Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Goldom

The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a successful request for adminship. Please do not modify it.

[edit] Goldom

Final (53/2/1) Ended 13:09, 2006-08-12 (UTC)

Goldom (talk • contribs) – I have been working on Wikipedia for some time now, and recently have been finding myself more and more in situations where I feel I could be doing much more good with admin tools. I have been around a long time (registered late 2004), though to be fair, the total active time is actually around 8 months - I didn't do much for most of 2005. For an account of that age, I don't have a ton of edits, (I haven't looked in a while at exactly how many, the count will show up below eventually anyway), but have been getting much more active in the last 4-5 months. I've been putting off nominating myself, trying to wait for the "perfect time" when I'd have the best chance, but realized that I could be doing the site far more good by just asking for your opinions now, and either using the tools sooner, or learning where to improve so that I can request again in a while. My latest mistake that made me think "now I look bad again..." was a confusion over one of the rules of image deletion. I asked for clarification, thought the response agreed with my understanding, then acted on that, and turned out to be wrong. I now understand correctly, and realize I was perhaps a tad too BOLD for a situation in which I was confused. (To avoid being ambiguous, I edited an image CSD to how I thought it actually was, got reverted, and so asked and learned the truth). What this story is getting around to is that I can't promise to be a perfect admin, but will strive to not use any admin actions (or normal editing actions, for that matter) before thoroughly understanding what I'm doing. For example, I would probably avoid deleting any images for the time being, until I'm fully clear on those policies. However, there are enough places I am confidant in my actions (to follow in the questions) that I believe I could be of use as an admin. I've decided to throw out my inhibitions about how I'll look, and just go for it, as after all, this is about helping Wikipedia, not seeing how many people like me. Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 11:33, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 11:33, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia in this capacity. Please take the time to answer a few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:

1. What sysop chores, if any, would you anticipate helping with? Please check out Category:Wikipedia backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.

A: The big ones would be backlogs in CAT:CSD and WP:AIV. These are two places that, while not having the biggest backlogs, are rather important to be dealt with quickly. I also have a good bit of experience with both vandalism-cleaning and speedy-tagging bad articles (while I don't know of any way to count how many articles I've tagged for deletion (that have been deleted), my guess would be several hundred, as that is one thing I've been doing since my very beginning here in 04. As for dealing with vandalism, I use the non-admin revert script, so can't really claim I need that tool, but do have experience with it. I report any vandals who persist after the required warnings to AIV, but as with tagging speedy articles, I would rather be helping to reduce backlogs instead of adding to them. Another area I am active in as a user is WP:AFD. I'm not the sort that goes through and does "Delete per nom" on everything, but rather add my opinions only where I feel I have something useful to add to the discussion, and so avoid that much-dreaded "voting". So, with the experience I have there, I could help close old AfDs. I also have no problem with expanding into other areas, once I learn the policies. One I have in mind is Requested Moves, as I have read and understand how to do the admin work in that area.

2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?

A: I'm afraid I have to disappoint some people here and admit I've never come close to working on a Featured Article, and am unlikely to do so any time soon. I don't have anything against them, but I do much, much more work behind the scenes. It may be odd to admit, but one of my contributions I am proudest of is a string of over 1,250 spelling fixes over the course of 3 days. I know it's not something unique or that no one else could have done, but no one else had done it, and so I feel it was an important (though exhausting) contribution. Another task I've undertaken is cleaning up pages to comply with the disambiguation page Manual of Style, as many are nowhere near what it says. It may also seem like a minor task, but I've found that most editors, new and experienced alike, add listings to dab pages in the format already there - so cleaning up a page early on leads to it staying clean in the future. Most of all though, my primary task is vandalism-cleanup, and this is also the reason for my RfA. It may be a task with no net gain to the project (well, that's not totally true, sometimes all a once-vandal needs to become a valued contributor is to let them know what they're doing wrong), but is quite vital to avoid a loss. For those looking for actual article writing, I'll offer my work on the page Earth Girl Arjuna. It's not a great article, but I rewrote nearly the whole thing, and think it is, at least, much better than before. I also have a list of other work I've done that can be seen at User:Goldom/work, if anyone is interested in seeing more.

3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

A: I have never been in a conflict over the content of an article. However, I have had some disagreements over interpretation of policy (in places like AfD). I think the things that stresses me out the most is users being uncivil. I generally deal with this by ignoring rude comments and reminding others to mind WP:CIVIL, if it needs to be said. My only other real bother is when policies are cited to mean things I don't believe they say. I don't assert myself to be a know-all of every rule, and so in cases where I feel others are using a policy incorrectly, in every case I can think of, have simply discussed it with them, explaining why I am reading it a different way. I can't think of any time where I have ever made a personal attack, but rather try to discuss things rationally. I know being an admin does open the door to more stressful situations, and would strive to continue this manner of dealing with them.

Optional question from Viridae^Talk

4. You state you would like to use the admin tools to perform speedy deletions rather than contributing to the backlog. If you come across an article that you think warrants a speedy but you aren't quite sure. What would your actions be in this case?

A: I think the basic idea behind speedy deletions is that they are for cases where there is not only no contention about the case (which would be a prod), but where the article so clearly doesn't belong that there could almost certainly be no doubt. (This is just talking about the CSD for articles - some of the others I can see how there might be confusion, of course. :) So, if I was unsure whether or not an article was speedyable, I think in almost any case it would be better to err on the side of caution and not delete it. When I've come across things like that in the past, I've generally either used a prod, or just stuck it on my watchlist to see what someone else would do, so I'd know next time there was a similar case. As an admin, depending on the case, I would think either a prod, or if I'm really 98% sure, I could always still just tag it as a speedy, and see if another admin agreed with me.

Optional question from Lar:

5. (one big long question about categories of admins and your thoughts about them) Are you aware of the notion of adminstrators saying they're willing to be voluntarily recalled or reviewed, by a less onerous process than a new RfA (or worse) arbComm action? What do you think of the idea? Would you consider placing yourself (placement should only be done by oneself) in such a category if you were made an admin? Why or why not? Are you aware of the notion of Rouge admins? What do you think of the notion? Do you see it as purely humorous or do you see what it's driving at? Would you consider allowing yourself to by placed in this category (placement is traditionally done by someone else) if you were made an admin? Why or why not? (note: both these categories have some controversy attached to them, for different reasons, and note also, although I am a policy and process wonk I am in both categories, and finally, note that there is no wrong answer here...) ++Lar: t/c 18:39, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

A: I am aware of both. In order... I think the recall idea has some merits, as well as problems. In the past, I have stated that I don't think admins should be considered above any rules just because of their position. In my mind, it seems that if someone does something that bothers enough people that they would have failed an RfA (if they weren't already an admin), it makes sense to at least question whether they should continue as one. Of course, this is hard to judge - how many people would that have to be? I will say that I think the criteria for removing admins are too high. I'm not saying I have a personal problem with anyone in particular, but the fact that one has to be absolutely horrible before they can be removed could lead to some admins feeling they don't have to be as civil or other such things as they did before their adminship. I don't think this is a very widespread problem, of course, but if gaining adminship is "no big deal" (not that it really is anymore), it seems the reverse should not be "an extremely rare enormous deal". Now, as for the category. I think it has probably very little effect. If an admin is misbehaving, they're not going to put themselves in such a category, meaning only those who have little chance of being asked to resign would even be offering it. I do see the good side of the category, which in my mind, tells users "Don't be afraid of me cause I'm an admin, let me know if I'm doing something wrong." However, there is also a downside - it may lead other admins to feel like they are under attack for not being in it, even if they're doing just fiine. In the end, I think I probably wouldn't put myself in the category, but would certainly be open to any comments or critisicm (I may just put that above line in quotes on my page, I like it now). Now about rouge admins. I think it's pretty much humorous, as the tags and even name and all are written in a funny manner. It seems like a harmless enough way to shake your fist at someone without really being mean about it. If an admin didn't like the label, they surely could always remove it from their own page. I wouldn't be offended if someone used it on me, though I would try to see if I could be doing something better.

Comments

All user's edits.Voice-of-All 06:19, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Viewing contribution data for user Goldom (over the 4725 edit(s) shown on this page) (FAQ)
Time range: 584 approximate day(s) of edits on this page
Most recent edit on: 6hr (UTC) -- 06, Aug, 2006 || Oldest edit on: 5hr (UTC) -- 30, November, 2004
Overall edit summary use (last 1000 edits): Major edits: 99.64% Minor edits: 99.55%
Average edits per day: 34.53 (for last 500 edit(s))
Article edit summary use (last 509 edits): Major article edits: 99.28% Minor article edits: 100%
Analysis of edits (out of all 4725 edits shown on this page and last 4 image uploads):
Notable article edits (creation/expansion/major rewrites/sourcing): 0.23% (11)
Significant article edits (copyedits/small rewrites/content/reference additions): 0.49% (23)
Superficial article edits (grammar/spelling/wikify/links/tagging): 43.53% (2057)
Superficial article edits marked as minor: 85.95%
Unique image uploads (non-deleted/reverts/updates): 4 (checks last 5000)
Breakdown of all edits:
Unique pages edited: 3702 | Average edits per page: 1.28 | Edits on top: 18.26%
Edits marked as major (non-minor/reverts): 30.46% (1439 edit(s))
Edits marked as minor (non-reverts): 43.94% (2076 edit(s))
Marked reverts (reversions/text removal): 22.37% (1057 edit(s))
Unmarked edits: 0.61% (29 edit(s))
Edits by Wikipedia namespace:
Article: 64.76% (3060) | Article talk: 2.05% (97)
User: 5.08% (240) | User talk: 13.54% (640)
Wikipedia: 10.88% (514) | Wikipedia talk: 1.86% (88)
Image: 0.66% (31)
Template: 0.61% (29)
Category: 0.02% (1)
Portal: 0% (0)
Help: 0.08% (4)
MediaWiki: 0% (0)
Other talk pages: 0.44% (21)

• See Goldom's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool.
• Goldom's edit count using Interiot's tool:

Username        Goldom
Total edits     4664
Distinct pages edited   3655
Average edits/page      1.276
First edit      22:12, November 29, 2004
(main)  3033
Talk    94
User    235
User talk       622
Image   31
Image talk      1
Template        29
Template talk   19
Help    4
Help talk       1
Category        1
Wikipedia       507
Wikipedia talk  87

• Goldom's detailed edit count using Ais523's Tool (click the "Show" link below and to the right) alphaChimp ^laudare 14:37, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Support

1. Me. ;) I've only seen good things from Goldom, I don't believe he'd abuse the tools at all. Highway ^{Return to Oz...} 11:39, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
2. Support. Will not abuse the tools. — FireFox ^(talk) _{11:40, 05 August '06}
3. Support, no clear reason to oppose. I'd like to see more Wikipedia space edits in the future, but that'd really be a bonus. RandyWang (^raves/_{review me!}) 13:30, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
4. Edit conflict Support Seems to be trustworthy and hardworking. Someone made an unblock request on Goldom's Talk page, thinking that he was an admin already! (aeropagitica) (talk) 13:33, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
5. Support. If I were to choose one word to describe Goldom, it would be... dependable! --Gray Porpoise 14:05, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
6. Support. Adequate time and number of edits. See no evidence of incivility. This dif shows Goldom can remain cool under fire and not escalate under provocation. :) Dlohcierekim 15:51, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
7. Support. Good responses to questions, as well as reasons above. Dar-Ape 15:53, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
8. Support Will make a good admin. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 16:10, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
9. Support. I haven't interacted with him before, but everything that I've seen here appears to be in order. alphaChimp ^laudare 16:17, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
10. Support First off, Goldom has shown himself to be a strong, hard-working contributor. Second, I love his self-nom and his answers to the questions. It's obvious that he knows exactly what he wants to do on WP, he knowshow he can be helpful, and he knows what his strengths and weaknesses are. Just from what is written above, I can tell quite plainly that he doesn't think he's perfect (which is good, because nobody is), but that he does his absolute best in what he's good at. Despite not having any interaction with him, I think, from what I've seen in the past few minutes, that he'd make a very good admin. -- Kicking222 16:44, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
11. Support per Kicking222. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 18:07, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
12. Support per above. Newyorkbrad 18:53, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
13. Support per above. Michael 20:46, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
14. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 20:51, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
15. Support looks good to me. —Khoikhoi 22:00, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
16. Support per all good reasons above. The Gerg 23:40, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
17. Support per nomination statement. Roy A.A. 00:05, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
18. Merovingian - Talk 00:27, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
19. Yes. - CrazyRussian talk/email 01:55, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
20. Support. Strong candidate. Good answers to questions. Zaxem 03:59, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
21. Support - looks good abakharev 04:36, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
22. Support good luck! Stubbleboy 05:40, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
23. Support --Terence Ong _{(Chat | Contribs)} 07:31, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
24. Support. Thank you for running. --Ligulem 09:32, 6 August 2006 (UTC) (Please don't thank me for "voting", thanks :-)
25. Support per answers to questions. Viridae^Talk 13:06, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
26. Support. - Mailer Diablo 16:33, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
27. Support No problems with this editor that I can see. --Guinnog 16:54, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

    Support Though I would encourage you to be tougher with vandals. NOBS 18:11, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

    Stricken as the user has been blocked indefinitely as a sockpuppet of Tchadienne. Ral315 (talk) 20:01, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

28. No reason not to... Support ++Lar: t/c 18:39, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
29. Support —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-08-06 18:42Z
30. Support, of course. Excellent credentials, and I liked his answers. Another mop over here, please! ;) Phaedriel ♥ The Wiki Soundtrack!♪ - 20:20, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
31. Support trust with tools. Pete.Hurd 21:37, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
32. Support as he's trying to help me out now with a sockpuppet that is attacking me, but he doesn't currently have the admin tools to simply block the sock... yeah, of course I trust him with the tools. ;P -Aknorals 04:54, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
33. Support Seems sensible and level-headed.--Poetlister 16:17, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
34. Support, fine. Stifle (talk) 22:49, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
35. Support. Grue 07:02, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
36. Support. — Vildricianus 11:10, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
37. Support, please help us with the backlogs!!!--Kungfu Adam ^(talk) 14:14, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
38. Support - no brainer here -- Tawker 19:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
39. Support. Well thought out and reasoned answers and nomination. Agent 86 19:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
40. Support Thoughtful, no problems handing him a mop. Baseball,Baby! ^{balls•strikes} 23:33, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
41. Support Very good answers to the questions. Wikipediarules2221 01:23, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
42. Support. Sarah Ewart (Talk) 06:01, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
43. Support for good statement and answers to questions. —Xyrael _{/ 17:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)}
44. Support, clean history, understands policy, no civility issues, fine candidate. --MPerel ^{( talk | contrib)} 05:17, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
45. Strong support. Goldom meets my 2k edit requirements, passes civility, is knowledgeable on Wikipedia policies, good nomination statement + reasons for needing the tools, and has some good answers to the above questions. I looked at his talk page and recent contributions, and see nothing troubling. Good to go. --Firsfron of Ronchester 06:53, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
46. Support. --Slgr@ndson (page - messages - contribs) 18:27, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
47. Support An accomplished editor who will make good use of the admin tools. I've seen his work at WP:AIV and other places and he's impressed me with his good judgement. Gwernol 13:37, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
48. Support Don't see any issues here. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:38, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
49. Support. DarthVader 00:32, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
50. Support. Deserves the promotion. DVD+ R/W 00:35, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
51. Support, definitely does good work, and definitely could use the tools -- Deville (Talk) 00:38, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
52. Support - Well balanced and dedicated. Can be trusted with the tools. - Aksi_great (talk - review me) 09:26, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
53. Support excellent user all around. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 12:27, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose Fails my criteria. --Masssiveego 06:57, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

   Would you mind explaining what you mean by "trigger happy"? -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 07:26, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

   Users standards taken from criteria page: Nominee must be people person, hardworking, civil, trustworthy, helpful, kind, temperance, friendly, have good manners. An understanding of the english language, have a good vocabulary. Understands the workings of Wikipdia and a be good tutor. I find post counts and time on Wikipedia factor toward the above but may not necessary reflect on the person character. Last thing I want to see is another power tripping Admin that deletes the hardwork of other people for the sheer pleasure of destroying other people's work. While I understand there are limits to wikipedia bandwidth, and server hard drive space. Admin should be open minded, and flexible to variation, and have a broad understanding of what is useful everyone else, rather then what is just useful to me. I feel Admin must be intelligent, wise, clever, happy, unstressable do gooders, that has the time to be on Wikipedia, and that will take the time to both smell the roses, and keep things organized with a clear mind.

   Also be aware this user very rarely supports any users RfAs anyway.--Andeh 14:41, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

   This "user" rejects being peer pressured, or cabelled toward an unqualified canidate. --Masssiveego 19:58, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

   For the "Some of the people, places or things you have written about in the article Eliran Diego Herszman may not be sufficiently well-known to merit articles of their own. The Wikipedia community welcomes newcomers, and encourages them to become Wikipedians. On Wikipedia, all users are entitled to a user page in which they can describe themselves, and this article's content may be incorporated into that page. However, to merit inclusion in the encyclopedia proper, a subject must be notable. We encourage you to write or improve articles on notable subjects. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 10:10, 24 July 2006 (UTC)"

   In the above, I've notice there was no attempt to determine if there was a spelling error in the name, what research was done to determine this was really a vanity article, or what if any effort was made to confirm who this Eliran Diego Herszman in. A vanity template without any notes of research or attempt to determine the validity in my opinion is "trigger happy". --Masssiveego 20:09, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

   I don't mean to try to pressure you, I was just wondering what you meant. As for that case, I'm afraid I can't offer much explanation... I tag a ton of db-bios every day, and don't remember that one in particular. I tried looking up the article, but it doesn't exist, so all I can figure (without being able to see deleted edits) is that is was correct to be deleted. I'll admit to have mistakenly tagged a few things for deletion that were in fact misspellings (all that I remember were redirects to red links, though), but I never do so without first making some attempt to see if there was a correct target for them. Unfortunately, sometimes the search doesn't find them. In every case though, the original author has then fixed it, and the problem is solved. In my opinion, tagging something as a speedy shouldn't be taken as an insult, but rather a chance to improve. The tag we leave on a user's page let's them know that if the person is notable, they should assert so on the page. One case I do remember (though not the name of the article) was where I marked a page as a db-bio for having no assertion of notability. I let the author know, and they promptly inserted one, and the article, last I looked, still existed. In my mind, that is the best result of such a situation. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 20:24, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

   Having looked at the deleted content, Goldom was easily seen to be correct. If any established user is interested, I will email them the full content (I'd rather not put it back on Wiki because it has what might constitute private information on it). JoshuaZ 20:55, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

2. Sorry, no FA. -- Миборовский 23:05, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Neutral. Fails my criteria by having much less than 200 main talk edits. I would like to see more article development/interaction. Themindset 05:14, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

The above adminship discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.