and also to make it less likely that the exact same promotional content would be restored. I wasn't really trying to work fast, so I spent the extra time to make sure the problem got taken care of, rather than just drive-by tagging it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 20:26, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Additional question from Wbm1058

9. In this edit, you expressed the view that "Developers aren't bound by community consensus." In light of the ongoing concerns about implementation of new software features, e.g., see here, can you elaborate on what you mean by that, particularly on when developers who are not Foundation employees are or are not bound by consensus.

A: That sentence actually isn't quite correct the way I wrote it. What I should have wrote was that the software development process isn't bound by community consensus. As per WP:CONEXCEPT, decisions on what software features should be present are ultimately up to developers and sysadmins rather than the community. Jackmcbarn (talk) 20:27, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Additional question from NickGibson3900

10. Have you ever peer reviewed an article on Wikipedia? That can mean a PR, GAN, FAC, DYK, FLC, ACR etc.

A: I have not. Jackmcbarn (talk) 02:10, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

11. Have you ever participated in a backlog elimination drive? E.g. GOCE, WIKIFY etc.

A: I review at AfC all the time, including during their backlog drives, but I didn't officially "sign up" for them, so I'm not sure if you'd count that. Other than that, no. Jackmcbarn (talk) 02:10, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Additional question from Glrx

12. Have you ever edited under other user names?

A: Yes. See Wikipedia:Changing username/Usurpations/Completed/40#Jackmcbarn2 → Jackmcbarn for details. I hardly did anything with the old account, though. Jackmcbarn (talk) 20:17, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The question I intended is did you edit under any other user names besides the two already mentioned. Glrx (talk) 00:40, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. I currently maintain the alts User:Jackmcbarn no permissions and User:Jackmcbarn HG as my user page mentions. Nothing older though. Jackmcbarn (talk) 02:00, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Additional question from Fauzan

13. As an admin on Wikipedia, would you consider yourself to be more a member of the local Wikipedia community or the MediaWiki developer community?

A: I'm not really sure how to answer this. I'm fully a member of both communities, and becoming an admin here wouldn't change that. Jackmcbarn (talk) 19:37, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I wanted to know about your participation here on Wikipedia in your capacity as a Wikipedia administrator, clarified in Q 15. --Fauzan^{✆ talk}_{✉ mail} 05:02, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Additional question from Vejvančický

14. When did you join the English Wikipedia (±)? This edit suggests to me that you were an experienced editor already in September 2006. It is not the kind of edit you make on your second day on the project, after two test edits to WP:Sandbox. ... I apologize if it sounds punctilious, I realize that it was more than 8 years ago and you don't have to necessarily remember that, but when I compare the edits to the sandbox with the diff above I see a strange discrepancy: innocent newbie edits vs. highly specialized (and a very good) contribution to a policy page.

A: I don't remember exactly when I first joined, but I think it was a few weeks before I made my old account, so my best guess would be August 2006. For most of the span between then and when I made this account, though, I was pretty much totally inactive. Jackmcbarn (talk) 19:37, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Additional question from wctaiwan

15. This is kind of a followup to 13. Would you use your sysop permissions to facilitate the deployment of software features or use the permissions in a dispute about a software change?

A: Whether I'd use sysop permissions to facilitate deployment of software features really depends on the exact circumstances. For example, as a result of the discussion at Template talk:R from move#Request for comment, I wrote gerrit:87345, and after it was deployed, I made a protected edit request for an admin to set up MediaWiki:Move-redirect-text to make it work here. In that case, as an admin, I would have just made the edit myself, since it was uncontroversial. If I had reason to believe that a software-update-related change were controversial, I wouldn't make it myself (just as I'd avoid making any other type of controversial edit to a fully protected page). To answer the second part of your question, if there were an extant editing dispute related to a software change, I wouldn't use my admin abilities to further either "side" in the dispute. Jackmcbarn (talk) 20:10, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Additional question from Wifione ^Message

16. Thanks for applying Jack. Your edits are impressive and are highly appreciated. Would you be comfortable sharing your past ip addresses privately with me (and if you are comfortable with the suggestion, with Carrite, whom I trust considerably; if you're not comfortable sharing the same with me or him, do just mention)? Thanks again for applying.

A: I've emailed the IPs to you. Carrite has stated that sharing the IPs privately would be insufficient, but I suppose I would be willing to share with them otherwise. Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:46, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Jack. I have received your email with the details. It would help me review your edits in a much better way. I'm sure that what Carrite wrote did not mean that sharing the IPs would be insufficient. I presume that he wished you to describe more clearly your editing during the respective period. In my view, that is a fair request. At the same time, I should confirm that your reply here and the subsequent email is quite highly appreciated and is more than sufficient for me to review your edits. Thanks. Wifione ^Message

Addendum: Jack, I've reviewed your edits and am adding my comments in the section below. Thanks. Wifione ^Message 13:39, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like my answer caused some confusion below. To clarify, I have given the list to Wifione, but not to Carrite. Jackmcbarn (talk) 16:17, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Additional question from Vejvančický

17. I know it may sound unrelated, but I have to ask ... what's your opinion on Wikipedia:Editor review/Wifione? Would you trust administrator Wifione as your "confidant" after reading the review?

A: That editor review seems to be about COI article editing. I haven't really looked closely at it, but it doesn't give me the impression that they'd mishandle nonpublic data. Jackmcbarn (talk) 14:58, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Additional question from EatingGlassIsBad

18. What do you think of editors that contribute just so they can become administrators then stop editing and yield the whip? Do you plan on editing at roughly the same level (or at least 60% of it) and be willing to take administrative sabbaticals if you don't?

I don't plan to significantly change my editing patterns as a result of becoming an administrator. I'm not sure what you mean by administrative sabbaticals. Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:07, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

19. Are you willing to accept consequences for rude behavior or bad administrative decisions, other than to say "sorry"? Or do you expect administrative power for life, as is the case that some Presidents of some countries do (in the spirit of Wikipedia neutrality, I do not condemn such countries, only to state the fact).

I assume you're asking about WP:RECALL. I do plan to be open to recall, but I haven't yet decided on the exact details of the process. Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:07, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

20. Do you plan to mentor or act as an ombudsman to certain users, especially when they have problems? Have you done so in the past?

As of now, no. That's never really been an area I've been interested in. Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:07, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

21. Would you be willing to support a measures where a user must disclose all conflicts of interest? Currently, this is clearly not done. For example, a supporter of the U.S. Republican Party might add only positive comments to Republican biographies or a supporter of the U.S. Democratic party might add only negative comments to Republican biographies. Another example might be where a British subject writes only in support of Gibraltar. One place to declare potential conflicts or disclaimers might be on the user page, perhaps a requirement after a user had edited more than 100 edits.

That would depend on the exact details of the proposal. Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:07, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

22. Currently, users who are blocked can sit on the unblock request list for a while. Do you plan to patrol that board? — Preceding unsigned comment added by EatingGlassIsBad (talk • contribs) 20:28, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'll probably look at Category:Requests for unblock once in a while, yes. Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:07, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

General comments

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

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

Discussion

Just a reminder to Mr. Stradivarius that nominators should vote too! ansh666 20:22, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, I know - I was just waiting until the RfA actually started before supporting. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:19, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

All these BS comments about Jack editing as an IP and being a mystery for seven is the exact kind of BS attacks that make RFA such a nightmare. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 20:35, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support

Support as co-nom. Steel1943 (talk) 02:36, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support I don't see any reason for this user not to have the mop. Good level of experience and has been a net positive to the project.--Church ^Talk 20:08, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support as co-nom. I was going to say more in my co-nom, but Strad said it all! :) --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 20:14, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Support, as this user is very helpful in maintaining the integrity of the encyclopedia, especially with bugs, scripts, modules, templates, and vandalism reversions, to name a few things he is good at. Admin access will allow him to edit fully protected templates, scripts, and modules, as well as do normal administrative actions, which Jackmcbarn may or may not use as often (blocks, protects, deletes, etc.). – Epicgenius (talk) 20:15, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Good technical and deletion experience. ///EuroCarGT 20:24, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support No reason to think they'll misuse the tools. FeydHuxtable (talk) 20:32, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Cheers, Thanks, L235-Talk Ping when replying 20:38, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support -- WOSlinker (talk) 20:39, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Collect (talk) 20:44, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support definitely. Legoktm (talk) 20:46, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support I am One of Many (talk) 20:51, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Why not. Ronhjones ^(Talk) 21:01, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Competent and sensible. He seems to know our deletion processes well. I checked Jackmcbarn's appearances at ANI and saw no problems there. EdJohnston (talk) 21:04, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support, do not see any problems.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:11, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Excellent candidate, ~~No issues!, Good luck :)~~ - I will admit the 7 year gap and the 19% mainspace edits are big issues for me BUT imho he makes up for that in other areas (IE technical work & CSD'ing), I also agree in that "Jack" shouldn't disclose his IP tho (If it's a dynamic IP then he's screwed anyway since they obviously change constantly!) and to oppose purely on that is imho ridiculous ..., Anyway Good Luck :) -→Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ ~~21:18, 29 October 2014~~ 16:11, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support I have seen Jackmcbarn giving helpful advice at WP:VPT, but being limited by not being able to see the whole situation. He will make good use of the admin tools.—Anne Delong (talk) 21:23, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support, enthusiastically. A prolific scripter and wikignome; I have no doubt would make a fine administrator. We bumped heads at the most recent pending changes level 2 RfC over the use of a script he wrote; he was open to discussion with many (angrier) editors and worked to a civil resolution. His openness and civility will serve him well in this role. Ivanvector (talk) 21:28, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Aye. —Frosty ☃ 21:38, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Like Ivanvector, I liked his work at the 2014 PC2 RfC. - Dank (push to talk) 21:44, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Fine with me. Deb (talk) 21:48, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
– Juliancolton | ^Talk 21:49, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support, and kudos to the nominator for all that detail. --Stfg (talk) 22:11, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support This is one of those cases where the metrics are actually a bit too light, ie: article percent, etc. but this is offset by a set of specific technical skills and other useful experiences. As long as an editor has a little bit of experience in a bunch of different areas, a lot of total experience, and a highly sought technical skill, plus a good demeanor, then you have to throw the ratios out the window and support simply because it is obvious he will be a net positive to the project if he has the extra tools. Dennis - 2¢ 22:19, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Yep. Philg88 ^♦talk 22:22, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support, a sensible person according to what I've seen of him, and Anne Delong's opinion carries a lot of weight with me. Huon (talk) 22:29, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I'm not very familiar with his work on enwiki, but his dev work is superb, and he could probably assist with technical issues. πr² (t • c) 22:30, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Taketa (talk) 22:34, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support No concerns. benmoore 22:35, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Technical request looks good on its own, and there is significant background for the branch out. I'd like better distribution but it is not an issue for this nom. Glrx (talk) 22:37, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Reedy (talk) 22:46, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support His diplomatic and patient behaviour at Template talk:Location map Israel when dealing with the exasperating nationalists suggests this is an editor to be trusted with the tools – we need more admins who can see the wood for the trees. Number 5 7 22:52, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Way back in July 2013 Jack helped me out with rev/del questions. He obviously understood better how it worked than I did. He was patient and clear (and right). In the short-term after that I sometimes thought his judgment on non-technical issues, albeit earnest and in good faith, was not always great, but I have little doubt that he's grown since then. I also remember that when I explained why I disagreed with him on some conduct issue, he was eager to learn and not in the least defensive. I know that we have other admins who are good technically, but, as far as I'm concerned, there are never enough of them. Finally, I like the fact that one of the co-nominators is not an administrator. After all, what do we know? I think Jack would easily be a net asset to the project as an administrator.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:54, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Finally, an admin candidate with a good chance of passing. I'll relax on my requirement of content creation here. Working on templates and modules that appear in articles is important as well and is just as good at proving that his edits aren't just mindlessly pushing buttons all day. --Jakob (talk) 23:12, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support as nominator. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:19, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support st170e^talk 23:24, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. On the plus side, the nominations are very strong. On the minus side, well, I think that oppose #1 raises a serious point about the need for administrators to be able to deal with content, and not just with technicalities (and I think that the question to the opposing editor was unfair). I find myself agreeing with Dennis Brown on the positives, and sharing Bbb23's caveats with respect to supporting. I looked to see if I could find pages where I could assess the candidate's ability to navigate a dispute about content where other editors disagree strongly. There's frankly not much to work with. I looked in some detail at the candidate's AfD discussions and, per the nomination, yes they are rather brief comments. And there is no getting around the fact that most of the article-space work has been reverting vandalism. I'm glad that Number 57 linked to Template talk:Location map Israel, because that was what I needed to push me into a decision to support. Although, strictly speaking, it was a discussion about a template, it was also very much a discussion about a content issue, and a very contentious one at that, and the candidate was engaged in it in detail. And the demeanor showed the kind of civility and clue that I want to see in an admin. So, I've decided to trust the candidate's promise to focus on technical areas, where he will be an unambiguous net positive, and I feel reassured that when he has to deal with angry editors, he will be able to do it responsibly. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:42, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've read all of the comments that have been made after my comment above, and I'm still here in support. I want to acknowledge that I think that concerns about lack of content work, and concerns about insensitivity about software developers versus content creators, seem valid (but not decisive) to me. On the other hand, the large number of oppose rationales based upon the IP editing seem to me to be illogical. Editors have every right to privacy, and administrators should not have to give those rights up. We have enough editing history under the registered account to know that this is not a disruptive editor. End of story. Anything beyond that is tantamount to conspiracy theorizing. I hope that the closing Bureaucrat will discount those oppose comments. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:16, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Jack has made significant contributions to templates and modules, has a completely clear block log, an impressive CSD log in terms of accuracy, and already has advanced permissions, such as template editor and "+2" rights. Lack of content creation is no issue for me, and I think he would make good use of the tools in his coding and deletion work. --Biblio worm 23:47, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Sure. → Call me Hahc21 23:49, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Grayfell (talk) 00:06, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support — Committed editor with extensive experience in all the areas that count. Kurtis ^(talk) 00:26, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I don't see a good reason why not. Howicus (Did I mess up?) 00:28, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support for a fellow wikignome who will be a net positive with the mop. We need more admins for maintenance work. Miniapolis 00:46, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support; normally I'd like to see more content creation, but technical admins I feel are the one exception to this, as their work normally does not revolve around content, unlike with others. StringTheory11 (t • c) 01:00, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Enthusiastic Support A very solid well rounded candidate. Like StringTheory11 I would normally cringe a bit at the mainspace percentages but all of the other contributions more than compensate. Good luck! -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:05, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} has explained quite well why the candidate will make a great administrator. I agree that some technically minded administrators have to be a great help with certain tasks. Moreover, he has considerable experience in various administrative areas. While content contribution is important and an administrator should have some experience in the main task of the project, I think he has enough. Also, I think that someone who has the amount of experience the candidate has and has built up a reputation for reliability, good work and good demeanor, some leeway on the amount of content contribution is appropriate. Donner60 (talk) 01:24, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support A clear Net positive and see no concerns.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 01:38, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Pretty good AfD figures and participation. Nice manner at talk pages. Massive cerebellum. Quite new, but fine edit count. All-in-all, a good candidate. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:48, 30 October 2014 (UTC) Moving to "Neutral" for now. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:09, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Lesser Cartographies (talk) 02:08, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Rs chen 7754 02:52, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Nowadays I'm generally too lazy to comment about why I support, but many of the opposes are completely baseless and go against established Wikimedia policy that protects user privacy, and I can't sit and let that go by. --Rs chen 7754 05:57, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Step hen 03:56, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Positive contributions that I've looked over, and good answers to questions. :) Good luck, — Cirt (talk) 04:34, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Eurodyne (talk) 05:31, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Everything seems in order here, very engaged in areas we always need help in from admins. — xaosflux ^Talk 05:36, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Excellent candidate. §FreeRangeFrog^croak 05:47, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support No concerns. Widr (talk) 06:03, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Cheers. Dekimasuよ! 06:50, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support: looks like the candidate would be a positive addition to the admin corps. Good luck. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 06:59, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I'm probably not alone in thinking that reviewer contributions at (the broken tool that is) AFC aren't really "content" contributions in the "traditional" sense. The nominee has 1 new article contribution of his own - Self-XSS - but all things considered, it's not a bad little thing. I'd like to see more of that, mostly because I don't personally understand a lot of the technical things the nominee has done. But that's more about me rather than any reason to oppose the nomination. No substantive concerns, put it that way. St★lwart¹¹¹ 07:18, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I asked Question 4 as a Dorothy Dixer. I was disappointed that the candidate didn't use the opportunity to fully show how he has maintained a contentious and high-traffic page, not just by reverting obvious vandalism but by using his skills and policy proficiency to keep the page on an even keel, for example by recognising and removing non-obvious puffery and ensuring the page fully informs readers of the activities of the subject organisation. More could be done on the page, for sure, but I've seen enough to at least know that the candidate has clue, and that he cares. The candidate is not someone who, with the power of their pen, will single-handedly realize the power of Wikipedia as a vehicle to deliver the world into the sunlit uplands of free knowledge. But he is a capable operator, clearly does care about the article space, and is neither an idiot nor a dickhead. --Mkativerata (talk) 07:31, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, the term Dorothy Dixer isn't used much outside Australia, so I thought I'd provide a link to it here. Graham87 08:27, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support without hesitation. Graham87 08:21, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support No problems at all. TheOverflow (talk) 08:49, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Seems to know what he is doing, has been here more than 6 months. Only concern: Too many edits, should have been made an admin earlier. —Kusma (t·c) 09:11, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support per noms. INeverCry 09:22, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Competent, even-tempered, committed to the project. Seems fine to me. Euryalus (talk) 09:51, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support We have interacted often, and although we have had differences regarding the spread of Lua (I find that a Lua-ised template becomes incomprehensible), resolution of the issues has been generally fair. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:27, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Not the typical RfA candidate, but one that I think can be trusted with the admin toolset. Good luck! — sparklism ^hey! 14:13, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Seems to me to have the right attitude for adminship; the technical knowledge is a bonus. Yunshui ^雲 _水 14:54, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Seen him around, seems sensible. It would be worth making him an admin just so he could do his own protections instead of adding to the RfPP semi-perma-backlog! We need more admins with technical know-how and (whatever variation of the 'too many admins' meme is circulating at the moment) more admins making use of the tools at places like AIV, UAA, and RfPP—the areas Jack expresses an interest in. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:43, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support to cancel the IP oppose votes, if you edit via IP, the place you live in is usually exposed, and thus we use revision deletion in these cases. Secret ^account 16:18, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Fauzan^{✆ talk}_{✉ mail} 16:53, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support should be a fine addition to administration staff. Regards, Yamaguchi先生 17:43, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support per noms and demonstrated need for tools according to the answer #1. No evidence has been shown demonstrating Jackmcbarn would harm Wikipedia, to the contrary. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 20:14, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Mkativerata, HJ Mitchell and Secret, among others. I see that one of the opposes cites this edit as a cause for concern. In that edit, the candidate reports a two-edit account to AIV for making this edit. The idea that we must give new accounts a warning – much less four warnings – before blocking them for that type of edit is completely absurd. The candidate did the right thing there (as did the admin who issued the block.) Test edits, sure, we should warn for that. Hate speech, not so much. 28bytes (talk) 20:35, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support mostly because I disagree that more than a year of active editing under a named account is insufficient to establish trust. Candidate looks fine. wctaiwan (talk) 21:50, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Seems reasonable, opposes are unconvincing, so support! – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 21:56, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support I see no reason not to support them, as they seem to know what they're doing. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:47, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. We need to promote more administrators, from among qualified editors, in general, and this candidate's background will be helpful in several areas. I trust the candidate to use good judgment by moving slowly in areas of adminship with which he has less experience. I find the opposers' concerns unpersuasive. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:37, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support based on logs, deleted content and some of the work I saw. In response to the New R. S. J. Public School Senior Secondary speedy delete tagging, this apge could have easily been improved to remove peacock terms rather than deleted, so I suggest Jackmcbarn steers clear of deletion, which is suggested anyway by what he plans to do. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:18, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support -- EvilLair (✉ | c) 02:02, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support I can see no sensible reason for opposing this request. We need admins and this is a solid candidate. Chillum 02:44, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support I'm a fan of Jackmcbarn. I think his technical work demonstrates a strong dedication toward the project and a high level of trust with the community. This is an encyclopedia, and his content creation may be lacking, but there are a lot more critical intricacies going on behind the scenes that many are not aware of. I have personally observed Jackmcbarn's work and how it has affected my efficiency as an administrator (such as fixing bugs with pending-changes protection and tweaks to edit filter functionality). I can only envision having the admin toolset will allow him to both identify a need for technical improvement and have the capability to implement and test it himself. In the end we have a highly specialized and unique type of admin, one that would serve as a valuable go-to for technical advice and related inquiries. Meanwhile he can still help out in the normal backlogged areas, which he has indicated he is willing to do, and examples such as his CSD log show he can be trusted to push those buttons wisely. — MusikAnimal ^talk 03:16, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support as a cluefull and dedicated editor. I share the observation that some of the opposes make that Jackmcbarn doesn't have much experience with content creation, but based on the editor's past actions I trust that he has the judgment not to rush into admin areas that require such experience, such as closing contentious AFDs or rename requests; sanctioning editors under WP:GS etc. (This is similar to our trusting that admins who are not technically proficient won't edit the the mediawiki interface, or jump into promoting TFAs and DYKs to mainpage, even though they are granted the technical tools to do so.) And in the meantime Jack can put his knowledge and admin tools to great use in some specialized areas where he has proposed to work. Abecedare (talk) 03:31, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support I thought the Oppose section looked a little alarming, so I've been looking through a lot of diffs looking for the specific concerns raised there, and I couldn't find much. The only worrying thing I found in the random AfDs and MfDs I looked at (+ the "voted delete, was kept" AfDs, many of which were part of an apparently mass nomination of basketball players) was this, and it looks more like a lapse of wording (something which I've done multiple times by mistake recently) rather than any sort of malice. A gap in accessible contributions isn't a problem unless the user in question did something really bad (in which case Arbcom would probably let us know), because the contributions since the gap are reasonable enough to promote; 15 months of edit history should be easily enough to evaluate someone for adminship. And users who are weaker at content creation make better admins than users who are stronger, as it considerably reduces the chance of ownership issues, and means that we don't have to put people who could be doing useful content work onto backlog clearing. I would, however, recommend that the nominee stays away from particularly contentious areas (especially the non-technical side of WP:RFPP, which they seem to have stayed away from so far); a different set of skills are needed there. --ais523 04:11, 31 October 2014 (U T C)
Support I gave myself a couple of days before voting, to see how the opposition arguments turned out. I have come to feel that although the candidate does not have much history with content, this shouldn't be a problem to what administrative area they intend to work in, and really, they can be trusted not to break anything. Also, I don't know why anybody is talking about the candidate disclosing their IP address, as that is not a requirement and doesn't make any difference to how they edit. So, I must support. Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (lecture) @ 08:57, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Lack of article creation and mainspace edits but I think his technical skills and experience in many areas are pretty useful. As he expressed in #Q1 that he needs the tools so I think he will be a net positive for the project as an admin. And there are not many admins with high technical knowledge. Jim Carter 09:08, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Solid candidate who won't go storming into areas he doesn't know about, and who has a need for a mop in the areas he works in. As to IP editing, if he did do anything wrong as an IP (which I can't think likely), he surely won't as an admin just as he hasn't as JMcB. I don't regard lack on content creation as a vital issue. Do you expect the electrician to be able to write sonnets? You do expect him not to get the wiring backwards. Peridon (talk) 13:04, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Helpful and active in areas that the tools would help him in. Nothing that makes me think he's messed up in the head. mol uɐɯ 13:40, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Has experience. Knows what he is doing. Opposes unconvincing. Easily the best candidate for weeks. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:49, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support No evidence that they will abuse the tools or position. I'm with Eric Corbett though that I would like to see more article work here. I'm not concerned about the candidate wishing to not disclose their old IPs.--MONGO 14:10, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Not only because I trust the user, but also because most of the opposes (the ones based on his editing history: he has the right to privacy and thinking he did something under the cloud is a failure to assume good faith, since the Arbitration Committee can and will desysop admins who misled the community if such a thing is unearthed) are ridiculous.--Jasper Deng (talk) 15:53, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support I fully expect that giving him the tools will be a net positive for en.wiki. Pichpich (talk) 19:33, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Appears trustworthy and generally competent. Would it be possible for him to be a better candidate? Absolutely. But I don't see any reason why he isn't a good-enough candidate. NW (Talk) 20:30, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Candidate has far better grasp of deletion in Wikipedia than many current admins. Admins can have their privacy and refuse to disclose their IP addresses. Opposes making lousy arguments in general. jni ^(delete)_{...just not interested} 21:57, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
support The candidate seems to have an excellent understanding of the basic admin roles. I m only slightly concerned about lack of content creation, since the comments at deletion process show a good understanding of the difficulties users face. I am not concerned that he might wish to assign the WMF a greater role in determining features than I would prefer--his opinion is not strongly outside the consensus (nor would it be particularly relevant) I am -- tentatively not concerned about the ip address editing; this is an important privacy concern, and I myself have always asked mine to be oversighted when inadvertently disclosed. His offer to reveal it to a suitably trusted user is sufficient. I am especially not concerned at all about the gap in editing--it is perfectly reasonable for someone to be interested for a while, then go on to other things, then come here again. That he has sufficient recent experience is all that is needed. DGG ( talk ) 22:56, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:23, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support – Appreciate your help when I was working on the visibility changes to Template:Orphan. Wbm1058 (talk) 00:32, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Based on this editors surprisingly vague editing history, I'm changing my vote from neutral to support. Now that WP has such an admin shortage, choosing admins with such a lack of transparent history is definitely the thing to do to further water-down WP's administrative competence and hopefully hasten the project's demise. Cla68 (talk) 10:11, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Very valuable contributor who have shown they can be trusted with the tools. I don't care at all what IP edits were made before this account was established. Even if there were blocks or anything untoward (unlikely anyway given the current edit history), this editor is now clearly worthy of the community's trust. The badgering about the IP edits actually convinced me to change from "neutral". --Randykitty (talk) 10:21, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support per above. Jianhui67^T★C 12:21, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support I'm very troubled by the diff given in Q9, and the response to it isn't hugely better. I think it's a terrible attitude to have. That said, it doesn't really intersect with admin duties, and I see nothing that would suggest trouble in that area. The IP editing thing doesn't seem like the huge scandal some have made it out to be. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 13:48, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support and WP:100. I trust this editor will use the tools to the benefit of the encyclopedia. --j⚛e decker ^talk 15:32, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
support Well, I'm not much active on community side of enwiki and found this page really coincidentally, but 'User did not revealed his IP' cannot br a good reason for oppose, so basically per Rschen7754. — revi_msg 15:45, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Active and technically knowledgeable. Noteswork (talk) 16:09, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Jack, thank you for all your good work. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 18:59, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support More technologically minded admins are needed - NickGibson3900 ^Talk 00:18, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support No indication they will abuse the tools. Although template editor bit will allow protected template edits which was a main focus area. That should be given regardless of RfA if s/he is editing templates. --DHeyward (talk) 02:08, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Overall a strong candidate. While article creation is a bit low, Jackmcbarn more than makes up for it in other areas. Some concern has been raised about anonymous IP editing, but I believe Jackmcbarn's desire to remain private is completely reasonable. Regardless of IP edits, I trust that this user will not abuse the admin tools. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 04:18, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. (edit conflict). Jack McBarn is a very familiar name and what he has done as an IP previously is of absolutely no concern of mine and is a very, very weak reason for opposing, especially when it has caused so many pile-ons from people who have simply thought 'Hey, this sounds like a good reason to oppose' and who themselves have low edit counts stretched over many years or simply come here to turn yet another RfA into a dramafest. In fact, any previous edits will have only contributed to his knowledge and posibly even compensate for the relatively short time he has been editing as Jack. While I can agree to some guarded extent with The view of the WMF is quite clearly that Wikipedia's role as an encyclopedia is of secondary importance to the WMF's role as a software development organisation, whether one likes admins or not, RfA is not the venue for making strategic votes against adminship in general. I am slightly wary therefore of competent techies who may play into the hands of the Foundation, because I have very good reasons to be, and Jack will need to be very carful whose side he takes in WMF vs community software issues. I'm confident he will, and just as confident that he will not abuse the tools, so I'm far less worried about a perceived lack of activity in traditional administrative areas or content building. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:50, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Candidate clearly needs the tools for his work. It is fundamental to Wikipedia that we should AGF. Even if the negative concerns about mysterious editing history gap turn out to be correct, and the candidate starts vandalising etc. (which seems extremely unlikely IMO )they can be blocked immediately by other admins, and their actions reversed. So, desysopping being a difficult process is not a substantial concern. Best.OrangesRyellow (talk) 05:10, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Can't improve on Kudpung's words. Bgwhite (talk) 09:56, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Jack has done some good things. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:58, 2 November 2014 (UTC).
Support per the comments of Tryptofish, Mkativerata, HJ Mitchell and New York Brad above. I have sat on the fence in this RfA while reviewing all of the comments by other discussion participants. While I share the desire for our ideal admin candidates to be masters of content, deletion policy and notability guidelines, I am also increasingly concerned with the auto-da-fe nature of RfA and the fact that the negative atmospherics have excluded and discouraged qualified candidates even as the project has faced an increasingly critical shortage of active administrators. Given the circumstances, I have decided to give a qualified candidate the benefit of the doubt. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:52, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support As much as I'd love to see more content creation, Jack seems a sensible editor who will make good use of the tools. Sam Walton (talk) 17:58, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support I'm willing to support any editor who shows WP:Clue. The haggling about IP editing is unwarranted. Under this account, the candidate has a clean sheet, period. Besides, as already mentioned, either they edited occasionally with a dynamic IP, nad then they wouldn't even know the number (like myself, the IP changes every time I shut down my internet connexion, i.e. every day, and I've no idea what number I get assigned next day), or they edited with a static IP and than the number can be tracked and the candidate is outed. So, I'd like the voters to just let it go. Vote any way you like, but don't keep asking for the IP numbers. The answer to Q 16 should be Mu. Kraxler (talk) 18:35, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The opposes here are daft. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:42, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
A very difficult choice for me; usually i can decide easily, but here i need to take a closer look at my criteria, so please pardon my thinking aloud. Opposes regarding the IP editing are not convincing to me; privacy is important, and punishing an ex-IP editor for desiring it is wrong. On the other hand, it would have been good to have had some idea of what the candidate edited during the Missing Years. Content creation is not supremely important to me (as a requirement for a candidate; as the purpose of the community, essential), but here there seems to be even less than my minimal needs. While Eric Corbett's oppose is slightly cynical for my taste, i fully understand the concern he has, and share his questioning of the Foundation's own goals. I question the candidate's need for the tools ~ a mop does not seem to be what he is requesting ~ and how his acquisition of them will benefit the community (though i don't doubt his competence and positive goals; Mr. Strad's nomination statement is one of the most complete i've ever seen), though i am not predicting misuse of them. In the end, i think i have to land on this side and support simply through my basic position; for what it's worth, though, i would recommend to the candidate that he be aware of certain concerns raised in this RfA and not plunge in like a made bull when he is tooled-up. Cheers, Lindsay^Hello 04:48, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Great editor, and I'm confident Jack will be able to use the tools appropriately as admin in the areas he specifies. A lack of content creation is not an automatic no for me - there's a lot more to the wiki than that. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 06:41, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Opposes based on him not sharing his IP edits (which gives away his location and probably other personal info) is beyond idiotic..He isn't an average "run-of-the-mill" enwiki vandal trying to become an admin on enwiki, he is a well regarded developer and coder. His knowledge and experience in fixing the mediawiki side of wikipedia would be very valuable....content creation has not been a priority for adminship for many years now so lets not use that as an excuse to oppose a good candidate...--Ste moc 07:02, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Not a big deal. fish&karate 07:30, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support - see this comment if you must know more about my !vote. --My76Strat (talk) 07:32, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Firstly, I should thank Jack for being forthcoming in sharing details of his ip addresses with me and Carrite. I suspect that if Jack had not shared his ip addresses, I would have still remained in this support column based purely on my review of his logged edits. Regardless, the ip details are appreciated. Secondly, in my review of Jack's ip edits, I have not found anything out of the ordinary. There's nothing extraordinary too. These are just plain and simple edits that have been attempted by him. If anyone wishes to have a specific response with respect to any particular time period of Jack's editing, please feel free to contact me on my talk page (or here, or on email), and I'll be ready to summarise his edits during that particular time period. For knowing the exact ip addresses, you should directly request Jack and give him the leeway to decide whether to share it or not, depending upon how much he trusts the requesting editor. All in all, reviewing all his edits - ip and otherwise - I have no qualms at all in supporting Jack. Wifione ^Message 13:33, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Wifione for reviewing Jack's edits and for expressing your support. I just wanted to say that we should be careful about revealing topic areas and times of Jack's IP editing. If the topic area is narrow enough and the time frame short enough, it could still be possible to work out which IPs were involved even if the IP addresses themselves were not made public. Jack has been brave in giving up this information to you and Carrite; let's take care not to expose his identity accidentally. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:07, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Noted Stradivarius. Will take care of that. Thanks. Wifione ^Message 14:10, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that I neither asked for, nor did I receive, any privately-relayed IP information. I remain of the opinion that precise IPs from which a candidate has persistently edited constitute alternative accounts, information about which the entire community should be entitled during the vetting process. Carrite (talk) 16:09, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Right. I added to my answer above to make that clear. Jackmcbarn (talk) 16:17, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Tentatively support because I think this user will answer my questions in a reasonable way. EatingGlassIsBad (talk) 20:33, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
CHANGE TO WEAK SUPPORT I don't like the fact that this person is trying to hide behind RECALL. Recall is an extremely hard way to get an administrator to step down. This encourages bullying and bad behavior. Instead, there should be a remedy, such as temporary suspension. I am also discouraged that this person doesn't want to work with other users, such as getting two users to work together. Furthermore, I don't like the fact that he is happy to block but won't review unblocks in the unblock request board, except once in a while. This issue is important to me because I was indefinitely blocked for vandalism and pleaded and pleaded. It was only after a long wait that it was determined that the administrator falsely accused me of vandalism. Either that or he was very sloppy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EatingGlassIsBad (talk • contribs) 16:38, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Grognard Chess (talk) Ping when replying 01:05, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support Moving here from oppose as the candidate has demonstrated an ability to add sourced content, though no disrespect to those of the Opposers whose minimum standard for sourced content is higher than mine. I think that on balance the candidate is ready and their technical skills and contributions demonstrate that they are ready for adminship in an alternate way to content improvement. As for any IP edits they have made, I have yet to see a convincing argument as to why such edits should be considered a negative. Weak because the answer to Q9 leaves me suspicious that the candidate may be one of those devs who thinks they have a veto on policy issues rather than just a veto for tech reasons, and the content creation is minimal for someone who wants to work in deletion. Ϣere SpielChequers 04:27, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Most everything looks good to me, and his answers to the questions are satisfactory overall. Inks.LWC (talk) 04:36, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support I have spent several days considering this nomination, and agree that the concerns raised by the editors who oppose the nomination are worthy of consideration. But I have yet to see no solid evidence that this candidate does not deserve to be an administrator. Like Carrite and Eric Corbett, I disclose my real world identity. But that is not required of editors or administrators. Yes, I would like to know, in theory, what this person did as an IP editor. But our protection of anonymity for those who edit anonymously prevents that. So be it. I must therefore judge this candidate based on what we can see from their disclosed, named accounts. The candidate has useful skills as a coder that I personally lack. I create content and assist new content creators. That's how I help this encyclopedia. I am proud of it. But I have no skills in programming. It is self-evident to me that programming skills are essential here. Those who offer those skills are useful editors and, in my view, deserving of the administrative toolkit if they show a need and the proper attitude and commitment to the project. I see no benefit in trying to divide coders from content creators. We need both, though I always want to see it acknowledged that the creation of free encyclopedic content is our primary goal. I apologize if my comments are too long. I believe this editor deserves the mop. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:15, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Jack may have appeared dismissive in the category-moving debate; but most of his contributions on any topic are to-the-point two-liners, and this is often a very welcome sight: Noyster (talk), 09:37, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Happy to support $Brookie :) { - he's in the building somewhere!} (Whisper...)$ 14:11, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support There are quite some reasons why I'm hesitant to support. But, I'll go with it. I have my faith in you, don't let us, supporters, down. --Ankit Maity _{«T § C»} 17:49, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Falls into the "I thought this editor already was an admin." Should be an even bigger asset to the community as an admin. MarnetteD|Talk 19:50, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'd prefer better answers to the questions, but some of the opposes are flat-out garbage, and the oppose for not wanting to share his IP is one of the worst I've ever seen. Not seeing any real red flags. Wizardman 22:43, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I've worked with this candidate a little before and he has my fullest support. He is mature and has expert knowledge of many areas on Wikipedia. I agree with other editors that the candidate should have more experience with content creation (the nominee only has one new article contribution of his own) and I hope he can write more new articles in the future. - tucoxn\^talk 01:45, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support- Sure. --Pratyya ^(Hello!) 02:29, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. The candidate has shown that he has a large amount of confidence coming from his abilities, as a coder or wherever. I don't have any concerns about his IP editing and I see no reason not to simply assume good faith on that as well. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:30, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support-he sounds like he would be a great admin on Wikipedia. Yoshi24517 ^Chat _Absent 06:32, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support: I don't see why he shouldn't be made administrator. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikipedian 2 (talk • contribs) 10:02, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I'm not concerned about the IP editing because this editor both offered to give the IP information to a trusted editor and because this editor has made valuable contributions since. Not every admin needs to have a strong content background; it's important that admins have a variety of backgrounds and skill sets. Ca2james (talk) 13:48, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Fuck yeah ('murica) Top notch editor will do excellent work as an admin. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 16:10, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Oppose. The view of the WMF is quite clearly that Wikipedia's role as an encyclopedia is of secondary importance to the WMF's role as a software development organisation. I take issue with that, and therefore oppose this candidate on the basis that he has no real experience of writing an encyclopedia. Eric Corbett 22:37, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
User:Eric Corbett, did you read the nomination text? Candidate is not WMF staff. --Krenair ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:53, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. But as I'm not permitted to take part in discussions here I can say no more. Eric Corbett 23:04, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Off-topic discussion moved to talk page. — xaosflux ^Talk 05:32, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Another comment about this vote moved to the talk page. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 21:59, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - his AfD record is, despite the nomination statement, terrible. In the overwhelming majority of cases where the community's judgement is that the article should be kept, he argued for deletion. Reviewing them, some, at least, seem to reflect rushing to judgement rather than investigating the situation. Similarly, a mostly red CSD log isn't that impressive, most db- are gimmies, and there's too many blue links there. Continued declining participation is likely to be a problem for Wikipedia, and making people administrators whose admin actions are likely to accelerate this trend is not a good idea. Wily D 09:52, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the CSD log, I looked at 7 CSDs (2 older ones and 5 newer ones), and 6 of 7 we're either CSD-able at the time, but later improved, or they were deleted and recreated later, sometimes as a redirect. The one that was turned down as is wasn't really what I would call a problematic tagging. Seeing blue ≠ bad CSD log. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 12:46, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe that AfD logs should determine adminship. Had he closed them with no good reason and declared "keep" or "delete" would be a different case. Unless of course, Jack displays a really poor knowledge of WP:DELETE, you shouldn't be opposing him on this grounds. But what you do is perfectly your own choice. My two cents. --Ankit Maity _{«T § C»} 17:29, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Refuses to reveal IP editing history — each and every IP being effectively an alternate account. While I appreciate this is probably not a tech-focused sock account of a contentious editor, there is no way to fill in the massive multi-year blank in editing history since account creation in 2007 and reactivation of the account in 2013. That's a black flag for me for a lifetime appointment to Administrator status. Carrite (talk) 15:24, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Carrite: I have not yet decided whether to support, oppose, or remain neutral in this RfA, but I would hate to see a good-faith nominee derailed if he did no wrong as an unregistered IP editor. I believe you're a perfectly reasonable kind of editor, and one I admire -- would you be willing to accept an administrator's confidential review and evaluation of the nominee's IP edits? That way, the nominee would not have to disclose his various IP addresses on wiki. Would that be a reasonable way to resolve your concerns? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:08, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
While that would be an improvement over nothing, it still fails to provide the necessary level of transparency of editing history, in my opinion. People not willing to disclose all accounts should not be running for tools. I can appreciate that the nominee might not know every IP address from which he has ever edited, but that's not what I asked for — some direction towards the fundamental editing behavior during the "blank" years is what I seek. Carrite (talk) 23:36, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Understood: it's not a fixable problem from your perspective. Thank you for your response. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:39, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: per Carrite above. This is worrisome with an undisclosed and / or unexplained history gap of six years. For an editor who is not aspiring for adminship, not a bother. However, in the elevation to Administrator status, not acceptable. Fylbecatulous talk 15:40, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's true that if Jackmcbarn doesn't disclose his IP addresses then we can't assess all of his edits. However, in many cases, it is possible to work out someone's real-life identity from their IP address, and the likelihood of being able to find the identity becomes much higher if you have several IP addresses known to be used by that individual. For this reason, disclosing all of your IP addresses is tantamount to outing yourself, and I don't think we should make self-outing a condition of adminship. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 15:52, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If Jackmcbarn has a dynamic IP address (like me), it can change often - when the router is power-cycled, or when the phone line connection drops and is restored (when my phone connection is dodgy, such as in high winds, my IP changes up to ten times a day). Unless every IP address that was assigned was noted at the time, it may be very difficult to determine what they were retrospectively. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:06, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It is not the lack of specific IP addresses; it is the failure to have access to candidate's editing history in order to judge whether I would trust them with tools and related power. As Carrite says above: those not willing to disclose all accounts should not be requesting adminship. Fylbecatulous talk 13:25, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Just a question, has he publicly declared that he uses (or has recently used) an IP for editing? --Ankit Maity _{«T § C»} 17:44, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)Oppose - I was kinda on the fence on whether or not to support or oppose but after reading his answer to Q7, that pretty much made the decision easier. I don't think I would feel comfortable with someone receiving the tools with the type of answer Jackmcbarn gave. GamerPro64 15:54, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: In looking into this candidate, I found this thread initiated by the nominee. This generated the equivalent of roughly 50 printed pages of debate. It was obvious that the implementation of this was controversial on this project. There was also no pressing emergency requiring this be implemented. Nevertheless, it went ahead anyway. In giving administrator rights to an editor, it is important to assess if that editor can be trusted. Do I trust Jackmcbarn won't vandalize the project, won't intentionally break things, etc? Of course. Do I trust that he won't use his administrator right in ways the community finds highly controversial? Given the track record at the above thread, and Jackmcbarn's dismissal of concerns as "a social problem" (third response, near bottom), I am left with an emphatic NO. Being a great programmer does not equate to having the judgment necessary to being a good administrator. Further, I found problems with his request actions that he would have taken as an admin; Requested block of an account before a level 4 warning had been issued [1]. Isolated? No, happened here with an account he labeled as being "vandalism only" (this is inaccurate), and hadn't received even a level 1 warning in six months. Should both of these accounts have been blocked? Likely yes. But, in a time when we're trying to retain editors, having administrators willing to do things outside the bounds of how we're supposed to handle things is problematic. I do not believe this nominee will act in keeping with our standards expected of admin conduct in using the tools. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:20, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but this is a pet peeve of mine. Could you point me to the policy that says an obvious vandal can't be blocked until they've had a level four warning? I and many other admins (including JamesBWatson and Materialscientist, who blocked hose accounts) will happily block once it becomes clear that an editor's intention is not to contribute constructively. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:11, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be happy to discuss this with you on my talk page if you like. But, for the purposes of this RfA, the second of those requests is clearly inaccurate and out of process. The first is too, but the second even more so. Regardless, those points are less troubling to me than the ramrodding of the category moving feature that happened. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:40, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
OpposeThe fact he does not reveal his past editing history over a 7 year gap is troubling. There is no way to judge whether he made constructive edits during that period, and thus he cannot be trusted with the tools. KonveyorBelt 18:30, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Anyone editing seven years and then asking for the admin flag after eighteen months with an account without disclosing their IP history is raising a huge red flag in my book. It is important to me that an admin understand the concept of transparency. At this point, even if the edit history is innocent, I would oppose this Rfa based on the candidate's lack of understanding of how urgent transparency is in an Rfa, There are other troubling issues noted but this one is simply unacceptable. Jus da fax 20:56, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Striking my Oppose due to the Self-XSS example, and a hint to potential candidates watching if you aren't listing articles you have added referenced content to in your answer to Q2 then it is good to list some on your userpage. I suspect I'm more with Eric Corbett here than most of the other opposes, adding cited content is a basic skill that I expect every admin to have. Feel free to add some examples to your q2 answer if there is work out there that I missed, but I read that, and your userpage, and looked at some of your edits including to one of your most edited pages and didn't spot any cited edits. I am tempted to make an exception because of your evident technical skills, but adminship includes the deletion button, and you are running as an avid tagger for deletion. I'm really not comfortable having someone deleting swathes of content when as far as I'm aware they haven't added any themselves. Also Q9 bothers me and indicates that you may not have grasped why we sometimes and sparingly need devs to override consensus. Yes we need devs who are prepared to tell me "sorry that would kill too many server kitties" and then if pushed explain how many terabytes we can currently upload in one hit without breaking the wiki. But this needs to be a technical override for robust technical reasons, not a supervote in a policy dispute. As for the IP editing opposes; To me the fact that an IP editor has eventually decided to create an account and after a sufficient interval of declared experience run for RFA is perfectly OK. We don't require IP editors to keep tabs of the different IPs they have edited from and I'd remind participants that our Privacy Policy is explicit in treating IP address as personal information. For the record I linked my home IP address in at least my first RFA, but I can be more blase about disclosing which Cable company I use than others can. We should never try to pressure fellow editors to disclose personal information. If we had consensus for a policy against editing logged out then I'd endeavour to comply with it, and go back to using a declared alt account for editing from insecure IPs. But until then if I have half an hour to kill in an airport with free WiFi then I will fix typos logged out and make no attempt to log the IP I used. Ϣere SpielChequers 21:54, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@WereSpielChequers: If by cited edits, you mean content creation, I did create Self-XSS. (I'm not adding it to Q2, as I don't really consider that my best work here.) Jackmcbarn (talk) 02:13, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's a modest effort, but I too was pleasantly surprised to see it. That does perhaps establish a minimum standard of knowledge, in that you successfully created a cited article, no small feat considering the flood of stuff which comes in the front door at AFC which doesn't pass the minimum standard. BTW, I was wondering if users' common.css files might also be vulnerable to Self-XSS attacks? Wbm1058 (talk) 03:55, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
At the risk of getting off-topic, they are in a way, which is why there's a scary warning at the top of MediaWiki:Userjsyoucanpreview. Jackmcbarn (talk) 12:07, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Not anywhere near enough experience in content creation for my liking and too much experience of tagging for deletion. What raises another red flag for me is the failure to disclose previous editing. Sorry but not on this occasion. W C M_email 22:54, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose. It bothers me that this user will not disclose the IP address or addresses from which he edited for quite some time before getting an account. Given the extent to which IPs are encouraged to get accounts, I just don't understand why he did not. His privacy reasons for nondisclosure are unconvincing. He is asking for a position of trust and we should see his previous edits. Given the fact that administrator posts are essentially lifetime and that there is inadequate oversight and no practical way to remove rotten apples, I am against supporting users for admin positions without knowing their full edit history. (see further rationale below) Coretheapple (talk) 07:22, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I find this line of opposition a bit concerning. We do not require of any user that they give up their IP. This is private information and only available to checkusers for a reason. Administrators have the right to privacy like any other user and to assume that edits are bad just because you cannot see them is a failure to assume good faith. Chillum 07:31, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Coretheapple: He explains why he chose to edit as an IP for the length of time he did in his usurpation request (his first edit with his current account). — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:40, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Chilllum we certainly don't require users to give up their IPs. This editor is welcome to not give his up. But if I am going to support him for a lifetime appointment to the super-user status of administrator, I need to know what he has been doing for the past seven years on Wikipedia. If he doesn't want to disclose his IP to allow me to ascertain that information, fine, don't do that, go in peace. Mr. S, his rationale - "Since I didn't want to splinter my identity, I have only edited as an IP since then." - is weak. If I understand "splinter" correctly, he didn't want to use the same identity on Wikipedia as elsewhere. But he could have simply created an account with a different identity rather than ignoring all the good reasons for creating an account and editing for years as an IP. To suggest that we stay in the dark on seven years of editing on "good faith," and that wanting to know what he did during that seven year period is inappropriate, is absolutely ridiculous and a distortion and misuse of WP:AGF. This person wants to be administrator and the burden is on him, if he wants it, to demonstrate that he deserves it. Not revealing seven years of editing history on such flimsy grounds, which seem even flimsier the more I hear about it, makes him disqualified in my opinion. Thank you both for your input, as you have convinced me to change my !vote to Strong oppose. Coretheapple (talk) 10:16, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Your reply is very disturbing IMO. You're making adminship a very big deal describing the right as being a "super-user status". I'm sure if other admins were in his position that they would likely not want their IP address given out to the world either. Also, do you think that from one's first edit with an IP that they should be thinking about adminship, and about if they would feel comfortable connecting that IP with their future account? --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 12:45, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There's a reason that checkuser is a limited right. If you have a legitimate reason to believe and concern that he was a bad editor when unregistered, you can email someone with the rights to have him checked out. Just be prepared with a better reason than "I don't know them." Gross example of assuming bad faith. mol uɐɯ 13:46, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The reference to Checkuser makes no sense. Checkuser is utilized to determine if someone is to be expelled from Wikipedia or not. This situation is an editor who spent seven years editing as an IP. The consequences of failure of his quest to become an admin is that he doesn't become an admin, not that he is barred from editing for life. Amaryylis, yes I suspect that if there are other admin candidates who have been editing for seven years as an IP they are going to arouse the same kind of concern. Coretheapple (talk) 14:37, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Suppose that you did somehow find out the IP he previously edited from, and you see that he had, in fact, made unconstructive edits and was even blocked for a couple of days. (Remember, this is just theoretical.) Even if that was really the case, would you actually oppose on that basis, even though he has obviously become much better? Also, like Amaryllis above me mentioned, an IP is usually connected with your location. Suppose Jack hasn't moved to a different location since he edited from an IP. If he revealed it, he could be disclosing his location, which is generally something people are protective of. If this RfA actually does fail just because of this, we'll just have even more proof that RfA is virtually impossible to pass. (Please forgive the rant. )--Biblio worm 14:44, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) @Coretheapple: Can just administrators see one's IP? What about non-administrators? With every reply you repeat yourself and make less and less sense. Why do you grossly assume bad faith on IPs? Do you believe that all vandals are IPs and all IPs are vandals? Would you want everyone here to know your ~~address and name~~ city? Because that's what revealing your IP could mean. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 14:46, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - IPs don't actually get so specific as to reveal your name and address, but it does reveal your city, which is still a bit too specific for comfort, in my opinion. --Biblio worm 14:53, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for pointing that out. Still, like you said, I wouldn't like my city thrown out to everyone here. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 14:57, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Then don't A)Edit for seven years under an IP and B)Ask the community to become an admin. Because yes, admins are super-users and yes, the community, unless completely clueless, will want to know what you did for seven years. All these replies are just reinforcing my view that this editor is not suitable to become an admin. If there was such a thing as "super-strong oppose" I would do so. To me it's just incomprehensible that anyone would accept on faith that seven years of editing has been "okey dokey." The community is entitled to greater transparency, per Carrite. (I think this may be the first time I've ever said "per Carrite") If this editor wishes to provide a further justification he should do so, otherwise I see no point in having a continued colloquy with his defenders here. Coretheapple (talk) 15:13, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't like to see someone that I had run for RfA be attacked for nonsense reasons, that's all. All that these replies have told me is that one, you cannot be persuaded, and two, you cannot persuade me (#2 is a result that's quite unusual when I get in an argument, I must say). --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 15:43, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Concern about a seven year gap in a candidate's editing history is a "nonsense reason"? Coretheapple (talk) 20:46, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Coretheapple: If you were to be nominated for RfA, do you think that it would be reasonable to ask what you were doing between registration and first edit? --Redrose64 (talk) 21:09, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it would, and the answer would be "living my life and not getting involved in inane Wikipedia debates in which RfA candidates with seven-year gaps in their editing histories are presented with a straight face, and in which opponents are badgered in increasingly personal terms." Coretheapple (talk) 21:26, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@AmaryllisGardener: To your q "Can just administrators see one's IP": regular admins can't see another user's IP address - only users with the CheckUser right can do that, and there are fewer than 40 such users. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:19, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Redrose64: I know they can't. My point was that even admins can't see a user's IP, only checkusers. Therefore a user's IP is sensitive information. Thanks anyway. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 19:27, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

CheckUser allows one to see (amongst other things) the IP addresses used by a registered account. The right is limited for the same reason that IPs aren't shown for registered users by default, and the same reason Jack would like not to disclose his: privacy. mol uɐɯ 20:32, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Invocation of "checkuser" is an absolute and total crock, and repeating it over and over again does not make it less so. 1) To the extent that there is a "privacy issue," this user created it by editing under his IP for a period of years. 2) Checkuser is a mandatory process used to investigate malfeasance. Nothing of the kind is happening here. What's requested is voluntary disclosure that this editor is totally free to ignore (and indeed has ignored.) This editor is under no compunction to disclose his previous editing history, which by his choice exposed his IP/IPs. The people who are suggesting he ought to disclose his editing history are in no position to enforce that request, so please stop talking about "Checkuser" as it is just silly. This editor is seeking a position of trust in the community, a lifetime post in which it is notoriously hard to weed out nincompoops, bullies and other bad actors once they are elevated. However, if he does not fill in the gap in his editing history, there are editors who are going to withhold their support from him for this lifetime post, and perhaps vote against him. Coretheapple (talk) 23:13, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No, it really is exactly the same issue. And really "A lifetime post"? Plenty of admins have had their tools removed, I think you should read up on how adminship works again. I'm not invoking checkuser, I'm making a valid comparison to help express how sensitive IP addresses can be considered once you've chosen to have them hidden (by creating an account (or began using one, as Jack did)). You seem to be confusing the right which I'm talking about with the policy/investigations related to it. Checkuser comes from the name of the extension and related userrights, and that is what I'm talking about. Stop twisting the meaning of what I'm saying. mol uɐɯ 03:01, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict × 2) +1! --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 03:11, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I like what you say about administrators not being a lifetime post - a good one. I needed a laugh, thanks very much. And as for the privacy issue that he created by editing for a long time without logging in, despite the specific warning every time he did so that doing so reveals one's identity, and urging him to create a user name out of the several quadrillion possibilities in the English language, all I can suggest to this candidate is that if he is concerned about revealing his IP that he not do so and continue to stonewall on the issue. Coretheapple (talk) 03:26, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Coretheapple: Wow, what's a better argument than just laughing at someone's reply and not telling why? I actually expected a better response from you. Perhaps you can tell us why the statement of "adminship is not a lifetime post" is ridiculous and worthy of mocking? --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 03:52, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The more I think about it, the less comfortable I am giving a lifetime appointment to someone with a 7 year gap in their editing history. I'm also not comfortable with the level of badgering Oppose voters are starting to see. Intothat darkness 17:57, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Badgering? Even if responding to opposers is inherently badgering, the candidate has only responded to a single oppose vote himself. You can't fault the candidate for what other people are doing. You, along with 2/3 of the opposers here, are throwing AGF out the window by suggesting that Jack was up to no good during those years. You also can't just demand to know someone's IP address; everyone has the right to be anonymous except for official WMF members. What if candidates were opposed because they refused to reveal their real names or their occupations or their home addresses? I imagine a tech-savvy person could find out all of those things if they knew someone's IP address. --Jakob (talk) 20:32, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Jakec: Due to Jack not really getting involved down here in the oppose section, I think Intothatdarkness is talking about me and possibly others. Still a wrong accusation. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 20:35, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The 'Crats have the ability to ignore or discount opposes that are flimsy on their own. If someone is putting in for a position that is for all practical purposes for life (and I consider the whole "ArbCom WILL remove bits" position to be a false flag...they are in fact rather reluctant to do so) the community should be able to examine their conduct during their editing career. Admins can act in any area, not just those they claim to have interest in. I'm not sure why you consider the desire to evaluate a candidate's entire Wikipedia career to be an expression of bad faith. I haven't suggested that he was "up to no good," but edits can show a pattern of civility (or lack thereof) which can inform voting decisions (especially when his declared editing is very thin on content contributions and has some spotty bits when it comes to dealing with editors). Intothat darkness 20:49, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Too many of the candidate's edits are not up for review. At this point, even if these were disclosed, just going into an RfA with so much 'dark matter' is not a sign of openness and transparency - traits needed in an administrator. "The additional features granted to administrators are considered to require a high level of trust from the community."→Stani Stani 21:29, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Important note to future RFA candidates: Don't disclose your IP editing at all! Once you have a solid track record of edits, don't talk about your anonymous past at all to avoid opposes like what we are seeing here! jni ^(delete)_{...just not interested} 22:03, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't find that to be good advice. I feel that the fact that he was doing IP editing isn't the problem. The problem is that he did it for six years. Who knows what could have happened between those times? And seeing that he already had an account beforehand it raises questions and trust issues. GamerPro64 23:40, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Suggesting that RFA candidates lie is not a good idea, and it is unethical. Dennis - 2¢ 00:03, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Can an trusted admin review of the IPs, for example me or Dennis, can alleviate the opposition concerns? Let Jack email us privately. If I see anything suspicious using those IPs (for example a block) I will change my vote as a sign of trust/non-trustworthy without exposing the IP. Secret ^account 04:19, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If the IP was dynamic, this may not even be possible, and we have no way of knowing whether other people used that IP at some other point (especially if he ever edited from a public hotspot). The CU data is long gone, anyway. --Rs chen 7754 05:40, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Note that people will notice if it looks like this wasn't your first account, so you'll need to plan ahead. :-) —Emufarmers^(T/C) 17:29, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If he's able to send the list of IPs he's used, it obviously means that he's on a rotating static IP range, otherwise it would be a different IP everytime he edited anonymously (and impossible to copy it to a .txt file everytime). Furthermore, there's no way to verify that those IPs are actually Jack's without a CU. And as we all know, CheckUser is not for fishing. --Ankit Maity _{«T § C»} 17:44, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
We had one admin who got elected by being economical with the truth about his past and was later desysopped, but only after much wailing, gnashing of teeth and unfounded accusations of bigotry and harassment. As a result of that former admin's actions, I have decided that I would oppose any candidate who chose to be less than fully forthcoming; not because I think they're necessarily hiding something, but rather because I want to err on the side of caution, considering what happened in the past. It's true, ArbCom does desysop bad apples, but only after considerable amounts of drama. $Salvio$ ^{Let's talk about it!} 10:44, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The points made above about the candidate's lack of content creation and their mysterious editing history seem valid. The nomination is being presented as not a big deal as this would not be a super-user. But the candidate already has considerable power as a media-wiki developer and their interest in technical matters means that this is a high-risk position because they will be involved in changes that affect us all. Good governance tends to require checks and balances by means of segregation of duties. It would therefore be imprudent to grant further rights. Andrew (talk) 11:02, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose for two reasons:
1. I am not convinced the nominee will have sufficient respect for views differing from his/her own - per discussion on category move (linked above), the answer to Q8 (failing WP:KEEP and not recognising the error) and a few other examples quoted above (e.g, ones mentioned by WilyD). An admin has to uphold all WP principles, and any errors should only be incidental rather than a pattern.
2. Lack of sufficient edit history. I am not concerned by IP editing - everyone has a right to do it and should not be forced to disclose their IP address(es). The worrying part is for me the lack of edit history which is essential for scrutinising a candidate.
I'd wish to see more of Nominee's editing before a new nomination in a year's time. kashmiri ^TALK 20:34, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: people who are have little content creation work simply cannot understand. You have to have been there to know how how it works and the effects. This is supposed to be a content-driven project, first and foremost. - Sitush (talk) 02:21, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
With syntax like that it's unlikely anybody can understand. ;) – Juliancolton | ^Talk 04:16, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wat. → Call me Hahc21 18:02, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per unwillingness to disclose prior editing. In the interest of full disclosure, I have previously edited with other accounts (I am not socking) and I do not wish to disclose prior identities (so please don't bother asking). However, I do not plan to ever run for adminship. There's not necessarily anything wrong with refusing to disclose prior identities. However, such a refusal does serve as a barrier to adminship. Mellowed Fillmore (talk) 03:29, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - dubious prior editing history, not a massive amount of content creation; this editor has less than 4,000 mainspace edits, and they seem to spend far more time on user talk pages (6,000 edits, or 50% more than their mainspace count) than anywhere else. Answer to question 7, including the amended part, does not inspire confidence either. Given that, and the lack of any disclosure of the activities of this user during a 7 year editing period, I can't say that I believe the answer to question 12, or the answer to question 14. Whilst Wikipedia needs new admins, it does not need ones that are this dubious. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 12:20, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, primarily per Eric and Sitush. I am very leery of a candidate who does little in the way of content creation being given the tools to block those people who actually do that sort of work. His candidacy looks like it will pass, though, so I wish Jackmcbarn the best of luck, and encourage him to use his block button very sparingly, except with obvious vandals. LHM^{ask me a question} 16:22, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Eric Corbette and Carrite. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 21:36, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per most of the above. The six year gap really worries me. It's on the nominee to assuage the worries, that are shared by others, about this gap. They have not successfully done so. Also would like to see more content.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:40, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I agree with most of the above oppose reasons and I find some of your answers the questions to be semantically unsatisfactory. --Rotten regard 23:00, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I'm okay with the desire for privacy. In fact, I think attacks on this editor for preserving his anonymity are out of bounds. The strange editing gaps, the WMF obfuscation, and the lack of demonstrable content creation are, on the other hand, not okay. The last item is a show stopper for me, every time. If you haven't meaningfully added content here then you have no business policing those who do. GraniteSand (talk) 09:33, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per the concerns cited above (content creation and nontransparent edit history). Also the presence of User:Wifione in the role of a polite and discreet behind-the-scene mediator is unacceptable to me. Find a better company next time. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 11:32, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose changing from "neutral" per WP:NOTNOW. I don't really care what happened before, but the record under the current user name is mostly technical editing. This is not for "probationary" admin, it is "admin for life" and there is just not enough here to evaluate under the current user name. —Neotarf (talk) 14:21, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Why do people keep mentioning "admin for life"? There is only one of those, it is Jimbo Wales. All others with the admin bit, without exception (and myself included), can be busted down to buck private. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:50, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Or, as is far more typical, editors burn out on the job and gradually fade away two to five years after becoming an administrator. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:02, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

People keep mentioning it because there is no effective system for removal of abusive administrators. Yes, ArbCom has removed rights from admins. However, it's not at all common. There is a strong belief that a significant subset of administrators are 'above the law', as it were. More discussion welcome elsewhere; this isn't the platform. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:26, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My point is that people are saying "admin for life", "lifetime admin" (or variants thereof) as if Jackmcbarn is applying for a position that is somehow more privileged than a regular WP:SYSOP. From what I have read above, he's not; unless somebody can direct me to anywhere on this page (outside of this subsection) that explicitly states that he is so applying. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:53, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Poor admins can do a lot of damage and are extremely hard to remove. Without naming names, if some of our more contentious admins were to run today, they'd be soundly rejected, but as it is there is no way to get rid of them without going to ArbCom (and even then it's a drawn out and ugly process). I don't think Jack is going to be one of them, but as it is people can and will oppose all but candidates they completely trust over systematic issues with how adminship works. wctaiwan (talk) 17:02, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Is anyone ever going to read WP:NOTNOW and realize what it really means? Or read the related WP:NOTNOTNOW? --Jakob (talk) 17:58, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Are you kidding? I'm too busy, so not now! --Hammersoft (talk) 18:17, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

If I understand correctly, WP currently only has about 600 active admins. By "active" that means 30 or more edits a month, not necessarily admin-related. Backlogs in the administrative forums are common, and it's not unusual for someone to post a complaint to ANI or AN and not receive any help that resolves the issue. Probably only about 100-150 admins actually engage in admin-related work on a daily or semi-daily basis. Also, women are woefully underrepresented in the admin corps. Since no one seems willing or able to come up with a new RfA process to help fix these problems, it's probably best to force the issue by not electing any new admins until the process is fixed. Otherwise, we are all just contributing to WP's eventual demise by trying (and slowly failing) to maintain the status quo. Cla68 (talk) 05:29, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You obviously haven't seen the post on WP:VPR or ~~the new WP:RFA page~~ the WT:RFA thread - NickGibson3900 ^Talk 05:33, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

~~I have reviewed the history of this account, and a sampling of the account's edits. At this time I am not inclined to support or oppose. →Stani Stani 05:48, 30 October 2014 (UTC)~~ Moving to oppose.[reply]

Based on the discussion about this editor's vague past, I'm changing my vote to support. See above. Cla68 (talk) 10:08, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have to think about this. Obviously a very useful contributor, but having less than 4000 article space edits (and those mostly technical and not content-related) makes me hesitate. --Randykitty (talk) 12:07, 30 October 2014 (UTC) Moving to support.[reply]

I was almost down here with you, even had it typed out. Completely tech based admin are handy as long as they aren't buffoons in other areas. Specialists, so to speak. We have a few now, most are good, a rare few have clearly been failures, so therein lies the risk. And I won't try to talk you out of neutral (just as both opposing votes are completely rational and raise good points as well, in spite of some not understanding them). It is a tough call. Dennis - 2¢ 13:34, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note about the IP edits: For the sake of the discussion, let's assume that the candidate was actually a vandal when they edited as an IP. Since then, there has been a long period of problem-free editing with many valuable contributions. So, worst case scenario, this is a rehabilitated vandal who has become a valuable contributor. I'm still here under "neutral", but the IP issue is absolutely not a worry for me and the demands for outing are unwarranted. --Randykitty (talk) 12:45, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Candidate may be qualified from the technical side, but lacking a responsive procedure to remove anyone if they prove to be a failure as Dennis mentions, I can't support at this time. I also can't oppose, since the lack of a responsive removal procedure isn't the candidate's fault. Intothat darkness 14:23, 30 October 2014 (UTC) Moving to Oppose Intothat darkness 17:55, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral per this. I have to read it all more thoroughly, but right now I am not sure I can support. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:09, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Anna Frodesiak: I think a lot of people in that thread were misunderstanding the nature of MediaWiki software development. To start with, the ability to move category pages was a long-standing feature request. Take a look at the original bug from 2006 (as well as its duplicates and a related request for a category-mover user right) to see the number of people who have asked for it. Also, the request wasn't made by users from the English Wikipedia - for example, I see the German Wikipedia, the Chinese Wikipedia, and the Portuguese Wikibooks mentioned in the original bug report. Similarly, the developers needed to consider all MediaWiki wikis when deploying the patch, not just the English Wikipedia (and not only Wikimedia wikis for that matter). And finally, it's not like Jackmcbarn added the code to this wiki himself. While he wrote the original code to make the feature available, there were many other developers who helped out - see the list of commenters on the code review page for the patch - and it was User:Reedy who actually pushed the button to add the patch to the MediaWiki software. Blaming Jackmcbarn for not finding consensus on the English Wikipedia for this feature seems unfair to me given the number of people requesting it, the number of developers that worked on the code, and the number of wikis it was written for. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:27, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good points. I think I ought to start a talk page discussion. That is probably the best place to continue this. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:02, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Satisfied with comments at the talk page. I am comfortable supporting. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:23, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The faults of this candidate couldn't have been unanticipated. I'm wary of candidates and their nominators whom should have known better what the aggregate opposition would say. I'd recommend anyone interested in RfA ask Secret first. Chris Troutman (talk) 05:12, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have no experience with the candidate, but I want to register my concern about several opposers demanding disclosure of IP addresses. This is highly private information unless the person chooses to share it of his or her own free will since the IPs can be used to identify the user. It is a very long standing practice that editors must not be required or pressured into disclosing such information. The very strict criteria for running CheckUser are there for this reason. Demanding that a candidate disclose this as a criterion for adminship undermines the confidentiality of this information. Opposes based on lack of article writing experience are far more reasonable as they relate to the account's track record. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:19, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral for now (change to oppose, pretty much per Salvio) ~~per Ana Frodesiak,~~ although I note that per WP:RFA, Neutral comments are ignored for calculating the RfA's percentage. This seems like a purely technical request, with no opportunity for evaluating the candidate's social skills, which are crucial for a good admin. Since the request seems to be tied to software development, and based on a high degree of trust on the part of the WMF, it would be better if this individual could be assigned a WMF account, in order to have someone who was capable of actively monitoring them. —Neotarf (talk) 15:29, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Striking my technical concerns, per 28bytes' comments on the talk page, but I still have misgivings about not being able to evaluate whether this might turn into yet another abusive admin. A good argument for unbundling the tools? —Neotarf (talk) 11:28, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@@Neotarf:,it doesn't count in the percentage but the content in the Neutral section is not overlooked. Everything is done at the bureaucrat's discretion. He can declare a user an sysop even though there might not have been a support majority and vice versa. --Ankit Maity _{«T § C»} 13:24, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Changing to oppose, thinking similar to Salvio and @NativeForeigner:. Maybe if it was for 6 months probation or a 2-year fixed term, but this is "admin for life". I don't really care about the seven years without any record; there is just not enough in the current record to make an evaluation. So, WP:NOTNOW. —Neotarf (talk) 14:09, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Parking here, I"m thinking along the lines of Salvio. NativeForeigner ^Talk 08:00, 4 November 2014 (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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