Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/shoeofdeath

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

Contents

[edit] shoeofdeath

Withdrawn by candidate. shoeofdeath 18:29, 10 September 2007 (UTC) (18/13/4); Ended 18:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

shoeofdeath (talk · contribs) - Greetings, all. I started editing in February of last year. Minor edits such as grammar, disambiguation, and formatting fixes used to be all I did around here, and remain the core of my wiki-experience. I've gone through various spurts of activity and inactivity (most recently a wikibreak for most of this summer) but I have a pretty regular schedule for the forseeable future and plan to stick around here awhile : ).
I think with a few more buttons I could better contribute to the project.

I am a committed exopedian and rarely venture outside the familiar confines of the mainspace. I do of course realize that many admin duties lie in areas I am highly inexperienced in (i.e. Wikipedia space), so I will clarify that I would asbolutely not excercise admin responsibilities in such areas.
I understand that what goes on in wiki-space is essential for the smooth running of this encyclopedia, but feel I am personally much better suited to mainspace work. Thanks! shoeofdeath 00:26, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I think I'll try and clarify the preceding statement further. I generally do not edit in the Wikipedia namespace, but this does not mean that I am unfamiliar with policy. I have read just about every policy page there is to read and feel my grasp of the inner workings of Wikipedia itself is quite good. I understand fully what goes on during deletion discussions, but again feel my time is better spent improving actual articles. If commenting on tons of XfDs and RfAs is a necessary precondition to gaining administrative tools, I have certainly fallen well short. I can't help but feel that some people may disagree with this though, so I won't withdraw this just yet even though it appears my chances are slim : ). shoeofdeath 14:44, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Alrighty then, that's enough. Thanks everybody for their comments. I'll withdraw this now. shoeofdeath 18:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. It is recommended that you answer these optional questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. What admin work do you intend to take part in?
A: I'll continue to work on vandalism, of course, removing users from WP:AIV instead of adding them. I used to refer to reverting vandalism as "vandal-fighting" but have long stopped considering it a "fight"; undoing the silliness that gets added to articles is really just a simple (often amusing) task that needs to be done. As long as Wikipedia remains a true wiki, vandalism will happen and vandals will need to be reverted/blocked. Another area I would definitely start contributing to at first would be the indefatigable CSD backlog; I know all the CSD criteria fairly well by now and believe I could be of some use over there. The backlog seems to swell up to over 100 articles on most days, topping 200 at least once a week. Oftentimes there are only one or two admins trying to work through this, while confused newbies spend wasted hours defending their inappropriate pages from deletion templates. I'm sure I'd get around to other backlogs too as well as occasional page protection.
2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
A: That is tough to say. It would almost certainly not be edits relevant to adminstrative/maintenance tasks like vandalism (quite brainless, really : )), but otherwise I am not so sure. I have written the majority of a few articles and have rewritten a couple pages that I thought needed it. I helped finish the surname article cleanup at WP:SU and have been involved in related cleanup work there. I enjoy working on leads, especially when I find an important topic with a low-quality introduction. Overall I would say my best work is just fixing small things that tend to be overlooked.
3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?
A: I've had my share of editing conflicts, but nothing really serious. I've made some mistakes and sometimes was a little bit too bold in the past, and minor squabbles are an inevitable consequence of editing. Civility and politesse tend to rule around here, though, so I've generally found editing to be a very pleasant experience.

Optional question from Iridescent

4. (This is a truly optional question, and if you don't want to answer it you have my explicit permission to delete it altogether) You say you've written the majority of some articles, but you don't list them either here or on your user page - as you haven't many Wikipedia-space edits to judge your grasp of policy against, would you be willing to give some examples (either pages you've written, or significant diffs) so we can judge if you're sumbitting articles that violate policy, etc? — iridescent (talk to me!) 00:54, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
I do not keep track the articles I have contributed to, but would happily give some examples. I just recently spent several weeks working on this edit, and am planning more major sourced expansion for that article. If you want an article I've created myself, here's one, which I had totally forgot about until I came to it using the random page button yesterday (exactly one year after creating it, very odd). I could provide more examples if you'd like, but again, most of my edits are very minor and boring : ). shoeofdeath 01:34, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Optional question / task from Hersfold

5. (Again, this is completely optional, and I give the same permission Iridescent gave above) Most of the concerns being brought up are that you don't have enough experience in the Wikipedia namespace to provide a complete understanding of policy and procedure in relation to administrative tasks. I am inclined to agree, however your contributions (those I've seen) give me no reason to believe you don't know the policies. I know you said you wouldn't be overly involved with XfD, but if you could, would you mind taking a look at these three AfD's and commenting on them so we can better judge your potential usage of the delete buttons? Thanks very much. Hersfold (t/a/c) 18:46, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Sure, I'll give it a shot. I assume I am supposed to give my opinion, not evaluate whether or not consensus has been reached.

(1) Although much work has been put into the article, Patrick Alexander (cartoonist) does not appear to pass notability requirements. Having no sources outside the artist's own webpage is the clearest indication of this. A web search reveals little independent coverage and absolutely none from reliable sources (mostly Wikipedia-related talk). While he was in fact nominated for several awards, he has not received any, and it is altogether unclear whether a Ledger Award would even be considered "significant". The repeated deletion and undeletion of this article is verging on the absurd. Apparent WP:DRV consensus would prevent this from meeting speedy deletion criteria g4, but should still be deleted and salted once again (because of questionable notability, of course, not because he "doesn’t want it to exist" or threats of vandalism). The only thing that might save this one would be a reliable source for this edit I reverted back in May, but I don’t believe the likelihood of that is very high. (joke! - if this is too inappropriate I'll remove it right away, I just thought it was funny I edited that very article)

(2) Long Healing Prayer is an unusual one. Obviously important texts and scriptures of major religions like Bahá'í are notable and worthy of inclusion. This appears to have some significance, so I would certainly disagree with its outright deletion. I do not know very much about the Bahá'í Faith so cannot assess its importance so quickly. While it might be merged into a longer article I am not so convinced that more sources could not be found for this one. I see no problem with keeping it, unless it becomes clear that real sourced expansion could not occur, in which case I would say it should be merged.

(3) This is a large set of generally low-quality articles, and much merging obviously needs to be done. Most of the pages have sources, but some information appears clearly trivial. The question is whether the info worth keeping should all be merged into Beanie Baby or whether another a few more articles (like the recently created Rare Beanie Babies) would work. Although these articles are all related to Beanie Babies, some are very different from others (individuals and more broad topics) so I must disagree with the decision to take these to AfD all at once, as clear consensus is going to be difficult to determine. Since the article creator appears to be shifting things around as we speak I don't think there is any clear answer to this one quite yet. If you'd like me to specifically address each article on that list, say so and I'll give that a shot as well.

I wrote this very fast so forgive me for minor errors. Should I have linked to more policy pages? Sometimes I find that distracting. Anyway, those are my answers. shoeofdeath 20:13, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

In the actual AfD fora, it is generally better to include more links to policy, but you've backed up your reasoning quite well based on those policies. Excellent work, you have my support. Hersfold (t/a/c) 21:22, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Optional question from Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:07, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

6: Again, this is truly optional. Do any of your editing discussions on talk pages turn on policy and guidelines? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:07, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'm going to have the answer you're looking for here. I do prefer discussing things on user talk pages rather than on article talk pages (not sure why, usually 2 person discussion I guess) so most of my talk edits are in user space (by far mostly vandalism warnings though). There were a few times earlier this year (when I was concentrating almost exclusively on WP:SU) when I became frustrated with some unclear policies and made overly bold suggestions to change things, which you mentioned below. Looking back, these were clear errors, and was I rightly corrected by other editors. I believe many of the problems I faced were uniquely WP:SU related issues that no one else (besides sgeureka) could really understand.

If your question is whether or not I have had long meaningful discussions concerning Wikipedia policy, the answer would be no. Does this mean I have no understanding of policy? I don't claim to know everything, especially around Wikipedia where the policies are often enough not set in stone (fifth pillar). I will honestly say, though, I feel I know policy well enough to perform administrative duties correctly and better serve the community here. Thank you (really!) for your inquiry. shoeofdeath 20:39, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] General comments

Please keep criticism constructive and polite. Wikipedia policies regarding civility still apply during RFA. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review Special:Contributions/shoeofdeath before commenting.

[edit] Discussion

  • To the candidate - please use #: when replying to comments. Thanks, Boricuæddie 03:47, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Support

  1. Support Good editor. Solid edit count, and good use of edit summies. I don't think you will abuse the tools. PatPolitics rule! 01:14, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  2. SupportGood canadate.--Wikipedier is now U.S.A.U.S.A.U.S.A. 01:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  3. Support Has a good history of contributions and valuable vandal-fighting experience. I agree with iridescent that having more experience in XfD's would be great, but since shoeofdeath wants to focus on the mainspace, I'm willing to be supportive. I think shoeofdeath'll be a good admin. --Bfigura (talk) 01:27, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  4. Support Not a vandal. A.Z. 02:34, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  5. Moral Support Shoe, I like you and you are a good editor, it's perhaps just not the right time yet. Good luck! Dfrg.msc 09:15, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  6. Oppose. Who cares about his extensive experience in the area where he plans to use his admin powers, he didn't bring us a shrubbery. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 09:23, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  7. Support in the absence of significant concerns. On the other hand, appears to be sensible after an admittedly quick glance at the contributions (not just a perfunctory glance at the numbers on wannabe kate report). Love the comment about "vandal-fighting" in Q1. And not enough wikipedia space edits? I am so tired of that oppose. lol. - TwoOars (Rev) 10:37, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  8. Support None of his actions indicates that he will abuse the admin tools.--†Sir James Paul† 13:40, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  9. Support good answers to questions, no major concerns here. Melsaran (talk) 14:34, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  10. Support. Most vandalism happens on articles, which this user edits masterfully. I think he will help block vandalism accounts, helping to protect the project. I really don't care about sens x-space edit count, and could not be any more impressed if user occasionally voted on AfD. Cool Hand Luke 17:44, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  11. Support (My first RfA comment; only found it by accident) Shoeofdeath was one of the main contributers in a major (tedious) cleanup project (WP:SU) which involved the speedy deletion of hundreds of pages and spotting dozens of sockpuppets. Whenever there was disagreement between us about what to do next there, he responded sensible and mature to suggestions. Vandalism is not solely fought on meta pages and recent patrol, but also in messy to-be-cleaned-up articles. I think admin tools in shoeofdeath's hands only help to make wikipedia better. – sgeureka t•c 18:31, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  12. Support no convincing reason not to. Acalamari 19:12, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  13. Endorse Exopedianism is not a crime. --Fljm 20:02, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  14. Support I do not think that the reasons given by the opposition are enough reason to oppose. Captain panda 21:07, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  15. Support Very good responses to the AFD question. Good luck with the rest of your RfA. Hersfold (t/a/c) 21:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  16. Moral Support: I like what I see and have read. The mania for finding a hobby-horse upon which to Oppose is saddening, the more so in that lack of experience in XfD is only a problem for admins dealing with deletion policy, which I don't get a sense nominee plans to attempt. I don't think cops are poorly qualified to be cops either just because they don't happen to be auto mechanics, gunsmiths or computer programmers, however much having working cars, guns and computers are important to police work.  RGTraynor  00:51, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
  17. Support - I see nothing to indicate that this user will misuse the tools. This is the only really important metric -- this users knows enough to apply the tools properly, and to know when they shouldn't apply them. --Haemo 02:27, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
  18. Support - No worries here. ScarianTalk 15:08, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Oppose. A good Mainspace editor, but not enough Wikipedia space experience (only 68 Wikipedia space edits and 45 Wikipedia talk edits in 20 months of editing). More experience in this area is needed to build familiarity with the type of tasks admins are expected to deal with. Zaxem 01:23, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
    Did you look at those edits? How did they show inexperience? You can do plenty in 113 edits, so I hope you're not just voting by numbers. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 09:09, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
    I will admit that I haven't looked through the candidate's Wikipedia space edits very carefully. However I still stand by my opinion for a couple of reasons. Firstly the candidate freely admits in the opening statement of this RfA to being "highly inexperienced" in the Wikipedia space. And secondly, in my opinion, these numbers are not just low, they're very low for an admin candidate. I think it's reasonable to expect a prospective admin to have more experience with admin-type tasks before trusting them with the buttons. They can still be very valuable contributors to the Mainspace without being an admin. Zaxem 10:22, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
    I'd like you to read my post on the talk page about edit count inflation. And since when is keeping the mainspace clean not an admin-type task? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 16:22, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  2. Per Zaxem. Dihydrogen Monoxide 01:44, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  3. Oppose. Agree with Zaxem that shoeofdeath's contributions are uneven. I also note his blanking of his talk page. In one case (May 5, 2007) an admin suggested that he not blank an anon's comments while they were still at issue. He complied, but then blanked the page when the issue was dealt with. The lack of archives on his talk page make it difficult to research his approach to dealing with issues there. He is a serious and diligent editor, but major substantive edits seem relatively few (despite focus on article space). I would suggest that he round out his experience and re-apply for admin in a few months. Sunray 01:46, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  4. Weak Oppose for now, ack Zaxem. Although answers to questions are very solid --Bencomplain 02:00, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  5. Oppose. Although good edit count and answers, I cannot find talk page archives to review. Regretably, did not know difference between reporting to WP:AN/3RR and WP:AIV in August 27, 2007. An admin needs to know policy better than that. Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 02:04, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
    Replies - No, I do not archive my talk page, sorry for this, but it is allowed. I used to remove all inactive comments right away but now leave them up for a few days; I've never had any problems with this. Yes, I reported one IP to the wrong place a week or so back (just a reflex, I realized it soon after), but the IP was blocked anyway, not a huge deal. It appears my low wiki-space edit count may be too great an obstacle to overcome, and this is indeed a valid complaint. Many admin tasks are outside wiki-space, though, so I'll say one more time that this is where I think I could help out. shoeofdeath 02:17, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
    Getting wiki-space experience isn't hard. Just participate in WP:AFDs make WP:AIV reports, join in policy discussions (there's an interesting one on the talk page for this), become a help desk volunteer, and/or possibly make some comments in WP:ANI. Mr.Z-man 03:01, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
    Not hard, but not necessary either. Mainspace work requires knowledge of policy too. Which is where shoeofdeath said they'll use the sysop rights anyway. Some people just might not care for the haggling and wrangling at XfDs or the drama at ANI. Instead of counting the wikipedia space edits on wannabe kate, we can go through the contributions to see if the candidate shows any lapses in judgment or lack of knowledge in policy. Much more difficult and time taking than looking at the numbers, I know; but no one is forcing any of us to participate here at RfA. If we do not have the time or inclination to go through the edits, we have lots of other places to go and lots of other things to do on wikipedia. - TwoOars (Rev) 10:56, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
    Rephrase and expand Nom is doing well in many areas, but needs more experience, is not quite ready. I will probably support a future nom. Hopefully, will put forth the needed effort to gain that experience. Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 14:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  6. Oppose - I understand that blanking your talk page is not a violation of policy, but I find it very rude and unhelpful, even if they are dead. They're supposed to be archived so they (comments) are easier to find and so that people don't have to look at every diff in your talk history to find a single thread. Please participate more in the Wikipedia namespace and I'll be happy to support. --Boricuæddie 03:45, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  7. Oppose per all the above reasons. I suggest you try again after a few months. In the meantime, do not be discouraged over this. --Siva1979Talk to me 07:36, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  8. Oppose. While this editor has lots of experience in the mainspace, I think more experience is necessary in the Wikipedia namespace (participation in XFDs and such) in order to have a better handle on deletion policy. True, he did claim that he wouldn't be using his admin powers there, but still, a little more rounding-out as an editor would be good. Useight 16:03, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  9. Oppose with no prejudice for a future attempt. 25 AIV edits do not outweigh the dissatisfying lack of contributions in other areas. User has a good attitude towards adminship, but simply isn't experienced enough to satisfy my doubt. VanTucky (talk) 21:24, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  10. Oppose, I would suggest working behind the scenes in maintenance such as cleaning backlogs.Marlith T/C 03:14, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
  11. Oppose Candidate has very little experience in the wikispace, home of many admin-related tasks. Before one is given the mop, one should be familiar with the most common admin areas. Xoloz 03:50, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
  12. I can't see enough evidence of consistently-good judgement being used in Wikipedia-space (administrator areas), so I can't support this nomination. Daniel 07:00, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
  13. Oppose Per lack of experience in Wikipedia space...well, per comments and issues raised above as well. Jmlk17 07:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Neutral

  1. Neutral for the moment. You've only participated in 3 XfDs in your entire time here, and I'm reluctant to give deletion powers to someone who hasn't indicated an indication of deletion policy (the fact that you only have five posts on your - recently blanked - talk page doesn't help, either). As with Monotonehell below, willing to reconsider if you can give a satisfactory answer as to exactly what parts of policy you don't understand and what you'll do to address that — iridescent (talk to me!) 00:48, 9 September 2007
    Wow, that was fast! First of all, I don't archive my talk page (this is permitted by policy) since everything is archived in the history anyway and I like to keep it short : ). There are no parts of policy in particular I don't understand, I just feel I am a better mainspace contributor. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "hasn't indicated an indication of deletion policy", but I have marked hundreds of pages for deletion. Like I said before, I haven't participated in wiki-space activities in the past and don't really plan to in the future (with admin abilities or without). Thanks for your lightning fast comment! shoeofdeath 01:23, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  2. Neutral I think you mean well, and I applaud you for that. However, an admin can't really limit themselves to just one area; I feel as though someone should be awarded the mop once they've accumulated at least a general knowledge of important tasks that they may be asked to perform. As I said, though, I know your heart's in the right place, so I'm not going to oppose. GlassCobra (talk • contribs) 05:45, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  3. Nuetral I am sorry but the edit count in the project space is just a bit too low. Come back with 200 more wikispace edits and you will have my support. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Icewedge (talk • contribs) 07:16, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
    Even if they're !votes on AfD? Hell, he could go vote on every debate right now to accomplish this. I really think this is a strange suggestions that highlights the absurdity of numerical edit counting. Cool Hand Luke 17:44, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
    Except, of course, that proper assessment of his ability would involve the individual assessment of at least a sensible proportion of those AfD opinions, and if they all just said, for example, "Keep per nom" then due weight, or lack thereof, would be afforded to these edits. --Anthony.bradbury"talk" 18:26, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
    Precisely. The measure is the quality of participation, not the quantity. It's one thing to say that he does not have enough—and I assume that those who make this claim are referring to both quantity and quality—but it's another to state that any particular quantity will demonstrate knowledge and experience. Cool Hand Luke 19:58, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
    Neutral pending response to Q5. Candidate has not had enough contributions in project space to justify complete knowledge of policy in relation to admin tasks, but high-quality contributions give no reason to believe that he doesn't know the policies in general. Hersfold (t/a/c) 18:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
    Changed to support above. Hersfold (t/a/c) 21:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  4. Neutral. I would like to support; exopedians are a useful species, and should be encouraged. But the handful of contributions outside WP:SU in WP space do not show great understanding of Wikipedia practice outside that narrow niche.
    • One is a proposal to delete all redlinks in dab pages, unless they are substantiated by a footnote.
    • One is a rather deletionist view of CSD's/
    • One is a question whether "concerning" in Essays Concerning the Human Understanding should be capped (do what the editions of Hume do; if they do both, don't worry about it.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:13, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
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.