Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Adjwilley

Adjwilley

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (19/1/2); Scheduled to end 02:04, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Nomination

Adjwilley (talk · contribs) – Adjwilley is a thoughtful editor who has been actively editing Wikipedia since 2011. He is courteous to other editors, makes constructive content edits, and is skilled at helping resolve content disputes. (See, for example, his intervention at Talk:Secular Islam Summit; start from Archive 1 if you want the whole dialogue.) His reaction to being at an impasse with another editor is to seek wider community input; for example: [1]. He was deeply involved in crafting the RFCs for last year's Pending changes. He responds well to criticism and rarely gets defensive or upset. Adjwilley can be trusted to be responsible and effective with the admin tools, and to continue making good contributions on the content side. I invite you, fellow editors, to support giving him the mop. alanyst 23:08, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept this nomination. Thank you, alanyst, for your kind words. ~Adjwilley (talk) 02:04, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. Please answer these questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?

A: I hope to work with page protection and protected page edit requests, as I believe backlogs in these areas are frustrating to editors and not good for the project. (I have often been frustrated on protected pages when talk page discussion goes on hold for a day or more while waiting for a protected edit request to be filled, or watching a page be vandalized over and over while a RPP request stagnates.) I could see myself eventually helping out at Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring, Administrator intervention against vandalism and Requests for unblock, but I probably won't be doing these right off the bat, and would ease into them slowly and carefully.

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

An illustration of constructive and destructive interference I created to illustrate beating

A: I'd say the two articles I'm most proud of (and on which I've spent the most time) are the articles on Mormons and Joseph Smith, both of which I helped get to good article status. (The former is probably the best example of my writing, since I wrote probably over half of it. I know my prose is probably weak, but I do try hard.) I've also made significant contributions to Micah True, which I rewrote in my sandbox while the article was fully protected, satisfying the concerns of those involved in the related content dispute. I'm currently working (slowly) on the Piano tuning article, which still needs a lot of work, but is coming along. I am also proud of some of the illustrations I've created and uploaded to Commons, not that they're particularly high quality, but likely because creating illustrations isn't something that comes naturally to me.

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: Yes, two. The first was relatively early in my Wiki-career (Dec 2011) and started here as a content dispute. I think what stressed me out was that the arguments seemed to go in circles without getting anywhere. The editor who I disagreed with and I were eventually able to work out a compromise via email, but I took a wikibreak after it was resolved. After that experience I began actively looking for better ways to resolve disputes. The second dispute that caused me stress was longer term, ranging over a number of pages, and eventually culminating in this RfC at WikiProject Religion. Oddly the dispute itself didn't cause me stress, but there was a period when the editor (probably in an attempt to teach me a lesson on reverting them) systematically went through my contribution history and reverted many of my older contributions. That, combined with a bunch of rotating IPs that started following me during the same period, caused me some stress. (Incidentally I ended up emailing this user as well to clear up some questions about IP editing, but as I mentioned earlier this one wasn't fully resolved until the RfC.) Some of the ways I have found for dealing with conflicts are:

• Always focus on content, not the editor. Try to see things from their point of view and find the root cause of the dispute.
• Try to find the best reliable source(s) available, and then take their position instead of your own.
• If you are attacked personally, don't defend yourself; just ignore it and move on. It probably wasn't intended as an attack anyway.
• Keep your arguments in the top three tiers of Grahm's Hiearchy of disagreement.
• Try to resolve the conflict at the lowest level possible, and don't get too involved. I sometimes think of it in terms of Wu wei...the more you stir a bucket of crap the more it stinks. Sometimes just "letting be" will do more toward resolving a conflict than taking an active role.
• Listen to uninvolved third parties who likely have a clearer view of the situation than you do.

Ok, enough of my philosophy.

Additional questions from I Jethrobot

4. You have correctly blocked a user for both general edit warring and violating 3RR on a given article, because they continued to revert despite several warnings. The user provides an unblock request saying, "I'm sorry if I offended other editors, edit-warred, and changed the article too many times. I want to keep contributing to improve the article." How would you handle this unblock request?

A: If that were the response I would not unblock, because the request doesn't show that they actually understand what they did wrong. (They sound like they might immediately go start edit warring again in their efforts to improve the article.) If they were a new user (which it kind of sounds like from the tone of the request) I would try to get them to understand the edit warring policy, making sure they were crystal clear on 3RR, and try to extract a commitment to follow it. For an older or more experienced editor I would suggest that they should consider voluntarily limiting themselves to 1RR. In any case, I wouldn't actually decline the request myself, since I already blocked them.

5. At what point is it advisable to stop assuming good faith in another editor (if ever)? What has been your approach towards editors who are clearly not assuming good faith in other users? Will that approach change if you are handed the mop?

A: Leaving aside the obvious cases of bad faith (vandals, sock puppets) and assuming we're talking about editors who are making normal edits and trying to be productive, I'd say it's always best to assume good faith. Yes, people are people, and we all screw up sometimes. At the same time, AGF doesn't mean you have to let people do whatever they want. Some editors might be trying to use Wikipedia as a means of advocating their points of view, fringe theories, favorite politicians, or whatnot, and are doing so "in good faith" because they "know" they are "right". I would argue that administrative action could be taken while still assuming good faith. As for my approach when I see editors who don't assume good faith in others, most of the examples that come to mind involve established users not assuming good faith in new users or IP editors. (It's easy to do.) In these cases I try to remind the established user that the newbie probably doesn't understand all our rules and norms yet. Sometimes a link to WP:Bite is appropriate, or in the case of IP editors, WP:IPs are people too. I don't really like directly telling people to AGF very much, because that can seem like I'm not, well, assuming good faith. (For instance, I can't think of a circumstance when I would use the {{uw-agf}} series of templates on anybody.) I don't think this would change much if I get the extra buttons. If that didn't fully answer your question please feel free to ask a follow up.

Additional questions from Pratyya Ghosh

6. Why do you want to be an admin?

A:

7. What areas of adminship would you be most comfortable handling? What areas would you be least comfortable handling?

A:

Additional question from Kiefer.Wolfowitz

8. Please describe your contributions to the talk pages of Bradley Manning/GA2 or Black people and Mormonism (or both), particularly how your contributions show your development as an editor or help to show your qualifications to be an administrator.

A:

12:35, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

General comments

• Links for Adjwilley: Adjwilley (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
• Edit summary usage for Adjwilley can be found here.
• I will try to respond to questions in a timely manner, but between my job and family life I may not be able to respond immediately. Thank you for your patience. ~Adjwilley (talk) 02:04, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
• Editing stats posted on (talk) page. :) John Cline (talk) 10:41, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

---

Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review his contributions before commenting.

Discussion

Support

1. Support No reason is obvious to object. Seems to be a good candidate for admin.--Amadscientist (talk) 02:12, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
2. Support — Per nominator's rationale; also, candidate has an admirable approach to disputes/conflicts as outlined in question/answer 3; wonderful work with in regards to maintaining article quality; and interests in administrative areas WP:RPP (and perhaps later down the track: WP:AIV, WP:AN3). Clean block log. Tick, tick, tick! Good luck, —MelbourneStar☆^talk 02:23, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
3. Support- Impressive, dedicated work. No qualms here. Mlpearc (powwow) 02:31, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
4. Support. I like this editor's approach to dealing with conflict. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:56, 24 July 2013 (UTC).
5. Support I scanned his contribs, and his logs, and I see someone reasonably similar to myself, albeit more active, and I think we need exactly that. Hiberniantears (talk) 02:58, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
6. Support - I have encountered Adjwilley on occasion, and have found him to have an even temperament and good judgement. I see no reason not to trust him with a few extra tools. - MrX 02:59, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
7. Support as nominator. alanyst 03:29, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
8. Adjwilley seems thoughtful, mature, and sensible. I think s/he will be an excellent admin, and support without reservations. MastCell ^Talk 03:39, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
9. Support - I've run into adjwilley a few times, and found his contributions to be uniformly thoughtful and helpful. StAnselm (talk) 04:31, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
10. Support. Solid Q1-3 shows perspective. Reasonable article count. RFPP and AIV matches Q1. No reason to wait on this. Glrx (talk) 04:45, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
11. Stephen 05:02, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
12. Well, it sure took him long enough — I thought he was ready for at least a year now! Adjwilley will definitely do a good job as an administrator, and I'm very pleased to support. Kurtis ^(talk) 08:18, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
13. Support - that's good with me - "Mop please"! Brookie :) { - he's in the building somewhere!} ^(Whisper...) 08:40, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
14. I would like to have a deeper look, but so far I'm satisfied; no red flags, good content contributions and solid answers to questions. Mohamed CJ (talk) 10:36, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
15. Support cyrfaw (talk) 11:07, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
16. I'm convinced that Adjwilley is completely trustworthy. A clear net positive to the project. I was impressed by Adjwilley/CERFC and proffer my support on its sufficiency. I've also interacted with Adjwilley and observed his interactions even more. He will surely excel where he endeavors for sheer decency if no other quality emerged. :) John Cline (talk) 11:20, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
17. Weak support. I am struggling to find any comments at WP:RFPP. I found some stuff about Book of Leviticus and User:PiCo from March 2013. Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:54, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
18. Support. I haven't had the chance to interact with this user very much, but I'm finding lots of good work in their contributions. I find the concerns about a low number of edits-per-month to be unpersuasive - mainly because it's similar to my own rate of editing. Quality not quantity. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 13:37, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
19. Support I have worked with Adjwilley on a few behavioral/mentoring issues and was more than a little impressed in his handling. This was a year ago and everything I've seen since has only reinforced my initial impressions. Adjwilley is independent, conscientious, calm, practical and entirely trustworthy. He is at the top of my shortlist of "people I wish were admin" and will be an excellent addition to the admin corps. Number of edits doesn't bother me, we've recently voted in admin with the same, and he has never been a "edit padder". Every edit is actually doing something positive. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 14:40, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose - editor only began editing properly in April 2011, and has averaged only 262 edits per month since then - and the average for the last 6 months is only 155. Basically, they are not proflific enough to either properly judge their worth, or to merit having the tools. That, combined with ASW's 'weight of religion' RFC link, is concerning enough for me to, unfortunately, oppose. GiantSnowman 10:54, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Neutral For now. The user's proposal to "weight" religions across multiple articles [2], at the least, lacks nuance, so it does not inspire confidence. 'Wikipedia's list of approved religions whose views matter' seems to be what the User was going for and is an odd "weight" claim to make across multiple different articles. But I will look further. Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:44, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
2. Neutral. I am not sure whether it's enough for me to oppose, but the RfC on religions, and the assumptions within the items there, struck me as unexamined bias that makes me concerned about the editor's neutrality. Yngvadottir (talk) 14:30, 24 July 2013 (UTC)