User:Hroðulf/Adminship-evaluation

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:

My main ambition for the mop is low profile. Where I see a need for a page move over a redirect, or a page move with history merge, I would like the tools to pitch in. I could make the short list at Requested moves#Backlog a bit shorter.

I hope my experience qualifies me to learn to assist in the following areas that sometimes create backlogs:

• Images and media for deletion
• Copyright problems
• Templates for deletion
• Articles for deletion/Old

and perhaps with more relevant experience:

• Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets

I also feel I have the experience to refrain from using the tools (or to ask for guidance) in fields where I am not experienced, and in conflicts where I may already be involved as an editor.

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

A:

I have made numerous small contributions in diverse areas. (I guess I have a short attention span: I don't have any GA or FA contributions.) I hope that these add up to a good and positive overall contribution to the encyclopedia, and I have certainly come across, and requested, the assistance of administrators using many different tools. My favourite tiny contributions are:

• Created Anglican doctrine. It was considered of top importance to WikiProject Anglicanism and added to their navbox {{Anglicanism}}.
• Created Magee College, now self-assessed as B class. I sourced and footnoted everything I added.
• I can't see my deleted edits, but as I recall I have successfully tagged several dozen new and old articles (and a few images) for speedy deletion, with the few that were controversial being resolved amicably. I know where the grey area is, and use prod and AfD when in doubt.
• I successfully reported some sockpuppets that were manipulating a content dispute and edit war at Jim Clark. Unfortunately it is still semi-protected, and other editors are dealing with Pflanzgarten now.
• I have uncontroversially, but hopefully helpfully, nominated and contributed to most different types of XfD, WP:CP and WP:PUI. However many of my responses have not significantly affected the outcome. I guess I can cherry pick examples in this forum, so here are two where my recommendation was accepted: Articles for deletion/Money Reform Party Articles for deletion/Spectre (though the Spectre debate was going that way before I chipped in.)
• Individual members in a series of unusually narrowly-scoped articles were repeatedly being nominated for deletion, AfDs closing as keep. I conceived a page to educate editors who were doubtful of their worthiness for inclusion, at: WikiProject Northern Ireland/Troubles.
• Here is my most obscure contribution of wiki love.

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 have had numerous disagreements settled amicably, though I have noticed a strong recent trend that my edits are now infrequently commented on, and rarely reverted. (They are occasionally improved upon.)

I often challenge fellow editors on their edits in talk pages, and, (unfortunately for an RfA perhaps,) this usually leads to either a fruitful discussion or being ignored, rather than conflict. A couple of examples of quickly defused content disputes are at Talk:Mutual_fund#Mutual fund. I have worked on a small number of controversial articles, and assisted with removing POV. I still assist in defending the Derry/Londonderry naming compromise.

Occasionally, multiple reverts (of myself or others), and wilful misunderstandings of policy, have made me angry, but I have rarely let that spill over into my responses. I recall that a handful of times I have contributed to social problems here. To my shame, I even had my say in the Yoghurt / Yogurt article naming debate (in 2006 if I recall correctly.) My most recent negative contributions were

1. (June) to fan the forest fire over the use of trademarks in a template (which thankfully died down more quickly than I feared). During my participation in this debate, I took 2 other questionable actions:
   1. participation in an edit war: revert declaring a truce
   2. sailing close to the No legal threats rule: withdrawn warning
2. (May) taking sides with the intent to defend what appeared to be a compromise against a single intransigent editor at Singapore Airlines, but turned out to be a fruitless multi-party content edit war (for example here, one of 3 edits in 2 weeks, see also later in talk where I inadvertently took the other side)
3. (May) this regrettable parody in response to a one-off troll post.

I think, on balance, my contributions to the Template:TardisIndexFile sideshow were helpful and collaborative, but the aggregate of a number of my edits did waste some people's time, and increased tensions. I want to minimize the first and second example in future, by feeling in less of a hurry to find solutions to debates I come across, whether or not the RFA succeeds.
I plan to avoid provoking strangers with attempts at humour, altogether, and I don't plan to use any admin buttons to play jokes on April Fool's Day.

If I get the tools, I expect to be on the receiving end of some verbal attacks and stalking. Time will tell whether the balance of measured and polite habits I profess as an editor translates to effective behaviour in more intense situations.