Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Lear's Fool

Lear's Fool

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (9/8/3); Scheduled to end 00:02, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Nomination

Lear's Fool (talk · contribs) – Lear's Fool has been editing since late 2009, has been a rollbacker for a year, and if one disregards a self requested block to enforce a wikibreak has a clean blocklog. Lear's Fool has some nicely diverse editing, from vandalfighting and NPP work to article writing and referencing other people's contributions. I think that this includes a useful combination of building the pedia and protecting it. As a specific example, Lear has recently been active at the UBLP cleanup drive where he referenced or prodded all the Catholicism uBLP backlog. His talkpage history indicates to me a civil and useful editor, and I believe the community would benefit if he were to wield a mop. ϢereSpielChequers 17:49, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept the nomination, and would like to thank WereSpielChequers for his kind words.  -- Lear's Fool 10:47, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to take this opportunity to get a couple of common questions out of the way:

• Apart from two occasions where I have accidentally edited while logged out, I have only ever used this account and my alternate accounts Lear's Fool (Sock) (talk · contribs) and Lear's Fool (Mobile) (talk · contribs), both of which are disclosed on my userpage.
• Should this request be successful, I will be open to recall, probably by a petition/reconfirmation process.

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: My intention would be to focus primarily on the areas in which I am currently active in a non-admin capacity: Speedy Deletion patrolling and anti-vandalism work at WP:AIV. I have also participated in Deletion Discussions (and performed the odd non-admin closure), and so I would anticipate helping out there, probably easing into it at first. Furthermore, I have noticed that I tend to be online when fewer admins are patrolling Requests for Rollback, so I feel I could be of some use there.

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

A: Of all my contributions to the encyclopedia, I feel that the articles I have written are both my best and the most important. I am particularly proud of John O'Reily, Helen Mayo and Philip Wilson (archbishop), which have been a lot of fun to put together, and which I'm hoping to get up to Good Article standard. In addition to my content work, I was very happy to be able to knock off the entire list of unreferenced BLPs for WikiProject Catholicism over the last week or so.

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 been involved in a handful of conflicts while I've been editing, but I am reasonably proud to say that none of them have escalated to edit warring or incivility on my part. I observe a one-revert rule, which is something I have found extremely useful in preventing unnecessary escalation of conflict. Furthermore, I am always keen to bring content disputes to the talkpage (particularly when edit warring starts on pages on my watchlist, see for example Talk:Socialist Alternative (Australia) and Talk:Kevin Rudd#Image). I have found the best way to avoid stress and avoid unnecessarily escalating conflict is to, as far as possible, abide by the fundamentals of our behavioural policies: Don't use edits to fight with editors, remain civil, and assume good faith.

Questions from The Utahraptor

4. In what instances (if any) would it be OK to instate a block on somebody who has not been warned? Why?

A: There are a number of specific situations where administrators can generally block users without having given a warning. These include blatant violations of the username policy, abusing multiple accounts, making legal threats, obviously compromised accounts, deliberately outing other editors and so on. There will be other circumstances where a block without warning might be appropriate, such as particularly nasty BLP vandalism, personal attacks directed at other editors or edit warring from editors who have been warned about such behaviour in the past. And, of course, there will be unforeseen situations where someone who has not been warned should be blocked, and in these scenarios, individual administrators need to use their judgement, keeping in mind the principles of the blocking policy. Generally, it is my belief that users should receive a warning before they are blocked. This will often be part of simply assuming good faith, but even those who have made obviously bad-faith, block-worthy edits should often be given at least one opportunity to amend bad behaviour.

5. Assume that you have become an administrator. You block a troll that has posted the same attack message on five people's talk pages. The troll wishes to be unblocked, and in his/her unblock statement, he/she says they were just kidding around, and they promise to stop. What would you do in this situation?

A: Obviously there will be a number of subtleties in situations like this that will affect how I deal with it. First and foremost, while I can comment on the request, I personally am not in a position to decline the unblock, as I am an involved administrator. Per the unblock policy, what I'm looking for are convincing assurances that the block is no longer necessary to prevent harm to the encyclopaedia (for the purposes of the hypothetical, I am neglecting the possibility that the initial block was in error). Fistly, I will consider an editor who has a history of good-faith contributions and had not previously been involved in such troublesome behaviour. In this situation, keeping in mind assumption of good faith, an assurance that the user understood why their conduct was inappropriate and that they would not do it again may well be sufficient for a block reduction or unblock. In the other extreme, a user whose only contributions were such attacks would almost never receive an unblock in this situation, but I would be sure to inform them of the principles of Template:2nd chance. Situations between these two extremes are more complicated, but factors such as the ferocity of the attacks, and the situation that prompted them, will come into consideration.

Follow-up question from The Utahraptor

Assume that you weren't the blocking administrator, but the administrator that handled the unblock request. You unblock the troll, and for a week, they contribute constructively. After a week, though, they go back to their trolling behavior, and when/if you tell them to stop, they send a nasty personal attack message on your talk page. What would you do?

A. Depending on the severity of the new attacks, it is likely that I would not choose to warn the user before a second block. In this case, the block length would be greater than before, and I would be much less sympathetic to a new unblock request.

If I had chosen to warn the user instead of making a second block, and the user had then responded with a personal attack on my talkpage, the question is then a matter of weighing up my involvement versus how "blockable" (as it were) the comments are. If I was confident that the attack warranted a block, I would block him or her and then request a quick review at the the incidents noticeboard. If, however, I was not absolutely sure that a block was appropriate, I would make a post on the incidents noticeboard requesting an uninvolved administrator make the call. It may seem over-cautious to give such thought to my "involved administrator" status in this scenario. However, I believe the extra time taken to follow this procedure is a small price to pay to prevent misuse of administrator privileges (whether deliberately or inadvertently), especially as a new administrator.

Questions from /ƒETCHCOMMS/

6. A user writes an BLP about "Lewis Hamilton". He is of questionable notability, and someone tags it as A7. You delete the page and the next day, Mr. Hamilton somehow finds you and emails you, thanking you for deleting the article because he doesn't want to be on Wikipedia, regardless of his notability status, because he wants to keep a low profile and has been stalked in real life. However, the day after that, the user who created the BLP asks you to undelete it, because you apparently missed a claim of notability (Mr. Hamilton won a Pulitzer four years ago). Ignoring the fact that you should have been more careful in reviewing the page before deleting it in the first place, do you now restore the page or leave it deleted, and why?

A: First of all, when dealing with Mr Hamilton (who is apparently a man of many talents :)), it is important to remember that he is probably new at this. My tone should be helpful and my explanations clear and without jargon. I would explain to Mr Hamilton that, although in some cases (borderline notability etc.) the wishes of a biographical article's subject may be taken into account, this is not current practice for people who are definitely notable. Next, I would ask Mr Hamilton to explain whether there was any particularly problematic content in the article. Taking his concerns into account I would take some time to rewrite the article offline, ensuring full compliance with the BLP policy. I would then restore the article, notifying the initial contributor that I had done so, and apologising for the inappropriate deletion. I would inform Mr Hamilton that he is free to ask for broader community input on the existence of the article through a deletion discussion, and assist him through this process if he chooses to pursue it. Finally, I would offer to blank all on-wiki discussions pertaining to this process that might be picked up by search engines.

7. If this were someone else's RfA, how would you oppose them (yourself)? Write a convincing oppose rationale to your own RfA and then a rebuttal to your oppose, if possible.

A:

Questions from Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK)

8. You are scrolling through your watchlist to see if there is anything important you need to do before you leave for the night. You happen to see that an administrator posted on the talk page of a new editor that you had recently welcomed, and helped out. The edit summary the administrator used, This kid has no clue what he is doing, draws your attention so you decide to check it out. You see that the administrator has been yelling at the new user, telling him that he has no clue what he is doing, and needs to read up on policy or he has no place on this encyclopedia. The new user responds with What? What did I do wrong, I don't understand. This is not fair.. This user has not vandalized Wikipedia, but just made a few mistakes any new user would. What would you do/how would you act, both to the user, and to the administrator who acted in that manner towards the user.

A: In this situation, I have three things to deal with: the administrator, the comment on the talkpage, and the new user.

The first thing to do would be to check the history and talkpage of the administrator in question to see whether there was a recent history of such inappropriate behaviour. If they had engaged in similar conduct in the recent past, and especially if they had been warned about it, then the only appropriate course of action is to block the administrator in order to prevent any further harm. New users are important to the project, and experienced editors (with or without the mop) do great damage when they drive them away. In a situation where the administrator's comment appears to be an aberration in an otherwise helpful and civil contribution history, I would be more inclined to leave a civil but strongly worded warning on the administrator's talkpage. I have dealt with situations such as this in the past, and have found that it useful to scan through the experienced user's early contributions, find "needy" edits, and link to the diffs to gently remind them that everyone was a new user once.

How I deal with the comments on the talkpage will depend on whether the extent of their incivility completely outweighs any value they may have as constructive criticism. If it does, it might even be appropriate to collapse or blank them, per Wikipedia is not a battleground and the talkpage guidelines, although this will not often be the case. Regardless, I would post on the new user's talkpage, kindly informing them of any mistakes they had made, inviting them to contact me with any questions (about the attack or otherwise), and informing them that the administrator's conduct was inappropriate and that they had been warned about it.

Additional optional question from Guoguo12

9. Sorry if you're being flooded by questions, but what is your stance on Wikipedia:RfA is dead?

A:Nobody can deny that RfA's numbers have dropped in the last few years (see here), but I personally feel that reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated. Candidates are being promoted, albeit at a smaller rate than previously, and, by-and-large, those that are successful should be successful. I think there are issues with the long-term sustainability of the current pass rate, civility and drama in RfAs, and whether all the candidates who should be promoted are being promoted. However, the community consensus that these problems are either real or important is weak at best. As I see it, only when it can be clearly demonstrated that the lack of admins has become a problem will the community decide to endorse a solution. Until that time comes, I would personally much rather reference some BLPs, patrol some new pages or write an article than fight a losing battle on another perennial proposal. This is not to say that reforming RfA is a trivial or useless pursuit: it isn't. It's just that editors of significantly higher calibre than I are fighting that battle (on both sides), and I would prefer to expend my efforts where they can have a greater effect.

General comments

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

---

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

Discussion

• Edit stats posted to talk. →♠Gƒoley↔Four♣← 00:08, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Support

1. Support, his work referencing BLPs shows dedication to the project, have sen no reason to believe that he will misuse the tools. J04n(talk page) 00:04, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
2. Support as nominator. ϢereSpielChequers 00:06, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
3. Support, as per J04N, I have just looked back over this users contributions and greatly admired his work especially with referencing the unreferenced BLPs. I cannot see any reason why he would misuse the extra tools.--5 albert square (talk) 00:17, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
4. Support, Quality contribs, very collegiate, seems to like working on backlogs so will doubtless be a valuable addition to the admin corps. FeydHuxtable (talk) 02:18, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
5. Support - Contributes to articles (6 DYKs & unreferenced BLPs), works on backlogs (unreferenced BLPs), fights vandalism, no excessive drama that I could find, and works on new page patrol. The poor grammar is not in my opinion a reason for opposition. Reaper Eternal (talk) 02:59, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
6. Weak support. While the issues below are important, I still believe you would make a good addition to the admin team. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 03:33, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
7. Support - seems competent, clueful and works well with others. Frankly, the opposes below leave me utterly perplexed, but I've long given up trying to understand the strange idiosyncracies of RFA, where a grammatical error is considered more important than 18 months of good editing. Robofish (talk) 03:39, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
8. Weak Support I am not going to hold your grammatical errors against you, as, if they were not made, the opposes would have been much different. I am not amazed by your answer to Q8, but I find no other reason why you should not be an admin. I like your answers to 4 & 5, and would make my vote full support if Q7 was answered. Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 03:43, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
9. Support because nothing in the opposes is convincing at all. DC 05:18, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose. Is this really a serious nomination? If it is, then I'll be happy to provide a shed load of reasons to oppose it. Malleus Fatuorum 00:05, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   This is a serious nomination, and I would be grateful it if you could expand on the reasons to oppose. If nothing else, I'd appreciate the criticism.  -- Lear's Fool 00:23, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   I agree with Lear's Fool. Why would you think it isn't a serious nomination? Guoguo12--Talk--  00:36, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   I'm not sure you would. I've been through this meat grinder twice, and I know what it feels like to be spat out the other side. For me, administrators must have an understanding of how to build content, not necessarily by having loads of GA/FAs, but by having a record of writing rather than policing. Can you show me that record? Malleus Fatuorum 00:44, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   I perused the article edits listed on the talk page. Lear's Fool wrote essentially all the content of South Australian referendum, 1896, John O'Reily, Robert Spence (bishop), Andrew Killian, and Union Hall (Adelaide).--Chaser (talk) 00:52, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   (edit conflict) Give me a sec and I'll pull together a subpage with my content work. At this point, I'm not someone who's written a plethora of articles, but I wouldn't have nominated if I didn't have some experience writing articles.  -- Lear's Fool 00:54, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   User:Lear's Fool/Articles. It's certainly not as much content as I would like to create (of course, I intend to keep writing regardless of the outcome here). I hope this helps.  -- Lear's Fool 00:58, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   FREEZE: Where does it say an administrator has to have a lot of work in content building and not policing. If all the "policemen" left Wikipedia we would be nowhere. We would be vandalized in days. Getting an article to FA should in no way be a criteria for adminship, building articles has nothing to do with the tools and how s/he would use them. Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 01:28, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   Agreed. But not for personal reasons. Can we unfreeze now? Guoguo12--Talk--  02:01, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   Yes, we can unfreeze now. :P Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 02:04, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   I see a lot of posturing, but no actual reasoning. Please enlighten us. Sven Manguard Wha? 04:01, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   Stop badgering, please. This is an oft-debated issue, and many users feel content work is necessary. At any rate, all users are entitled to their opinions, and trying to start an argument with Malleus is called silly. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 04:05, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   With all due respect Fetchcomms, Malleus hasn't actually said this is a content issue. He hasn't said anything regarding the actual reason. I think demanding content work is silly, but I'll accept that weak rationale a lot faster than no rationale at all. Sven Manguard Wha? 04:17, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   With all due respect to you Sven it ought to be clear that this is indeed a content issue. Batting new editors at NPP or wherever is no indicator of how that inexperienced admin will deal with their shiny new block button when faced with an established editor they decide to take a dislike to. Malleus Fatuorum 05:14, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

2. Oppose and here's a first - per Malleus. Having said that - not yet, rather than not ever.Black Kite (t) (c) 00:09, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   Would it be a cheek asking for either you or Malleous to provide some reasoning for your oppose - especially as yours is a 'per' - or are there personal issues here between you two and the candidate? -- PhantomSteve.alt/talk\^{[alternative account of Phantomsteve]} 00:45, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   Agree with Steve. This seems like an unthoughtful drive by vote, which strikes me as uncharacteristic of you. Sven Manguard Wha? 04:00, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

3. Oppose the circumlocutions and impenetrable grammar in the answer to question 3 spared me the pain of having to do further research. Prima facie disqualifying. If one would like me to do further digging i will, if prompted. I warn you though, you won't be doing the candidate a favor.Bali ultimate (talk) 00:49, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   How does a grammar error justify whether or not this user would make a good administrator? The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 01:03, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   Well, the "grammar error" tells me the candidate is a subpar encyclopedia writer and editor -- even when on notice that everyone is watching. Writing well is a neccessary (but definitely not sufficient) condition for being an administrator. But honestly, the circumlocutions trouble me more since they say something about the candidate's social behavior (indirect and strategically unclear, if i had to guess) and perhaps about the way his mind works. Do you really want me to dig in with gusto?Bali ultimate (talk) 02:02, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   The candidate didnt mean to write the overly long sentences for Q3, he was merely trying too hard to give a rounded and complete answer. In Lear, the fool is the only one who tells the whole truth. If you look at the article talk pages he linked to, they show he handled the potential conflict in an exemplary and collegiate way. FeydHuxtable (talk) 02:18, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

4. Oppose. I like you on a personal level and I think you;re a decent editor. I don't honestly know what Malleus is getting at because I haven't looked. I got as far as Q3 and I'm afraid I resigned myself to opposing. If you can't (or don't take the time) to express yourself clearly in your RfA, then how do we know you will as an admin explaining on ANI your rationale for an action or informing an editor of the reason for blocking them. This is only made worse by an attempt to copy edit your response, which completely fails to correct it to the extent that it makes sense. Sorry, as I say, I like you, but I can't support you having the admin bit, at least not right now. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:16, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
5. These efforts to address the Q3 wordiness should have been strikethroughs. This is an elementary standard of conduct in Wikipedia collaboration areas. Townlake (talk) 01:54, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   While I am going to try to maintain neutral on that, I don't think that alone, should be a reason for an oppose rationale. Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 02:00, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   This is not exactly an obscure technical point. Let us agree to disagree. Townlake (talk) 02:14, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

6. Oppose Minimal content creation (including only 6 articles/28 redirects) and highly active for just a year. I agree with Baliultimate's point above that a lot of the candidate's answers appear contrived and phony. Sorry.--Hokeman (talk) 03:01, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
7. Oppose Per above. Concerns with answer to question three. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 03:25, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
8. Per User:Bali ultimate's second response. Nakon 03:43, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Neutral for the moment. I wish to support this nomination but am troubled by the careless answer to Q3:

   I observe a one-revert rule, which is something I have found extremely useful, and am always keep to precipitate conversations on talkpages (particularly as a third party, when edit warring starts on my watched pages, see for example Talk:Socialist Alternative (Australia) and Talk:Kevin Rudd#Image).

   I hope that the candidate's communication skills are better than this. Majoreditor (talk) 00:43, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   I have copyedited the answer to that question here. I am confident that a perusal of my talkpage (and its archives) will show that my communications skills are adequate.  -- Lear's Fool

2. Not sure yet. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 01:27, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   Pending Q5. Nakon 01:29, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   Neutral per Nakon. I would like to see an answer to Q5 before supporting or opposing. Now waiting for a response to the follow-up question. Moved to support. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 03:33, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

   Nuetral Still looking, pending Q8 Answer. Pressing towards support. Not totally satisfied with Q8, still towards support, will park here for now. Moving to support.Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 01:30, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

3. Neutral I have yet to have a chance to look over this candidate, but at this time, I have to go on the record and say that there are a ton of opposes with no rationales at all, or exceedingly weak rationales. (harsher wording redacted) If you're going to oppose, please do right by the community and the candidate and provide a decent rationle (which, by definition, means that you have to put at least one substantive reason down, and saying "I have an internal list and might share it later" doesn't meet that definition.) Sven Manguard Wha? 04:36, 30 December 2010 (UTC)