Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Dusti 3

Dusti

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (?/?/?); Scheduled to end 23:08, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Nomination

Dusti (talk · contribs) – Dear fellow colleagues (if you will). I've been on Wikipedia for almost three years now, and I have been through up's and down's just like most editors. I would first off like to tackle what is likely to be a concern, and that is lack of activity for a year. During that time, I was having some major RL issues and underwent a very much needed/majorly enforced wiki break. This was at the suggestion of many, and very much needed. I am back now, all issues resolved, and the community will have my full participation as a sysop.

I will not try to say that I am an expert in all Sysop area's, because I am not. For those areas that I am unsure of, I will leave alone unless I have the assistance or advice of a more tenured sysop. I will, of course, try to gain more experience in those areas for which I am not as knowledgeable as others, but no one is perfect. I will also patch up the area's that I'm kinda rusty or rough around the edges in. All this will happen regardless of the outcome of this Rfa.

Former requests for adminship can be found at Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/dustihowe and Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Dustihowe. Please note that the first Rfa was done due to a lack of understanding on what Wikipedia really is. I was overzealous, and too quick. The second one I was eager, and unwilling to wait.

I feel that with over 7,000 edits and over 700 deleted edits, I am seasoned enough to be able to handle the bits and work in the areas that I am comfortable in (dealing with vandalism, etc.) and ease my way into the other areas that I am not fully engulfed in yet. Dusti^SPEAK!! 22:27, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: Self nomination. Dusti^SPEAK!! 22:33, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

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 administrative work do you intend to take part in?

A: The main areas that I am most active in right now are WP:AFC, WP:AIV, WP:UAA, New Pages, and anti-vandalism work. I occasionally work with username creation as well. I'll expand into more areas like CSD and AFD, however, I'll work in those areas with caution until I feel more comfortable doing admin work there. I am currently working with a couple of sysops in the CSD area and am working to gain more experience there.

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

A: I feel that the best contributions I have given Wikipedia are my wiki gnoming. I'm not a major content writer, I'm more of someone who will fix the occasional typo, someone who will revert vandalism and stop the bad guys, and someone who works to make sure it's a quality work. This is what I'm most comfortable doing, and I don't have an issue creating new articles, as I work with AFC, however, it's not what I enjoy doing. I feel that those who do sysop work don't have to be pure content creators, as there still need to be those who polish and shine the project as well.

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: Nothing major that caused any concerns or issues to be blocked. There have been questions that have been raised due to miscommunication or minor things like that, but nothing that would have caused major stress. One of the things that I am looking for here is understanding and acceptance to the fact that since my last Rfa (under username Dustihowe) I have grown and matured in myself, and will not make the same mistakes twice.

Additional optional question from Delicious carbuncle

Dusti, in this recent ANI thread about personal attacks that another user made on me in their user and talk page headers, you first opined "I feel that, as he is making allegations, unsolicited allegations at that against an editor, he should be blocked" but later attempted to close the thread stating "There is nothing that can be done here at ANI".

4. Given that you had suggested that the user be blocked for personal attacks, why would you, as a non-admin, suggest that the discussion did not belong on ANI?

The user, with given information at first sight, did show that a possible block was in order, however I, as a non-sysop, could not for sure make that call. I gave an opinion on what I saw, however, the content that was in the discussion showed that ANI was not the appropriate place for the discussion, and other editors later agreed that an RFCU needed to be done, as more input, evidence, etc. was needed. 23:09, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

5. Having seen how the situation was resolved and having had a few days to think about your actions, would you still attempt to close an ongoing discussion, edit war to keep the discussion closed, and lobby for someone else to close the discussion when your premature closure was reverted?

I do not feel that this edit shows an edit war, as there was a discussion taking place on my talk page at the time. Now, I, as a current non sysop, did what I feel was best, which was remove myself from the situation and post how I felt on the ANI thread to echo other editors feelings regarding the thread not being there. I will state that (in reflection) it would have been probably best for me to wait to see if the thread was closed by another individual first after 24 hours on the board, or, wait for a sysop to close the thread after all comments and suggestions to go to RFCU had been exhausted.

Additional optional question from Mike Cline

6. Dusti, if Admin roles were compartmentalized, in other words a bureaucrat assigned Admins to various Mop and bucket tasks in WP based on the Admin’s experience and desires and you could only work in those areas, which one of the following compartments would you chose to work in and why? (chose only one):

a. The Deletion department, where your job was to close CSDs, PRODs, and AfDs.

b. The Vandalism department, where your job was to patrol for vandalism, revert it and block vandals.

c. The Article Improvement department, where your job was to find ways to help new and old editors improve WP articles and bring them in-line with WP policies and guidelines and prevent their deletion.

d. The Dispute Resolution department, where your job was to help resolve disputes between editors on WP.

A: I would choose option B, as that is what I currently do. As you can see below, there are some things I need to clean up in relation to AFD's, and I would want to be somewhere the community most felt comfortable with me in relations to my "position". I feel that the most important part of Wikipedia is it's appearance, and cleaning up after vandalism is extremely important. Dusti^SPEAK!! 23:51, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Additional optional question from User:Tuxedo junction

7. How important to your think it is for Wikipedia to attract and retain content editors to build the encyclopaedia? Where do you rank this as a priority?

A: I feel that content creation should be a main priority for Wikipedia. I would say obtaining Wikipedia's image (in regards to maintaining a safe enviornement, holding correct and verifiable information, and reversion of vandalism) is number one, and then retaining editors is second. Wikipedia should be a fun, enjoyable place for editors to come and share their knowledge, as long as they are constructive editors who are willing to follow Wikipedia's policies.

General comments

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

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Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review Special:Contributions/Dusti before commenting.

Discussion

I want to outline some concerns here for future editors who see this:

1. In regards to AFD closures, a some of my BOLD closures that were reverted did close in the same manner (as a keep). As I stated below, I will be staying away from AFD as a sysop, unless I am !voting.
2. In regards to the final warning, there was an ANI discussion (see link below) and other editors did agree with the warning. The original edit did look like a test edit, and the user had been previously warned. An apology was placed on the Users talk page, and it was also accepted by the user.
3. In regards to judgement skills, please realize that whether a sysop or editor, we are all human. I feel that I have been more of a constructive editor and have made a difference with Wikipedia. With the sysop tools, my efforts with Anti-Vandalism and at WP:ACC/WP:AIV/WP:ANI/and WP:AFC can be more of an impact and helpful.

• Could you please opt-in to Soxred's edit counter graphs? Please note that this is a request and nothing more. NW (Talk) 22:45, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Created. Dusti^SPEAK!! 22:48, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

• Just curious, why do you have so many talk page edits compared to other namespaces, almost half your edits?--Jac16888^Talk 22:55, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

• Most of the work that I have been involved in involves antivandalism which explains a large amount of user talk, working with Article creation (which also involves talk page edits), and with AIV/AN/I, etc. Dusti^SPEAK!! 22:57, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)Yes, most people who use Huggle a lot of the time have their contributions split between article and user talk pages... Take a gander at mine for a good example,[1] and some other examples like J.delanoy and Tide rolls. The Thing // Talk // Contribs 23:09, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

• If it was from vandalism there would surely be a corresponding number of edits to mainspace? I'm not having a go by the way, just curious, don't remember seeing such a high proportion of user talk edits before--Jac16888^Talk 23:04, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

As an editor who appears to still be in the middle of coaching, this RFA is certainly premature. Additionally, the recent issues the candidate has had should have been a sign to wait. RFA isn't going to go anywhere. Patience is a wonderful skill. I think the candidate should concentrate on other things not related to becoming an admin. Aiken ♫ 02:27, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Support

1. Support Experienced in anti-vandalism and CSD work, will make a fine admin. The Thing // Talk // Contribs 22:43, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
2. Support. I agree with The Thing. This user would certainly be trusted with the mop. NERDYSCIENCEDUDE (✉ message • changes) 22:50, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
3. Rainbow Support Good guy, lots of work on CSD and anti-vandalism! Hope this passes! --FAIL!^Talk 23:00, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

   Again, Fail? What's with all the rainbow supports? NERDYSCIENCEDUDE (✉ message • changes) 23:14, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

   Well as you can clearly see, they're Rainbowful :D-FASTILY_sock^(TALK) 00:10, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

4. Strong support Great helper around here. Wonderful at CVN, as The Thing said earlier. Would be a great admin! Pilif12p (contribs) 00:27, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
5. Support, I know I'm going against the run of things here, but I'm not particularly concerned by the things brought up in the Oppose section. Korath's diffs are over a year old, and it strikes me as pretty harsh holding something that old against the user. The business with Tuxedo junction was regrettable, but given the user's combative nature and this comment, I'm happy to overlook it as an innocent misunderstanding. No evidence that this user would abuse the tools. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 00:57, 30 March 2010 (UTC).

   While some of the closes were from last year, about half were from January 2010. While I agree that it's usually unfair to bring up year-old edits, I don't think it's unreasonable in this case: not only do they show a continuing pattern when combined with the more recent ones, but Dusti didn't edit at all from February 2009 to January 2010. —Korath (Talk) 01:18, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

   I explained that reason above. Dusti^SPEAK!! 01:20, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Some of his closures at AFD are frightful, amounting to supervotes: a close after fourteen hours with rationale "Several hits when doing a Google search", "You CANNOT make an AFD based on personal opinions", a speedy keep because the article "hasnt [sic] been tagged for clean up or expansion", another speedy keep because "This [WP:BEFORE] hasn't been followed... and sources have been shared". His close of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Skeptic's Annotated Bible (2nd nomination) was especially poor, even more so in light of his later comment on that afd. —Korath (Talk) 23:11, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

   This is one area that I am staying away from. My original thoughts with AFD were that they had to follow Deletion policy and thus I closed them as thoughtful. I have gone through some training with Keeper76, and am going through some addition training currently, but you can trust that I will not delete any pages or go near AFD until I am certain it's the right move. Dusti^SPEAK!! 23:15, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

2. Per Korath. Those closes were way out of line. With all due respect, that makes me afraid of what you would do with the mop. A promise to stay away from AfD doesn't compensate for it, in my view. It shows a clear disregard for the place of community discussion and consensus. I have no doubt that you regret the closes, but you really need to show consensus-building activity in the project space to make up for it. --Mkativerata (talk) 23:20, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

   I have over 700 deleted edits. If you are able to, please view them to see other AFD closures to show that I do have the ability to show regard for community discussion and consensus.

3. Oppose He gave me a final warning because of a single editing mistake that I immediately reverted.[2] I don't think he has the necessary judgement or tact at this point in his career on Wikipedia. He has very few article edits, so I don't think he understands was article editors encounter. Tuxedo junction (talk) 23:32, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

   Please see the ANI discussion that took place here. The editor had been issued prior warnings that day for test edits.

4. Oppose because I'm not confident in your judgement abilities, as pointed out by the AfD links above, and the final warning for an edit that wasn't vandalism. —Soap— 23:36, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

   Soap, please see the link above. Dusti^SPEAK!! 23:38, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

   You seem to be trying to dodge the central objection. You gave a user a final warning for an edit that wasn't vandalism. The fact that he may have vandalized earlier in the day doesn't mean you can judge his subsequent edits to be vandalism even if they aren't. This is how bad blocks often get placed and making bad blocks is the worst possible thing a Wikipedia administrator can do. —Soap— 23:42, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

   I'm not trying to dodge anything, with all due respect. What I am stating is that with prior warnings given that day, the edit that was made (I had not seen a reversion at the time of issuing a warning), appeared to be a test edit, which is what prior warnings were issued for. That is why a final warning was issued. Dusti^SPEAK!! 23:44, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

   I actually agree with Tuxedo about this incident, and if he had been blocked for that, I would defend him, assuming that his claims that he's only done it twice, both times he quickly reverted himself, and that he doesnt know what the source of the problem is are true. After all, I regularly see Huggle users accidentally restore vandalism because they clicked revert just an instant too late and mistakenly reverted the wrong editor, and if I understand correctly there's nothing they can do to prevent occasional mistakes like that, other than being sure to fix them immediately afterwards. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding this incident though I think you were too quick to jump on him with that warning. Just because something appears to be vandalism doesnt mean it is. Also, please don't interpret this as a "fallback" argument, but I had my oppose typed out before Tuxedo's was saved and only added the bit about the final warning because I got an edit conflict and went to read his rationale, and as I said, I agree with it. —Soap— 01:18, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

5. Oppose Recent talk page discussions show a lack of knowledge of wiki rules. Aiken ♫ 23:39, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
6. Oppose Giving a user a final warning for a mistake, and arbitrarily closing discussions, does shows some issues with judgement at this stage. The 888th Avatar (talk) 23:49, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

   There was an apology issued and if you see the ANI discussion, several sysops agreed with the warning. Dusti^SPEAK!! 00:13, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

7. Oppose Appalling judgement. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 00:00, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

   If this is in regards to the final warning, please see the ANI notice link above and the apology issued to the user. Individuals make mistakes. If it's not, could you please outline the concerns? Dusti^SPEAK!! 00:13, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

8. Oppose. Serious concerns with judgement, maturity, experience, policy knowledge, and breadth of exposure. Also, the incident with Tuxedo junction could have been much better handled. -FASTILY_sock^(TALK) 00:07, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

   Can you please outline these so I can fix the concerns? Dusti^SPEAK!! 00:13, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

9. Oppose - I looked into the "Tuxedo junction" incident and don't see much of concern. In fact, TJ was pretty uncivil with Dusti (and others) and Dusti did a pretty good job of keeping cool. My reason for opposing is that I don't see that Dusti has a very good grasp of CSD; I deal with proposed deletions and delete a lot of them, and I've seen a few that were originally nominated for speedy deletion where they don't even come close to meeting the CSD requirements. For example, see this article (history only available to admins) where a one-line article with absolutely nothing promotional was nominated for G11 deletion. Giving someone with such a shaky grasp of deletion policy the tools when they are planning on doing speedy deletions would be a big mistake. -- Atama頭 00:40, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

   Atama, please see my CSD coaching page, and the statement above about staying away from AFD and CSD in regards to sysop actions. Dusti^SPEAK!! 00:42, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

   I understand, and that's wise, but it illustrates a problem with your candidacy, a problem I see often. An editor puts forth a bid for adminship and for any flaws in their knowledge, they state that they are currently being coached about it. That's premature, you should wait until after such coaching before you consider running. Unlike other opposes here, I don't think your demeanor is a problem, just your knowledge, which is something that will come in time. It's much harder for a person to change their personality. My oppose is certainly a "notnow", not a "notever". -- Atama頭 02:08, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

10. Oppose - The recent Tuxedo junction incident makes me oppose. December21st2012Freak ^{Talk to me} at 00:44, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
11. Oppose Not now.  fetchcomms☛ 00:52, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
12. Oppose I am concerned about the candidate's knowledge of WP:CSD, based on edits like this which were tagged for A7 despite being asserted as notable for "the first and only cyber model and grinding performer in Greece" and "interviewed by several magazines". --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 01:08, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
13. Mostly per Korath and Atama. I rarely oppose, but the judgment is clearly lacking here. Since Atama's one is from less than two weeks ago, I doubt that any amount of coaching since then would make me change my mind. Tim Song (talk) 01:53, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
14. Oppose - Korath gives the evidence and rationale I was going to. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 02:07, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
15. Serious concerns about temperament and judgment. Ray^Talk 02:23, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
16. Oppose. Concerns about temperament, experience, and judgment. -- Cirt (talk) 04:34, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Neutral

--Mkativerata (talk) 23:15, 29 March 2010 (UTC):Neutral I'm initially parking here because there is hardly any record of content creation that I can see. I consider content creation to be important for an admin to properly understand core encyclopaedic tenets such as verifiability, original research and reliable sourcing. However a lack of content creation can in my view be outweighed by exceptional contributions in the project space that demonstrate the editor does understand those concepts (see Tim Song's recent RFA). I'm not seeing that degree of exceptional project space contributions yet but I won't move to oppose until it has been examined further because I don't want to come to a premature judgement. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:57, 29 March 2010 (UTC) Move to oppose. --Mkativerata (talk) 23:15, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

As I said above, the majority of the edits that I do are in relation to anti-vandalism work, and other political areas suck as WP:SSP, WP:AIV, WP:UAA, WP:AFC, etc. I do plan on having more project space contributions in the future once I being expanding out (regardless of the outcome of this RFA, but I've noticed myself staying where I am comfortable instead of stretching out and working in more areas to where I am not as active. Especially if this RFA passes, you can trust that I'm not going to use sysop tools unless I am 100% certain about what I am doing. Dusti^SPEAK!! 23:04, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

1. Neutral leaning towards oppose For the most part, you are barely over my RfA expectations, but Korath and Soap have some good points. --The High Fin Sperm Whale 23:48, 29 March 2010 (UTC)