Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Halibutt

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I would like to express my thanks to all the people who took part in my (failed) RfA voting. I was both surprised and delighted about the amount of support votes and all the kind words! I was also surprised by the amount of people who stated clearly that they do care, be it by voting in for or against my candidacy. That's what Wiki community is about and I'm really pleased to see that it works.
As my RfA voting failed with 71% support, I don't plan to reapply for adminship any more. However, I hope I might still be of some help to the community. Cheers! Halibutt 05:10, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Invalid votes

1. Oppose. He's part of a group of Polish-nationalist POV pushers, of which the nominator Piotrus is himself a member. Note how Piotrus routinely unblocks his Polish comrade Molobo [1] - it was already a mistake to make him an admin, and with Halibutt we would see the same thing. As Ghirlandajo has mentioned below, they also frequently talk Polish with each other here on the English wiki, even though they all speak and understand English well enough. They all seem to have some paranoia that everyone is out after the Poles (see Halibutt's "How to deal with Poles"). An example of POV editing: Here he says that "Poland regained her independence" in 1989, as if Communist Poland wasn't independent. He also frequently calls opponents he's edit-warring with "vandals" (such as here where he tried to force an entirely repetitive infobox into the article). JohnSmith214 15:55, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   I'm sorry, but I don't really feel a member of some Polish conspiracy. Also, I am not the author of "How to deal with Poles" (which is a joke, BTW, and I find it quite funny) and I really believe that a country that is ruled by some other state (as Poland was ruled from Moscow mostly) is not independent. For me trying to preserve NPOV is not equal to not having my own oppinions at all. If that makes me unworthy of being an admin - too bad. As to the problem Gzornenplatz had with Template:Infobox biography and his spree to delete it from all articles it was used in - I can't really say why he did that, you should ask him. Note that I ended the dispute by expanding the article. Also, the dispute over the very template was ended by a failure of the TfD process (check the relevant talk page). Halibutt 17:48, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   It is perfectly obvious why he deleted the template, he said so repeatedly, and I just said so myself: because it was merely repeating info from the beginning of the article. This habit of "playing dumb" that you exhibit here again is just one more reason to oppose. The point here is that you repeatedly described your opponent in a normal edit war as a vandal. Do you agree that a vandal is someone who either removes valid information or adds non-information? Do you agree that neither was done in that edit war? Is it not logical to assume that, once you call someone a vandal, you would also block that "vandal" if you had admin powers, and that you would thus block your opponents in normal edit wars? JohnSmith214 19:54, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   I consider this sockpuppet entry a good support endorsment for Halibutt. Btw, shouldn't somebody finally ad the Polish Wikipedians conspiracy theory to the List of alleged conspiracy theories? :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 17:39, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   Piotrus, as you've been a pretty neutral admin so far, I was bewildered to learn from the sockpuppet about your staunch support and unblocking of odious Molobo, whose only mission there seems to vandalize. What does it mean? --Ghirlandajo 22:04, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

   It was my mistake, for which I have apologised to the admin involved. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 14:00, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

   OK then. --Ghirlandajo 14:11, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

There are - so far - two votes that seem to be contested. They are:

1. vote oppose no.4 by (sockpuppet?) User:JohnSmith214
2. vote oppose no.17 by User:Wiglaf, striked out by User:Matt Crypto

ATM both are counted towards 'oppose' total. How can this be fixed? I hesitate to take action myself as I am not sure what is the procedure for removing them and I am definetly taking a side in this and don't want to be seen as person 'removing the votes of the opposing side'. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:45, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I really don't know. In the end it's up to the bureaucrat whether to count the votes but that's not really the issue here since it seems quite unlikely that the final support ratio will be over 70% however the votes are counted. I still think it would be nice to keep the sockpuppet comment on the talk page, the issue of Wiglaf's vote is quite different. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 22:50, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

The current tally (not counting my support and counting both of the disputed voices) is 34:20 = 63% supporting. If we adjust this to 35:18 what we get is 66% - quite, quite close. Of course, the vote may swing in both directions or remain constant, and with new votes the weight of each individaul vote will diminish - but nonetheless this is an important question. I certainly won't dispute the result if the end result is not satisfactory but 'close', but if there are no clear rules on this, I think we should make them - to avoid unpleasantries in the future.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 23:56, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pink booklet

To all whom it may concern: I asked for that page to be deleted. If I had known that people would assume my bad faith basing on that page (and, IMHO, without going into details), I would asked for it a long time ago.

At first I forgot about the page, then I thought if could be ignored as a long-forgotten archive of a long-disused page that had lost its rationale after the community decided it's not needed. Then I realized that this is not the case and that perhaps people will simply listen to my explanations and assume good faith. But now I got tired with having to repeat the same things over and over again and simply asked for a speedy deletion. Though I doubt this would settle the problem, as some people will still remember me as "the guy who offends people by starting witch-hunting", and not the "guy who wanted to avoid RfC, ArbCom and all that by simply talking to parties involved and discussing concrete evidence".

Anyway, I thought you might want to know. Halibutt 12:46, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Another note

I just noticed a funny thing some people might find funny as well. I've recently crossed the 16,000 edits line, which means that I have made some four times the number of edits an average recently-nominated admin did. Day after tomorrow is my 2nd anniversary as a Wikipedian, which also means that I've been around for some 1,5 years longer than most of the recently-nominated. While this by no means excuses me, to certain degree it explains why are there so many people to oppose me. Simple statistics suggests that I've probably participated in four times the number of conflicts and wrote four times the number of idiotisms. There is a proverb in Polish that could be roughly translated as a teaspoon of tar will make a barrel of honey bitter. Apparently my teaspoon is also four times as big.

Having said that, it is of course not an excuse for my bad behaviour on several occasions, even if such disputed edits constitute approximately 0.05 percent of my contributions (my harsh approximation).

On another note, as I noted on someone's talk page, part of my problem is that I'm particularly interested in history, and especially in history of a very special and very strange part of the world, where conflicting views have met too often in the past. I guess it is much easier to get a broom n' bucket if you're mostly contributing to articles on, say, quantum physics or astronomy. Halibutt 22:53, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

This is exactly what I've been thinking. It's much easier to skate by after, say, 2000 edits than after 16,000. If you had somehow managed to make all those enemies (and those two or three bloopers) with only 2000 edits I wouldn't be supporting you - but it's inevitable that an editor will be controversial after spending 16,000 edits on stuff like Polish history! A lot of our highly active current admins, including some of your critics, would never pass an RfA if they were to reapply now. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:06, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

While I heartily congratulate Halibutt on the 2nd anniversary of his fruitful wikiediting, I may remark that having made 15,000+ edits in just 9 months (I did no editing in March, April, and May) I still can't understand why anyone should lust for adminship with such a fervor. What are the advantages that adminship confers? --Ghirlandajo 23:45, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Fervor for adminship is something Halibutt has not shown. Many people nominate themselves for adminship after 1000 or 2000 edits (and that's fine). Halibutt has happily edited for two years without seeking the admin toolbox. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:59, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

In fact I refused to be nominated several times. Halibutt

If anyone has shown any fervor here, it is Ghirlandajo fighting tooth and nail against this nomination. Balcer 23:37, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Balcer, stop it. You just can check dozens of RfA ads that Piotr lavished on other editors' pages and compare it with my three or four notes. As for fervor, you may also check Halibutt's page, which has long featured his whining about still not being an admin. --Ghirlandajo 23:59, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Care to provide any specific links to the whining? I do plead guilty of advertising the vote - is it against any rules?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 00:10, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

It is for Balcer to answer your question, because it was he who opened a new can of worms when he started to accuse me of something. Anyway, I presonally consider spamming unfriendly, to say the least. As for whining, how should we interpret this phrase - "No, I'm not an admin of anything"? --Ghirlandajo 10:20, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, initially I wanted to ask Balcer why is he so unfriendly towards Ghirla, especially after he left so friendly note on my talk page. However, after reading Ghirlandajo's reply I changed my mind. Ghirlandajo, could you please provide any diffs or links where I would whine about me not being an admin? Or perhaps apologize, if that's within your possibilities..? Halibutt 00:48, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Halibutt, I didn't want to offend you. I actually quite forgot about this voting, as I have much more urgent affairs to handle, including an arbitration case. My comment was intended solely as a retort to Balcer who resumed sowing discord between the editors with his unmotivated ad hominem attacks. --Ghirlandajo 10:20, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

I merely noted that accusations of "fervor" against Halibutt from Ghirlandajo were especially hypocritical given his own actions during this RFA vote (to give one particularly illustrative example, consider this edit). Balcer 01:06, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

If you check Piotr's contributions, you will find a plenty of notices he put to the talk pages of those users who dared to oppose Halibutt's adminship, beseeching them to provide a rationale for their vote or to revise it. Far from spamming other users' pages, like Piotr did, I merely asked for the same from those editors who voted in support. There is a quite annoying pattern when Polish editors, some of them recruited by Piotr from pl.wiki, unconditionally vote in support of each other without explaining their reasons, be it a featured picture candidate, a RfA or something else. We don't want to be accused of collusiveness, or do we? --Ghirlandajo 10:20, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

So, the good way of solving things is replying to certain wikipedians by offending other wikipedians? Strange logic I must say. Nevertheless, I would still ask you to provide some proofs for your accusations - or withdraw the remark and possibly apologize. And my No, I'm not an admin of anything should be read exactly as it is. I added that remark after I was asked by several people whether I was an admin or not.

As to spamming, you might want to read the Wikipedia:Requests for adminship, especially the part on voting and commenting, where it is explicitly said that Please include a short explanation of your reasoning, particularly when opposing a nomination. Remember that we are all people with feelings, emotions and pride: please respect others in your comments and responses. Halibutt 11:27, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

As for my 'spamming', while one user did ask me to stop replying to him on his talk page, several others thanked me for notyfing them about the voting and/or engaging them in the discussion, so I think that my actions have been beneficial and welcomed. I'd also appreciate proof of your accusation that I recruit users from Polish wiki for voting (other then my note on the pl-admin noticeboard about this RfA, which I already explained and I belive was perfectly justified).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 16:55, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] When will this end?

I already noted on Piotrus' talk page that I really believed my candidacy would be either supported or not, but I never thought that there is a third option: that this RfA will never end :) Theoretically it should be over by 6AM today, though it was not closed so far and I even saw people cast their votes after that time. I wonder is there anything I could possibly do about it? Halibutt 21:38, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, sometimes the fun just drags on and on - I was in the same position three weeks ago and I can sympathise. When a bureaucrat eventually gets around to closing this she will consider both the vote total at the official end and the vote total at the bitter end. At least that's what mine did. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 21:50, 23 November 2005 (UTC)