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AliveFreeHappy

Voice your opinion (talk page) (43/0/0); Scheduled to end 04:54, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

AliveFreeHappy (talk · contribs) - It is my pleaure, to nominate User:AliveFreeHappy for RFA today. For some basic statistics, AliveFreeHappy has been here since 2004, and, has made more than 11,000 edits. For full disclosure, User:AliveFreeHappy was recently renamed, from User:Arthurrh.

I first ran into this user, quite a long time ago, in relation to a sockpuppetry case. He's always been good with those, and, often brings them to me for blockage.

In his contribs, I've seen several (almost 100) good reports to WP:AIV, and, a bunch of good CSD's.

He edits lots of articles (not just meta edits! :) 5,000+ mainspace), and, acutally uses the article talkpages (another 2500 edits there...). He's always been civil, that I've seen, resourceful, and, has a good grasp on policy. I think, he's ready for the bits. SQLQuery me! 04:54, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept the nomination. Thanks for your confidence SQL. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 06:20, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]


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:
  1. Anti-vandalism - I was taking a break from infoboxes one night and decided to see what the whole Recent changes patrol was about. For better or worse, I was hooked and now have a pretty substantial number of articles on my watchlist. I watch a lot of firearms related articles, especially cartridge articles. I also found during vandlism work that a lot of schools have relatively little scrutiny, often being subject to a stream of vandalism going unchecked for days or even weeks. So I spend a lot of time reverting/fixing/warning and reporting to WP:AIV. Being able to block the really nasty people quickly as well as the admin ability to do quick reverts would make life easier.
  2. Page protection - sometimes pages are being subject to constant attacks by the same user, especially sockpuppets. I have found in those cases that a simple semi-protection can really help. See the above referenced Frank Lasee article that has had more than it's share of problems. [1]. Or take a look at Akins High School where one editor, probably a student, has an axe to grind and brings a low-level of constant problems. The worst part is that if you let it go, and then others work based on the vandalized edit, it gets increasingly difficult to peel it all out effectively.
  3. Admin backlogs - I see there are lots of things to be done, like dealing with CSD, PROD, etc. As time permits I plan on helping out on those issues as well.
  4. Admin help - I already watch pages such as WP:ANI and WP:RSN and try to help out if I have something useful to say or contribute. Sometimes when checking recent changes or articles on my watchlist, I come across a conflict and try to see if there is something I can do to assist. Just recently I did this albeit in a small way [2] for the T5PC article. [3]
2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
A:
  1. I poked at Wikipedia a few years ago, and came back occasionally but not often. Then this year I started reading the WP:PILLARS and really caught the vision. I was doing some firearms cartridge article, and found the Firearms project tag. I really liked the idea of the project where I could have some direction to my previously random editing. I found that I enjoyed infoboxes as a reader, and so I went on a personal one-man drive to fix as many firearms cartridge articles as I could. You can see this from a partial list of the edit history for the todo list. [4] Here's what the list looked like when I started [5] and here's what it looked like during the process, [6], notice that the list got worse before it got better, as it is now (Look at the "cartridge infobox" section). There are still some to go, but I think I did some pretty helpful work in that area. I also did a lot of work fleshing out what needs to be done, like adding firearms related articles to the project, putting articles on the todo list that were stubs, need images, etc.
  2. I found the article on Handloading ammunition to be a very good article, but loaded with explanations of things that would seem strange to someone unfamiliar with the process. I dug out my camera and attempted to illustrate the article. I think almost every picture on that article is one of mine.
  3. The intro toSecond Amendment to the United States Constitution was in the midst of an edit war and was arguably not very good. [7] I waded into the mess, and we were able to create something I'm proud of [8] after much work.[9] For more about this see Q3 below.
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'd say three incidents in particular. I've learned from each of these, especially the mantra of WP:AGF which I think should be a t-shirt and bumper sticker for everyone, not just for wikipedia. I use WP:AGF at work constantly.
  1. Savage 10FP is a rifle that I own. Much of the material in the article was advertising-like, original research, and down right incorrect. [10]. After a lot of back-and forth unhappiness with another editor there, I finally realized that the main issue was really poor communication. It was my first big AGF epiphany. We were able to work together and the end result was IMO a much better article.
  2. I came across the Frank Lasee article while doing recent change patrol. Frankly it was a big mess.[11] I started to try and clean it up and during the course of this a user got blocked and ended up creating a sockpuppet. It was my first time creating a sockpuppet report, and it turned out to be a very unpleasant experience, although I think I handled it very well. I was called a lot of ugly things but refused to return in kind. As you can see over time the article is definitely better, although it still needs work. And the editor in question continues to occassionally create sockpuppets as noted in Category:Suspected_Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_MoreGunsInSchools. I did learn to be very careful before accusing anyone of anything. In this case I was completely right, but it reinforced my desire to have my ducks in a row before starting proceedings.
  3. The intro toSecond Amendment to the United States Constitution mentioned in Q2 was another case. I had previously dealt with a particular difficult editor there. (I don't want to point fingers at anyone here and leave a record for it, since we've come to terms - his name is there for you to see in the history, let's not disparage him here). A lot of unpleasant things were said on both sides. Read from [[12]] on down. I'd like to feel like I was less irritating than he was, but I'm sure he feels the same way. At any rate, we were able to come to terms and do some very fine work in the end, and I did apologize and offer to start fresh with him.[13] And again learned that if you can get around the emotion of what people are saying and get them to really air what they're concerned about and where they'd like to go, you can really accomplish something.

Additional questions from Daniel, posted 11:32, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

4. Were you aware of the decision in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff about undeleting articles citing biographies of living persons concerns, and what is your understanding of it?
A:
I became aware of it recently when reading other RFAs. I do have some experience with BLP issues, as noted above in the issues surrounding the Frank Lasee article, in fact most of the problems with the group of sockpuppets there came from trying to hold the line against unsourced defamatory information. I believe that admins should remove such information without question, and where the entire article consists of only defamatory information, deletion is appropriate. Restoration should only be undertaken with consultation and consensus. To me the spirit of the issue surrounding Badlydrawnjeff was that it's better in the case of BLP to err on the side of exclusion rather than inclusion, and I agree wholeheartedly with that.
5. If you wish to undelete an article citing the biographies policy (or OTRS as well), what steps would you take? What steps wouldn't you take?
A:
To reverse the order of the answers, I wouldn't simply undelete the article. I would contact other admins and get input to see what others think of the issue. To me the basics for restoring potentially damaging blp info would have to be pretty compelling and I'd certainly want to see that others agreed that it was the appropriate action.

General comments

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

Discussion

Support
  1. Oh absolutely...has this been transcluded yet? — Dihydrogen Monoxide (Review) 06:28, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  2. DAMN YOU DHMO!. Support as nom. SQLQuery me! 06:31, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Support - yup. Good all-round candidate, everything looks good, seems kind and civil. - Alison ❤ 06:37, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Support Excellent answers to questions, and very civil. Master of Puppets Care to share? 07:14, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Support Jmlk17 08:36, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Unquestionably. Maser (Talk!) 08:46, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Support - No reasons not to support. PookeyMaster (talk) 10:08, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Seems good. John Reaves 10:20, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Yeah, looks fine. Rt. 13:32, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Support I like the answers. GDonato (talk) 15:54, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Support, and nice rifle btw. (My own firearms experience is a bit limited, due to my country's extreme gun-control legislation, but I have learnt to use the SA80 through my membership of the OTC.) WaltonOne 17:20, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Support, Per nom. Happy editing--NAHID 17:23, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Support Good answers to the questions, no reason not to trust this user with the tools.   jj137 ♠ 20:23, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Support Knows his stuff--Phoenix-wiki talk · contribs 22:06, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  15. Support Good answers & Track.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 22:21, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  16. Support Excellent contributor, really surprised me when he came on the scene and edited up a storm in the firearm area, but it was one of those good surprises. I don't see any indication he would misuse the tools of an administrator, he is civil, and knowledgeable.--LWF (talk) 22:54, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  17. Support A great editor, definitely support. Good luck! Midorihana(talk)(contribs) 23:16, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  18. Support The talk pages show a good record of dealing with people, some of whom may be armed. :)--Fabrictramp (talk) 23:44, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  19. Support John254 00:07, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  20. Support, user is reliable, helpful and sensible, a pleasure to support! Lankiveil (talk) 02:23, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  21. Support per above. NHRHS2010 Happy Holidays 05:13, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  22. Support Unlikely to abuse admin tools. --Siva1979Talk to me 05:57, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  23. Support - Excellent answers to the questions. -MBK004 06:12, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  24. Support, there is no reason to suspect his adminship would do anything but help improve the project. - Icewedge —Preceding comment was added at 06:32, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  25. The Transhumanist 22:06, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  26. "It's better in the case of BLP to err on the side of exclusion rather than inclusion, and I agree wholeheartedly with that" — amen. Just remember to contact the deleting administrator before anyone else if you disagree with it, and probably privately as well given it's most likely sensitive. Daniel 23:52, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  27. Support. Good editor. Happy Holidays!! Malinaccier (talk) 00:56, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  28. Support- Very good editor. A successful RfA will be a great Christmas present for him! (mastrchf91) 21:02, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  29. Support - Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year From what I see, a Great Editor --Uga Man (talk) UGA MAN FOR PRESIDENT 2008 06:11, 25 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  30. Support Looks good to me. --Sharkface217 07:04, 25 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  31. Absolutely henrik•talk 08:13, 25 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  32. Support experienced user, very good answers. Good luck. Carlosguitar (ready and willing) 10:06, 25 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  33. Support experienced user, good humor a plus. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:23, 25 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  34. Support, solid. --Coredesat 12:29, 25 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  35. Support per Sql --Writer Listener 23:20, 25 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  36. Support - Good track record, enough experience, well-rounded, etc. Oh, and an uplifting name. Sounds like a Polyphonic Spree song. Tijuana Brass (talk) 03:38, 26 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  37. Support Excellent Mr Senseless (talk) 23:13, 26 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  38. SupportExcellent user; no reason not to. S♦s♦e♦b♦a♦l♦l♦o♦s (Merry Christmas!) 00:51, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  39. Support Can't see a reason why not. —αἰτίας •discussion• 00:56, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  40. Support Very good editor. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 04:28, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  41. Support Good luck! --n1yaNt 06:04, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  42. Support Man, you really like Helen Keller. Good luck. --CastAStone//(talk) 15:50, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    One of the great unsung and misunderstood female american heroes. Most people don't know anything about her other than what's in the story The Miracle Worker. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 19:56, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  43. Support. Michael (talk) 18:08, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  44. Excellent admin material. east.718 at 23:44, December 28, 2007
Oppose
  1. Oppose. Has not made substantial contributions to mainspace. Adminship is a big deal. Ceoil (talk) 20:58, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

    I just wanted to say that becoming a sysop is *not a big deal*. I think perhaps I'll go through semi-willy-nilly and make a bunch of people who have been around for awhile sysops. I want to dispel the aura of "authority" around the position. It's merely a technical matter that the powers given to sysops are not given out to everyone. I don't like that there's the apparent feeling here that being granted sysop status is a really special thing.
    User:Jimbo Wales - wikimedia.org archive entry, gmane archive entry

    One huge quote for you. Adminship is not a big deal. Dreamafter ⇔ 22:53, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Here's another interesting quote:

    I think that almost any argument, on any topic, which has premises beginning with "Jimbo said..." is a pretty weak argument. Surely the merits of the proposal should be primary, not what I happen to think. --Jimbo Wales 17:00, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

    east.718 at 23:47, December 28, 2007
Neutral
  1. Neutral - a good editor, who meets all my standards, but I have a couple of very small concerns: an inconsistent userpage (claiming not to push a POV, but doing so), and needing to do more work on WikiProject Firearms (for example, on Hunting and Hunting license). But those are mere quibbles, and I would not oppose for those reasons. Bearian (talk) 20:23, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Neutral per all support, but sadly per that oppose comment.Not worth a support, but not worth an oppose either.Godd luck!!!IslaamMaged126 (talk) 21:11, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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