User talk:Tanthalas39/AC

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Please note. This thread is the discussion and exercises between Tanthalas and Keeper prior to RfA 1. The current continuing discussion (with the addition of Balloonman) is on the userpage.

Contents 1 Introductory matters 2 Watchlisting 3 Pre-RFA Assignments 3.1 Assignment 1 3.1.1 Actual responses after the preliminary discussion 3.2 Assignment 2 3.3 Assignment 3 3.4 Assignment 4 3.5 Assignment 5 3.6 Assignment 6 4 General Observations 5 Miscellaneous

[edit] Introductory matters

1. I live in the United States, (Midwest). I see you are in Arizona so that's good, our timezones match up within an hour. I generally edit Mon-Friday, generally 9am at the earliest and generally 5 pm at the latest CST. I rarely edit weekends. If that doesn't match well with you're editing habits, let me know so I'll somewhat know when to expect you online contributing.

• I'm not too concerned on how the time zone issues match up; I think it would be a rare topic/issue that couldn't wait until Monday. I edit sporadically but frequently; vandal patrol is when I have ten minutes to kill while on a conference call; constructive additions are for when I can devote an hour or two. I travel a lot for work and work out of my home when I am not, so my hours are truly random.

Works for me. I'll be patient with your responses and assume you'll be patient with mine! Excellent.

2. I do not have an activated email account and I do not participate in IRC. If that will be a problem for you, also let me know that before we get too far along. I personally don't find them necessary, and they are not required of admins. They are definitely encouraged though, so if you haven't yet, get one. I've gotten some flack for not having one, so much so that I've added a note on my Userpage

• No problems here, this page will probably be more convenient and useful than email or IM exchanges, anyway.

Good

3. What's your timeline? When do you feel that an RfA would be successful?

• I don't know. There seems to be such a range of opinion out there (see the thread i started in the coaching talk page) that it is hard to even hazard a guess. Four months? It really depends how you respond to my abilities, I suppose. Maybe we can answer this one more accurately in a month or so.

I'm thinking (and this is a bit arbitrary) about a May RfA. At first, I was thinking June or July, but I think you've got a really good grasp on things and can move along faster (that's good news!). That gives us 2 solid months to hammer along. Agree?

Agreed!

4. Be sure and add this page to your watchlist. I have done so already. I think it's best to do our work here at it keeps us from cluttering our respective talk pages.

5. Please tell me you are thick-skinned. In return, I will tell you what I think you need to do to become an administrator. If you're going to get your feelings hurt just say so now so I can be more sensitive. I try to be a nice guy but sometimes I get tired and my posts may appear short or impatient. I hope those occasions are rare and you will overlook it.

• I promise not to get offended.

"You are a worthless toad. No, you are a worth even less. You are the slime that the toad leaves behind after he craps on the road. You are toadslime." Are you offended by that? (two things: one, I'm joking, you aren't a worthless toad, and two, I've been called that more or less because of an admin action.)

While I can't promise that I will never be taken aback or nettled, I can promise to take things in stride, be diplomatic and remember the big picture.

6. Please tell me you have a sense of humor about things in general and about yourself (ties in with being thick skinned). If you are easily offended by others, you will likely not enjoy being an admin. Your admins actions will be scrutinized, generally held to a higher standard (whether that's right or wrong doesn't matter, they just are) than a non-admin editor, and much more likely to cause controversy if done incorrectly. If you can laugh at your mistakes, apologize for the goofs quickly and sincerely (and they will happen),

• I promise to take this for what it is. I am the VP of a (barely notable) non-profit, public-access user system (M-Net) and have had to deal with online coal-raking and such.

Excellent.

[edit] Watchlisting

1. Add the following pages to your watchlist: Administrators' noticeboard, Administrators' noticeboard/incidents, and Requests for adminship. The first and second give you a really good idea regarding what admins do and what they deal with on a regular basis. Gives you a good temperature reading for the mood of things some days. The third link, RFA, is I'm sure you are aware, where editors request to be judged for adminship. They can be brutal in their honesty. Take the time to read through how other candidates answer the questions and what sorts of things supporters and opposers generally are looking for.

• Done. I've watched many RfAs in the past, although I haven't participated in any. I am completely aware of the myriad of agendas and brutal "honesty" (quotes only half in jest) that can be / is shown.

[edit] Pre-RFA Assignments

[edit] Assignment 1

1. Go participate in some other RFA's! Go digging through the candidates' contribs! Add pertinent opinions to support/oppose/neutral sections. Let me know in this section any observations/questions that come up as your read through other noms.

Okay, I have a question/thought or two on this that I'd like you to address, before I start wading into the process I dread:

There's a possibility that I don't agree with the majority of people participating in RfA. I tend to be of the camp that adminship is not a big deal. Per Jimbo himself: "I don't like that there's the apparent feeling here that being granted sysop status is a really special thing." I feel that the process has gotten not just blown out of proportion, but has completely left the planet. You could argue that my early goals of becoming an administrator contradict this statement, but really I argue the opposite - I just thought that if I had a clear understanding of the policies and a few thousand edits, I'd breeze through the process. Clearly, I was sorely mistaken. This is not to say that admins should be held to high standards. However, with the amount of patrolling, oversight, and community policing there is today on Wikipedia, a rogue administrator would quickly be shut down. Nothing is final on Wikipedia; everything can be reversed.

That all being said, my ultimate motivation here is for "the good of Wikipedia", to be incredibly trite. But it's true. I know my inner motivation and goals are for Wikipedia to become the place for online information dissemination, and by being an administrator, I can further these goals. Of course in order to become an admin, I have to know policy inside and out - like you have been coaching me to do. This hasn't been a boring ordeal; on the contrary, you are an excellent coach (way better than I could have hoped for) and I have fun reading your responses and look forward to more assignments. I agree that tons of experience (not necessarily editcount, but related) and obvious knowledge of policy is definitely needed. However, experience and policy knowledge won't pass an AfD. You have to play the games. Your answers to the RfA questions better be damn well perfect. One singular poor past edit, momentary lack of judgment, or run-in with an admin, and you're going to be going through the wringer (at best) or totally snowballed off the page (at worst). I don't think that I myself have any singular horrible edits - you might find a few that are questionable, though - but given the scrutiny involved, I'm sure I'm mistaken. Other people that I think would make perfectly good administrators will have an oppositional majority because someone finds fault in an edit or two. And if I go against that majority, that opinion itself could be brought up against my eventual RfA. Heck, this post right here will probably be used against me.

I don't mean to paint myself as sympathetic to abusers, article owners, or policy breakers. I DO think that admins should be kept to a higher standard than the average Wiki user. A much higher standard. But it shouldn't mean you have to be perfect to get there.

You haven't "painted yourself" in any light that would detract from your own RfA. Your opinions here are valid and won't be used against you (and in fact, may help you) I happen to agree with you The funny thing about RfA (well, there are several funny things about RfA, don't believe me? Check out the talk page and the talk page archives. They border on surreal sometimes) Every RfA will get an oppose for something or other. Self nomination. Too many nominators (no kidding!). Not enough mainspace edits. Too many mainspace edits and not enough projectspace edits (things that begin with "Wikipedia:"). No AIV experience. Only AIV experience. Answers to questions too short. Answers to questions too long. I've seen all of these. My criteria for a quality admin candidate are more lax than others, but I've seen other edits say "no problems here" to virtually every candidate, therefore more lax than mine. I generally base my own decisions on talkpage and talkpage archives. Civility is my #1 criteria for admin, but not my only. And it comes in different forms. I've seen brutal honesty (or robustness or bruskness) that others have called incivil but I call "the truth hurts sometimes". Most participants (voters) look for balance. And edit summaries. I say just do it. Go !vote in some. There are lots of links to dig through contribs, etc.

One thing I do to at least attempt to be neutral from the start is I read the statements, the Q&A, and go digging before I ever look to see who has supported or opposed, or why. Try that. Read some of the current noms that are getting close to ending (without reading the S/O/N sections) and arrive at your own decision based on the merits of the candidate, based on what you think an admin should do/shouldn't do, should be or shouldn't be. Then see if your opinion matches up with the tally. After that, go back to the earlier ones, weigh the candidate, and be an early supporter or early opposer. It's fun. I spend a lot of time in RfA, and contribute often to WT:RFA because I enjoy the process for what it is. It's ludicrous. But, for whatever reason, admin candidates tend to get more support when they participate in RfA, with supporters saying such simple things as "seen him around, no problems here". There is a really good RFB candidate right now that was mainly opposed simply for not participating in RfAs. Go figure. Wow, I've really rambled here. I'll sum up:

Go participate! Just do it! No one will think less of you for good faith supports or good faith opposes, but they may think less of you if they've never seen your face around there (right or wrong). Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 19:42, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Actual responses after the preliminary discussion

1) Supported an RfA here. Went through some contribs, read coaching page in full. No problems with the easy stuff (edit summaries, etc) and has the right temperament for what I want in an admin.

2) Opposed an RfA here. I didn't have to dig through contribs much on this one; I think there is a clear lack of policy knowledge here.

3) Supported an RfA here. I might have strung myself up with this one, although I notice you are also not registered at WP:AOR.

All three look good! All are well worded and show thoughtfulness. #1 and #2, to be fair, are likely already "sealed deals", but still your support was well worded, and your opposition was well worded. RFA #3, I would think, would have more opposes based on the AOR answer, but it doesn't. I think the key difference is that particular editor was honest. I've seen some really waffly answers to the inevitable AOR question. I've supported those that have said no and those that have said yes, as I feel it is an unimportant issue. But that's just me. And your right, I'm not in AOR, and said I wouldn't be adding myself in my own RfA. I didn't get any opposes for it either. I think honesty is the best policy. If you want to be in it say so and why. If you don't (and it sounds like you don't), just say so and why. Hopefully everything else outweighs this.

4) Supported an RfA here. I tried to pick one that wasn't such a sealed deal this time.

Nicely worded. I can't believe you actually found 4 RfAs that I haven't chimed in on (I've mentioned how I'm a "regular" around there, right?) I'm planning on contributing to this one as well, just haven't yet. The rest are snows, so I likely won't unless they get crazy. Next subquestion: Are you enjoying any of this (assignment 1)? I would hope you are at least on some level and I hope you would consider continuing to participate, as your opinions are well worded and perfectly valid and appreciated. I saw on your talkpage that you even changed someone else's opinion from oppose to support, not bad. (Because you're right, he's a good candidate). If this is pulling-nails for you though, consider Assignment #1 finished.

I am enjoying this; it's less daunting than I initially envisioned. Plus, I can sort of "espouse" my own admin requirement opinions without really being a PITA or violating any policies. As to that other opinion being changed, not really. I think there's a serious language barrier there, it was a weird exchange that I just decided to drop as insignificant. Anyway, we can consider this 'finished', I guess, but if I do any more I'll post them here. Also, like you said earlier, good to get my name in and around these things.

5) Two more, here and here. I'll probably continue to participate in this, but I'll stop posting them here, unless I hear differently from you.

[edit] Assignment 2

1. Explain the difference between a block and a ban.

1. A. Well, I saw this one coming as it is a frequent (required?) question to answer in an RfA. I've also read WP:BAN and WP:BLOCK several times while wondering why this is such a common question. Clearly I need to have a good idea as to what the differences are, and in an "in my own words" manner, not simply repeating what is in the policies.

The difference seems to be one more of semantics and not of technical distinctions. A ban is more punitive and given more "formally", if you will; it is used against chronic vandals/abusers. Blocks are issued much less formally and in greater quantities but probably for much less average duration than a ban. In my vandal fighting moments, I see blocks given for hours, days, and more rarely, weeks or months. The duration seems to hinge on the "chronicness" of the vandal and the egregiousness of the edits under inspection. Blocks protect Wikipedia; bans act against the users themselves.

1) Anonymous user 1.1.1.1, registered to a public school district in New York City, has four edits of "POO!!!!!1!" on the New York City page within twenty minutes. Each time, various vandal fighters quickly reverted the edits and issued increasingly harsh warnings to the vandal's talk page. Inspection of the talk page reveals two pages of stale warnings and a few 24-hour blocks. In this case, another 24-hour block would probably be the appropriate measure as a way of stopping the vandalism and discouraging the vandal without really punishing any users, especially an anonymous IP where tomorrow, another (hopefully more responsible) student could be using the IP address.

2) Registered user MetallicaSuks666 has been making policy-violating edits to a slew of related articles. Over time, he has been blocked for violating 3RR, has harassed users, escalated inappropriate things to admins, has been abusive in talk pages and just generally being very disruptive. Following another event of this sort, an administrator might consider a ban on the user to not only protect the Wiki articles in question, but as a punitive measure against the user.

You've hit on some really good points here. You definitely understand that blocking is not meant to be punitive but preventative, as in preventing damage to the project. I really like your example using a school IP. In more traditional, static user IPs, the blocks can and should escalate (meaning increase in duration) for persistent vandalism, but for a school IP it is very easy to end up punishing an entire body of users for the misdeeds of one, so I really like your response.

Your second illustration regarding "MetallicaSuks666" lacks an important distinction. You'll notice on the ban policy that a ban is actually a social construct. That basically means that it is generally the outcome of a discussion, formal usually, whether it be held at WP:ANI, WP:DR, from an WP:RFAR, or WP:RFC. (You said you liked bureaucracy, right? :-) A ban does not always include the technical restriction of a block. It really amounts to a group of users saying "enough with this guy/girl, they aren't helping and they aren't welcome", more or less. Your example above is a good example of someone who would get escalating blocks, (increasing lengths of time up to and including forever), but not a ban, as that user hasn't been the discussion of any community bureaucracy discussion. One administrator cannot decide to ban someone, but they can decide, based on evidence and precedence, to block (technically restrict) them, forever. Does the difference make sense? Really, semantically as you say, they both have the same net result, though, I agree. I see the difference as this: Imagine a school bully, picking on the other kids. A block would be the teacher/administrator removing the bully, technically restricting him/her from beating up on the school, equipment and other kids. Maybe for 10 minutes for the first offense, maybe the rest of the school day. Or if he/she is really bad, maybe suspended a couple of days, and eventually, if the bully is especially persistent or agregious, even expelled from school. A ban would be the other kids joining forces and deciding they've had enough of the bully and kicking him off the playground, so to speak, or shunned. The point is, both result in the bully not bullying anymore.

Thanks for the clarification. I believe I knew that a ban was a consensus-based block, but I failed to put it in my definitions and examples. The distinction makes sense to me. Here's a good example of a community ban in progress...

[edit] Assignment 3

What experience do you have in the deletion discussion venues, specifically WP:CSD, WP:AFD, WP:MFD, WP:DRV? Are there past experiences in these venues that you could highlight as good contributions? If so, list them here. If not, we'll work on getting you involved in those areas snap. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 17:04, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I do have experience with AfD, quite a bit actually. Early (well, two months ago) in my admin-seeking days, when I didn't realize that I would appear "power-hungry" and merely thought I was showing ambition, I had a goal of participating in 50 AfDs. I didn't just want to say "Delete per nom", but for each and every one, I researched the notability (and related verifiability) of the nominated articles, and tried to give a clear, detailed reason for my opinion on each one. Fifty turned out to be a daunting task (fifteen minutes each... fifty articles... you do the math) but I did finish it. Here is the old page with links to all the articles. I'm slightly embarrased by this, as it's obviously bad to advertise adminship as a personal goal, but it is what it is. I think the best examples out of that 50 are [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Number 3 there is probably my most proud one of the bunch, as editors after my opinion cited it as the reason for their opinions. This one here is my most controversial one; I could have handled it better although it's not abusive. I think over fifty opinions, though, I show at least a good demonstration of policy knowledge.

As to the other ones - CSD, etc - although I am aware of their existence and have browsed them before, I have not participated. I'll do a few in each category and let you know my thoughts and which ones I posted in.

Ok, so I'm not usually online on weekends, just happen to have gotten a few minutes here. I'm extremely impressed with your AfD experience. You have a nice way of putting things and explaining your rationale for either keep or delete. Even the one above (List of Spelljammer crystal spheres) that you consider controversial - in my opinion you remained quite civil and stayed policy and wiki driven and seemed to keep your emotions out of it (appropriately). One word that I've heard in relation to admins and deletion discussions that I really agree with I first heard from User:Dlohcierekim, and that's dispassion. If you have an opinion on whether something is supposed to be kept, or deleted, then don't close the discussion, participate in it instead. Excellent AfD work, though Dan. Simply excellent!

Read through WP:MFD, and participated in a current process here. Seems pretty straightforward, with some novel twists on the research process one must use to make a decision.

Read through WP:DRV, gave an endorsement opinion here. Please disregard the subject matter, it was simply an active discussion...

<outdent> Subject matter be damned (I saw that particular DRV before, I don't like participating in those myself :) You're comments (both there and the MFD you cited) are relevant and appropriate and I personally have no concerns.

[edit] Assignment 4

Closely related. Take a couple minutes/days to go over the acceptable criteria for speedy deletion. They can be found here. Also note the section about what is specifically not a valid CSD reason here. Once you feel comfortable with tagging articles with a {{db}} tag (templates found here, find 10 articles that you can tag as speedy deletion nominees. Watchlist them. Let me know what you tag, and how they turn out (either deleted by admin (usually within an hour, sometimes minutes) or turned down by an admin. A good place to find articles "worthy" of speedy deletion would be through new page patrol or similar recent changes. Have fun! (And don't nominate the main page :-).

1. Jin Hua Gong Mine - db content. Deleted. Good
2. List of WWII POW Camps in Kenya - db blanked. Deleted. Good
3. PICO (search strategy) - db context. Author placed {{hangon}} tag, citing he/she will do more when they have time. Admin still deleted. Good
4. Salman Saleem Dawood Patail - db nonsense. Deleted. Good
5. The Balance of the Unverse - db context. Upon additional material being added, I withdrew the speedy tag and set up an AfD, citing WP:OR. Not sure how this one will turn out; the article is getting pretty long but if you really look at it, the guy is just writing stuff he thought up and citing superficial and only nominally related sources. Plus he spelled the name of his own article incorrectly. Anyway, should be interesting. I just put my vote in. You made a good nomination for speedy based on what you saw, and a good switch to AfD when the article's author showed persistency. Will likely be deleted (and should be). Now, if "the Balance of the Universe" getting recreated in a similar fashion it can be speedied by G4 (recreated material).
6. YooKyung Kim - db person. Deleted. good
7. Rev. Mike Velarde - db person. Deleted, but recreated. Someone userfied and it was finally deleted again. Some of these become debacles, don't they... You have NO idea. This is pretty tame if you ask me. We'll see what the user does I suppose but likely, now that his picture is in his userspace (and will likely be deleted for copyright because I'm sure he did it wrong without even looking), he has amused himself and his high school classmates. He'll move on shortly I'm sure.
8. DreamPlay - db spam. I initially started to clean up and tag this one, but really, it's just an advertisement. Deleted. The right call - good
9. So Fresh, So Clean... a Down and Dirty Comedy - db nonsense. Deleted. good
10. Cory Hairston - db person. Deleted. Author was pretty quickly permablocked for a vandal-only account. Sometimes I think I waste time...Eventually, they (vandals) all get bored with our consistency in hating them, though, and they go back to their myspace once they realize that some of us take this seriously. (In a fun way of course:-)

While doing this (a very interesting time), I found myself doing other random cleanup and tagging, and nominating via prod and AfD. Here is one other AfD that I started. That process isn't new to me; I'm familiar with all of this. The new part to this assignment for me was doing the actual patrolling of new pages; before I just stumbled across them via vandal patrol. Just FYI, also, I'm not ignoring Assignment 1. I've been reading some. It's just a daunting task, and I'm going to want to ask you some specific questions before I start giving opinions there.

New page patrolling can be highly addictive, but it also has a high burnout rate. Only the very dedicated stick with it for any length of time, either because they are highly deletionist or highly inclusionist. Both sides feel they are doing "what's best" for wikipedia ironically. But the burnout comes from the ridiculous amounts of garbage that is created, tagged, talk page warned, deleted. Created, tagged, talk page warned, deleted...on and on. And then you get a persistent one that really really really thinks that his friend/guru/company/idea/conspiracy theory/pastor/mentor/entrepreneur/monkey is of crucial importance to English Wikipedia and drags it out a couple of weeks before the inevitable "userfy" and "Delete". Eventually, they go away, but usually they burn out an editor or two in the process. You did good though, excellent tagging.

Yes, you/nail/head/etc. I can see burning out... well, already. Can you look at the two AfD's I started, and let me know what I missed in listing them? It seems that happens every time; I'm missing a crucial step. It *seemed* to be fine before, in that they were listed under the categories, etc., but apparently not.

Yep, one step missing (sorry I didn't notice it earlier). I hate DUMBBot. What an insulting name. Anywho, go to Template:AfD in 3 steps, you are missing step three. You actually have to go to the current day's log and add your page. DUMBbot has been finishing step 3 for you so you don't have to go back to your prior noms. If you want, nominate a couple of others with all three steps, I'll take a look at 'em.

[edit] Assignment 5

Read through Wikipedia:Protection policy and then go to Requests for page protection. Pick out a couple (2 or 3) and let me know here how you would fulfill the requests. (Pick ones that haven't been fulfilled yet, of course :-) Also, feel free to ask any questions about page protection in general in this section.

Right now admins are on the ball. This one came up, and before it was fulfilled/declined, I decided that I would grant page protection for perhaps a week. This is a page that would attract children, however, and per the Wikipedia:Rough guide to semi-protection, these pages might need protection more than others. It seems like the requestor Epass might have some WP:OWN issues, but a look through the page history reveals that his assertion is more or less correct - the page is vandalized quite heavily (WAY more than the 5% average). Granted, some of these are not egregious vandalism but uncited additions, but I think in the context of this page, we can lump it all into one category. Let's see if an admin agrees with me.

Semi-protected for a period of 2 weeks. After 2 weeks the page will be automatically unprotected. Whew! I'm in Denver on business for the night, but have the rest of the week off after I get back tomorrow - I'll do some more of these, fully address A. 3, and finally begin on A. 1.

Another one. I don't think that I would protect this one; it seems that even though the history page shows moderate vandalism over the past month, this one is highly patrolled and an occasional block should take care of the problem.

User blocked (87.209.195.148) for two weeks. My talk page is open if the problem continues. – Steel 17:32, 5 March 2008 (UTC) - Looks like the admin agreed with me; the solution was a user block rather than a page protect.

And last one. Requester says "high level of IP vandalism"; from the history, this has about one IP vandalism per month. Now, maybe rules are different with template vandalism, but I don't see any real reason to protect this page.

Declined – There is not enough recent disruptive activity to justify protection at this time. Steady on, tiger - one instance of IP vandalism in the last month or so does not a high-level of vandalism make! The public face of GBT/C 18:04, 5 March 2008 (UTC) I figured an admin would agree with this one. I probably picked too easy of a request. But, I'm glad to see you agree with my thoughts below; I'll consider myself as having passed A5 :-)

I can see myself as being pretty conservative when it comes to page protection. Personally, I would much rather block the vandals than protect the page; anonymous editing of Wikipedia is a fundamental piece of the "editable by everyone" doctrine and I would hate to go overboard on protection. Obviously if a page is being repeatedly vandalized by several IP addresses and it is unreasonable or impossible to warn/block them all, then yes, page protection is advised. I would like your comments on these thoughts.

There are definitely two schools of thought on this, I happen to agree with yours. I believe anon contributions are, by and large, good contributions. With a few bad apples (less than 1% I'd assume, although I'm no mathematician). I very rarely if ever do page protections as it punishes "the class" for one student's "bad behavior". Page protection should be used only in an exceptional case, IMO, where the subject of the page itself has led to vandalism from multiple editors. So short answer, to quote another editor, (you), nail/head/etc. Unless you plan on getting heavily involved in RFPP or have other questions, I think you've finished A5.

[edit] Assignment 6

These questions should look familiar. Right or wrong (and I think it's wrong) many !voters, especially early voters, in RfAs never look past these questions. An RfA can sink fast if the first four or five !voters are opposes. Everyone coming after them will see your tally box as 1-4-0 (assuming I support:-) and bandwagon. Happens to good editors all the time. Thinking about these questions now and having good answers, with diffs, is a net positive to getting your RfA off to a good start. Not really gaming the system per say, simply putting your best suit on for picture day, nothing more. So, fill in bits and pieces here and there and get something you're comfortable with and that is an accurate reflection of your work.
Question 1: What admin work do you intend to take part in?

A: I intend to use the administrator tools in the article deletion arena (AfD, PROD, CSD) and occasionally in page protection. As I often have bits and pieces of time during the day to vandal fight, I would be able to put the tools to use there to block chronic vandals. I watchlist WP:AN and WP:ANI, and although I don't feel I would step into each and every problem that comes up, if it is one that I am comfortable and experienced with, I will. Otherwise, there's typically other admins with different areas of expertise that can cover.

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

A: Article writing is definitely what I like most about my Wikipedia time, although I find myself doing other things more often because of the time demands of quality article expansion. I belong to four Wikiprojects, and am most active in the WP:AZ project - I have made significant contributions to Homolovi Ruins State Park, Oracle State Park, Bonytail chub, and Tarantula hawk, among others. I also significantly expanded Landing at Kip's Bay to contribute to the American Revolutionary War Task Force, a project I have plans to contribute more to soon. Also, Tahquitz. As one could observe, I especially enjoy stub expansion. My editing style tends to be rather compressed - I use "show preview" extensively, so my mainspace edits are fewer and larger.

Question 3: Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

A: Of course I have been in "conflicts", although I don't think I have ever been stressed over it. There are several ways of dealing with conflicts, depending on the context and nature of the problem. Talk page discussions are obviously always best, compared to a short, snarky edit summary comment. Sometimes a civil yet firm hand is required, other times if you just wait a few hours and let things cool off, things work out much better than escalation. I have not been in any sort of content argument yet, as I tend to edit more history or fact oriented articles with little to no POV. However, I do participate in 3O, and if I had an issue I couldn't work out on an article talk page, that would be the first place I would go. I always keep in mind that Wikipedia is never complete, and it won't kill me for information in an article to not adhere to my desires while a conflict is being worked out elsewhere. It really seems that most heated arguments start with people that need instant gratification on their POV of where the article should go.

[edit] General Observations

I'm going to use this space to mention things I notice about you and your editing habits. Please do not think I necessarily agree with all these observations. Some are rather trite, some are based in genuine concerns but have become bigger issues than they should and some are very legitimate. I mention these because in my experience these are items that crop up in RfA.

• Do Not Make a Big Deal about Preparing for Adminship. You should alter your userpage to not lead off with the admin statement. It's a real put off to some RFA regulars, seen as power hungry.

Done. Good idea.

I saw your userpage change. Good work.

• Stay Balanced in your Work. The more balanced your edits are between vandal fighting and article writing, the better your chances. Article writing is generally seen as Required for a successful RfA. You need to make sure you are doing some actual writing, not just fixing typos and such. Identify an area you like and jump in. I see you are part of a couple of really good wiki-projects. That's excellent! I haven't looked to thorough through your contribs yet, but just remember to stay balanced. If you find yourself looking at your contribs and the last several days worth are vandal reverts and IP talkpage warning posts, you need to cut loose and go crazy researching, writing, significantly adding to, and citing an article or five.

My real Wiki time is my real Wiki time, but as I have the sort of job that gives me ten minutes here and fifteen minutes there (often at an airport or in a hotel), it's hard to NOT vandal-fight a lot. I don't think I do it instead of contributing, though.

I understand the balance that comes between work and wiki. There are many times where I feel conflicted, but seeing as how wikipedia absolutely refuses to pay my mortgage, I understand where your priorities lie. Understood. Do what you can though, when you can. And try to stay balanced.

I think I do have a significant amount of experience with actual article writing. I know you will end up looking at most everything, but here is a good example you can start with. I've never added unreferenced, unverifiable information, and for major changes, I usually make a note or start a discussion on the pertinent talk page, as I did with that edit. I use "show preview" extensively, which has kept my article writing edit count down, but I think that's a good thing (I can't stand cluttered page histories).

• Use Edit Summaries Always. Edit summaries are entered in the box just below the main editing box. Begin now to use them all the time. There are a couple of reasons. One, a shore edit summary makes it easy to know what you were doing with a given edit. This is very helpful to others and can be a real life saver when you are searching through your own edits trying to find something. Second, it is expected that admin nominees will have edit summaries at or very close to 100%. In your preferences tab there is a place to require edit summaries. Checking this box will help you remember.

I pretty much always have; my first month I might have had 5% no-edit-summary edits, but now I am consistently at 0%.

I see that now. You do a good job with edit summaries (and really, that's better for you - when you click on your "contributions" tab, and they are all blank, it's nearly impossible to figure out what you said, and where and can be really frustrating (and time consuming) when you need a quick diff or link. Edit summaries, edit summaries, edit summaries!

I'm putting this under general observations because I don't know where else it would fit. I think you are ready for adminship now. Your grasp of "what this place is about" is sound, you have a good grasp of protection, blocking, and deletion (the three main admin tools). You have contributed to several articles and have stated that your primary purpose here is to build an encyclopedia. Honestly, if I saw you as a self-nom on AfD right now, I would support based on your edits and on your superb answers to the above questions. With your permission (and with your answer to the CAT:AOR question that I think I know the answer to already), I think a formal Request for Adminship is in order for you. Why wait? Some possible opposes might show up in regards to your length of service, but they will be in the minority most likely (see here for someone who had even less "clock hours" that I nominated that flew thru RfA. What do you think? Are you ready now? Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 00:03, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, the short answer is yes, I am ready. Do I have reservations? Yes, only in that if this RfA fails, it will be several months before we can try again. Not that that's the worst thing in the world, I suppose, but if I could be being productive in the interim... you make the choice. Yes, I'm ready whenever you say I am, coach. Pass me the ball, I won't drop it. Tanthalas39 (talk) 00:16, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The right choice. Woo hoo! Give me 24 hours. I'll try to set up your RfA tonight for you to add your questions to, but I may not be able to write my nom statement until tomorrow....I'll keep you posted. You'll see something on your talkpage within 24 hours...Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 00:18, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so maybe instead of tomorrow, that only took a couple of minutes :-). Please read over the RfA I just created here. Add your answers to the questions (what you wrote in Assignment 6 is fantastic if you want to copy/paste). Let me know when you've finished, at which point, we'll both proofread and then I will transclude it to the RfA mainpage. I'm excited! I'm confident that you will do great. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 00:44, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Done. Take a good look at it, let me know if I'm missing anything... going to dinner, be back in an hour or so to tie up loose ends or whatnot. Tanthalas39 (talk) 00:55, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Miscellaneous

I spent quite a bit of time working on a stub here. Let me know what you think - make sure to go to the talk page as well.

Stub expansion! Fantastic! That's something I've never spent much time doing, to my detriment. Landing at Kip's Bay looks great. I'll be sure to note this and your other article work in my nom statement as it is a real plus and one of your definite strengths. Feel free to list other article work that you would consider highlights either here, or under assignment 6, question 2. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 19:08, 10 March 2008 (UTC)