Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Kww 3

Kww

Voice your opinion (talk page) (16/3/0); scheduled to end 23:44, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Nomination

Kww (talk · contribs)

I am proud to introduce Kww to the RfA community. Some of you may know him, as he has had two prior RfAs, I won't spend much time discussing them, I believe he will in his acceptance and statement, but I will note that on each of the two times he was unsuccessful (although receiving a majority each time, consensus was not achieved) he has taken his licking and gone back to the serious work which he has done in many areas of WP, from vandalism prevention to his invaluable work on charts, which, since I am involved in several band articles, I've taken advantage of on more than one occasion. He's also a strong article builder; he and I worked together on Natalee Holloway, a controversial and difficult project which we and AuburnPilot took to FA and then to the Main Page. Whenever they show that movie about her, the article gets about 10,000 hits, so it is a valuable article for WP. Since the last RfA, Kww has waited six months and continued his work. He will be a tremendous net positive with the mop and I strongly urge the community to give him the equipment to clean up that mess in Aisle 12. This is my first nomination, and I really believe it should succeed.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:05, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I accept the nomination.—Kww(talk) 23:40, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

First off, no one can help but notice the little "3" there on the nomination title, so it needs explanation. Yes, I've gone through this twice before. The first was around 50%, the second was around 70%. Both RFAs failed primarily due to a statement I made in April 2008, and a subsequent attempt to topic ban me from all arts related articles. Those events are real. I can't state that they didn't happen, so I won't. I am wholly responsible for the wreckage that is my past.

As for my sentiments, they were incredibly poorly phrased. I should never have used the word "vandal" in that context. Still, the point I actually intended to make was valid: people shouldn't pick and choose which guidelines and policies they will follow, and which they will not. If they think a guideline needs changed, they should attempt to get it changed. If they think a policy needs changed, they should attempt to get it changed. They should not routinely ignore a policy or guideline because they find it unpleasant. I don't care much whether we are talking WP:BLP or WP:N, chronic violators are a problem.

The blocks in my block-log are quite old. The Sept 30th, 2008 one is easy: an admin noticed a series of reversions, and did not notice that the thing I was reverting was an explicit exemption to the 3RR rule: the other editor was making obvious violations of non-free content policies. You'll notice he reversed the block and apologized quite quickly, with the explanation in the unblock as "my error".

The older block is a tad harder to explain. I discussed it with User:AuburnPilot, and here is the link to his talk page discussion. I'll let that discussion speak for itself.

To recap my editing thrusts: I'm not heavy on the content-creation side of Wikipedia. I've worked on one featured article (Natalee Holloway), and worked very hard to get What the Bleep Do We Know!? beaten into reasonable shape. The first article that I worked on heavily was Humanzee, and the first one I created was chromosomal polymorphism. Looking at chromosomal polymorphism today, I'm a bit ashamed of my work, and may take some time to improve that one.

In terms of editing difficulty, What the Bleep Do We Know!? was probably the most difficult article I've ever worked on, and I became aware of the pseudoscience issues on Wikipedia as a result. I was truly astonished at how hard people would work to try to portray nonsense as defensible. I don't directly work much on pseudoscience articles, but I do monitor a few to make sure that they don't turn completely into support of nonsense. I'm not well liked by the pseudoscience crowd.

I spend most of my time in what I think of as "damage prevention". I scan for vandalism, unsourced material, poorly-sourced material, guideline violations and policy violations and revert or fix such edits. Most of my effort in the last year has been on record charts, which is truly a problem area. What I noticed was that the charts had degenerated into essentially random lists of countries and numbers. There wasn't widespread agreement as to which charts were good and which were bad, and there weren't any standard places to verify figures, making it difficult to detect and repair vandalism. I started a discussion about creating a consolidated list of charts to be avoided, which ultimately resulted in WP:BADCHARTS. I produced the bulk of WP:Record charts/sourcing guide, aka WP:GOODCHARTS, which worked at it from the positive direction. 15,000 edits later, and the record charts across Wikipedia are in much better shape. This is work I'm proud of, and it illustrates what I think is the right way to tackle major problems: gain consensus as to direction, and then proceed quickly and efficiently. For those that concern themselves about such things, all my edits, including those, have been done manually: no scripts, bots, Twinkles, or Huggles. I'm currently working on using templates to generate the charts that will allow bots to automatically detect and repair chart vandalism. If I can get that to work, I think the music area will be in much better shape.

My first edits to Humanzee were done as an IP. I'm also Kww on commons and Dutch wikipedia. I have edited on some of other wikis as 190.4.72.45 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Apparently once here, too, but I fixed that quickly:[1].

Administratively, I have always focused on vandalism and sock-puppetry, and expect to continue that focus into the future.

As for administrative contributions, I'll let them speak for themselves. These tables show my activities on the major areas (SSP, AFD, ANI, AIV) over the last year. These are manually constructed, and believed complete. Let me know if I missed anything.

• My participation in AFD discussions since October 2008 is here
• My participation at WP:SSP is here
• My participation at RFPP since October 2008 is here
• My participation at WP:AN and WP:ANI is here
• My participation at WP:AIV is here

—Kww(talk) 23:40, 9 October 2009 (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: Pretty much what I do today: revert vandalism and keep the Disney and music articles from turning into a quagmire of blog-sourced gossip. I use WP:AIV, WP:SPI and WP:RFPP extensively today, and that's where I will probably focus. Socking is an area where I am specifically hampered by not having administrative tools: right now, I can't even see where someone has made deleted contributions, much less see the contents of them to use them in putting together evidence.

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

A: I think my best contributions to date have been WP:GOODCHARTS and WP:BADCHARTS. Imposing some order on such a problematic area was sorely needed, and I suspect that this will be my most lasting influence on Wikipedia.

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: What the Bleep Do We Know!? represented the peak of stress for me. There is something about that article that brings out the worst in editors from both sides of the pseudoscience conflict. Ultimately, it took a strategy of just going through the lead sentence by sentence, and getting everyone to agree on a version that didn't make them angry enough to revert it, and making sure everyone understood which policies would prohibit and allow what. Once people focused on making sure each sentence conformed to policy, we got to a version that no one felt compelled to revert. We put the change in with {{edit-protected}} macros, and then left the thing protected for six months. Ugly and bloody, but it worked.

The one I wish I had handled better was Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sadi Carnot. I allowed myself to get goaded into anger. I learned from that. I may still get angry at times, but you'd have a hard time seeing it from the words I write.

That whole surreal arbcom experience.

Of course, I would be lying if I said that WP:Requests for adminship/Kww and WP:Requests for adminship/Kww 2 weren't pretty stressful as well. Not much I could do there but stay calm.

Question from Peregrine Fisher

4. Are you going to close fiction AfDs? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:11, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

A: AFD closing in general isn't an area that I'm going to rush into: I'm well aware of my reputation as an exclusionist, and I know that the first AFDs I close are going to head straight to DRV just because of that reputation. That said, I won't make campaign promises: you will have to evaluate me as if I will participate in all activities. There is no method to hold any admin candidate to any promise he makes during RFA, and I won't make empty promises.

What you should take note of is that I am a rule follower: it's what I argue for, it's what I do. You won't find me closing AFDs in any direction where my closure isn't according to consensus, as reflected in the AFD discussion, with the arguments weighted in accordance to guidelines and policies. Any AFD I close, it would be with confidence that if that AFD were taken to DRV, my decision would survive the DRV process. Not closing AFDs that way is a waste of everyone's time.

It's not as if I simply dislike the existence of articles. Take The Paradiso Girls, for example. I argued for deletion at WP:Articles for deletion/The Paradiso Girls. When events changed so that an article could be created that met guidelines, I went to RFPP to undo the creation salting and notified the creator of the original article that he could create a new version if he chose.—Kww(talk) 02:49, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Questions from ArcAngel

5. What is the difference between a ban and a block?

A:

6. When should cool down blocks be used and why?

A:

7. What are/is the most important policy(s) regarding administrative functions?

A:

General comments

RfAs for this user:

• Requests for adminship/Kww
• Requests for adminship/Kww 2
• Requests for adminship/Kww 3
• Requests for adminship/Kww 3/Bureaucrat discussion
• Requests for adminship/Kww 4

• Links for Kww: Kww (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
• Edit summary usage for Kww can be found here.
• Promote Kww
• Editing summary for Kww can be found on the talkpage.

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

Discussion

• General editing stats have been posted on the talk page. –Katerenka (talk • contribs) 23:52, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Support

1. As nom.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:05, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
2. Should've been granted +sysop back in April. --Dylan620 (contribs, logs, review) 23:43, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
3. Kww is capable of showing responsibility for his actions. He out in the open explains what he did wrong, instead of trying to bury it. Well done. @harej 23:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
4. Support per nom. I supported the first one, and somehow missed the second. Tan | 39 00:06, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
5. Support Per Harej, don't know you well but the your statement and answer to Q3 make me feel as though you won't make the same mistake and will be a net positive as a sysop.--Giants27(c|s) 00:18, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
6. Support I agree with harej. I knew that Kww had issues in the past, although the details missed me. His acceptance statement and Q3 laid out the past conflicts very nicely, and I appreciate the simple open honesty about it. He's learned from mistakes, and to put it into perspective, the two main incidents happened a long time ago (the first in late 2007, and the second in May 2008). That's plenty of time for one to learn and prove themselves through positive contribs and good judgement. Kww has accomplished just that. JamieS93 00:37, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
7. Support - I've seen some of Kww's work, and I think I've even worked with him on one thing or another and don't remember anything negative. The "essay" written above is honest and open about past mistakes and I don't hold the past against him. The answers to questions are concise and accurate. I'll support unless someone gives a very good reason not to later in the RfA. -- Atama頭 00:44, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
8. Without reservation A more full explanation later (as needed), but Kww is sincere, dedicated and knowledgeable. He understands how to go about improving articles both directly and indirectly and he is reflective on his mistakes when he makes them. This is what we need. An admin who is forthright, helpful and not brittle. Protonk (talk) 01:18, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
9. Support No present concerns. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:19, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
10. Support. HiDrNick! 01:25, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
11. Support I encourage anyone who opposed the first two RFAs to join me in changing their mind -- I will admit I felt at the time of the first RFA that he had something of a battleground mentality, but I see no evidence that this is still the case. WP:GOODCHARTS and WP:BADCHARTS is a brilliant example of someone working to find a third road. It is an effort that is neither deletionist nor inclusionist, but one that creatively, constructively and non-partisanly addressed a problem across thousands (maybe tens of thousands) of articles. It is the sort of effort we should applaud and Kww is the sort of editor we should have as admin. --JayHenry (talk) 01:58, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
12. I went neutral last time in response to points made by DGG and A Nobody, but those aren't issues now. Good work. - Dank (push to talk) 03:07, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
13. Against what I said on his talk page, I decided to look closer at him... mistakes happen, people grow. 18 months has passed, so I'll support at this juncture.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 03:49, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
14. Support. Easily one of the most dedicated and knowledgeable users around. Kww has become a great asset to the community and I believe he will become even more so with the tools. — ξ^xplicit 04:09, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
15. Support per the improvements noted by others in support and also per the diffs provided by Ikip. Crafty (talk) 09:23, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
16. I'm trying to take a Wiki-break and have seen some success so far, but one simple support won't hurt, will it? Kww will do just fine. Master&Expert (Talk) 09:32, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
17. I still wonder why he didn't pass the last one! ceranthor 10:11, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Strong oppose From failed Kww 2 This intolerant statement[2] displays the type of temperament that wikipedia should not have in an admin. As DGG wrote in the last RFA: "The concept that someone who makes an edit that can be seen as supporting homeopathy should be blocked for it is outside the acceptable."[3] Kww called for editors to be blocked for bringing an issue back to Arbcom again.[4] "Suffering fools gladly" is an important skill, and one that I agree that SA is deficient in. It always helps to see a clear path towards being rid of the fools, and that's the most important thing we lack."[5]
   From failed Kww 1, more quotes about Kww's unwillingness to comprimise: "I'm pretty a much a "take no hostages" kind of guy on that topic. No exceptions. I would happily treat people creating such articles as vandals, as opposed to editors, and honestly believe that to be the case."[6] These uncompromising views make Kww have a major unwillingness to step away from fiction in specific and inclusion/deletionism debates.
   This intolerant behavior and battleground mentality shows there was very good reasons why Kww's first two RFAs failed. Ikip (talk) 07:05, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
2. Oppose per Ikip. (And Bravo Ikip for pointing it out.) Utterly agree with reasoning and conclusion, but I was convinced after reading the first quote. Strongly urge anyone who has not voted for this candidate to read Ikip's links and reasoning. Yes, we need more empowered vandal-fightin' admins, but the self-congratulatory hostility the candidate has expressed toward those he terms 'vandals' is shocking, as is his call for punishment of those who speak out. Again, please read the above post before you vote; I will be surprised and horrified if more oppose votes don't surface soon. Jusdafax 08:55, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
3. Oppose That was the reason most were against his attempt to become an administrator last year. This is third attempt now. Is there a limit, or can you keep on trying? Dream Focus 09:02, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

   The reason we allow there to be multiple attempts on RFAs is that people can change, so in theory so can the way people edit, and it usually happens this way to be honest; and as RFAs usually tell people what they've done wrong or what they need to improve on, the editor can usually fix the problems and come back in a few months, or a year as Kww has done, therefore it's become rather common for editors to have to wait for a second or third RFA to be able to pass. --Coffee // have a cup // ark // 10:08, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

4. Oppose - Ikip's links are highly concerning, not least because of the fact that he states that he wishes to work with vandals and vandalism in Q1. Would be willing to be persuaded otherwise. — neuro 10:23, 10 October 2009 (UTC)