Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/David Eppstein

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

David Eppstein

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Closed as successful by Cecropia 15:01, 7 June 2007 (UTC) at (87/0/0); Scheduled end time 15:54, 7 Jun 2007 (UTC)[reply]

David Eppstein (talk · contribs) - has been a Wikipedian for nine months. David is a (notable) computer scientist and mathematician, and a professor at the University of California, Irvine. On Wikipedia he's been active (among other places) in mathematics articles. He also created great many nice pictures. I believe David is a valuable editor, has good experience in how Wikipedia works, and will use the admin tools wisely. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:38, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:
I accept. —David Eppstein 16:11, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Questions for the candidate

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Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. What admin work do you intend to take part in?
A: Frankly, I'm not sure. As with the other activities I've taken part in on WP, I expect that I will learn more as I get deeper into it, or as I encounter more situations in which admins have powers that other users do not. Some examples of situations in which adminship would be relevant for the editing activities I've already performed:
  1. I have occasionally encountered protected pages that I wished to make some innocuous change to (e.g. replacing links to dab pages) and had to handle via editprotected request. Having the power to do it myself would have saved time and effort for everyone. I believe I am sufficiently responsible in my editing that I would avoid making changes that violate the reason these pages were protected, while still performing other small changes, and would be willing to patrol the list of editprotected requests to perform similar edits for others.
  2. I have been active in AfDs, particularly in science and academic biography topics. While I often have formulated and expressed an opinion on individual AfDs there, there are plenty of others that I have remained disinterested in and would be willing to act as closer for.
  3. I have what seems to me a large watchlist (750+ pages), frequently see and revert minor acts of vandalism to the pages on that list, and warn the vandals who commit them using the different levels of warnings available on WP:UTM depending on the extent to which the same person has previously been warned and on how blatant the vandalism is. Adminship would make me more comfortable using the higher-level "do it again and we block you" user warnings, when appropriate, and perhaps on rare occasion actually blocking someone (there have been very few times, but more than zero, where I've gone to the trouble of reporting a persistent vandal and requesting he be blocked).
2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
A:
  1. The illustrations I've added to many mathematical articles. I feel strongly that pictures are crucial as a way of conveying mathematical information, use them frequently in my own research papers and mathematical blog postings, and have added over 60 of them to various mathematical articles on WP. As my familiarity with WP and the tools I use to make them grew, I've been posting new ones on wikimedia instead of directly to WP, and using vector instead of bitmap formats where appropriate; I'm still in the process of replacing the older bitmaps with vector replacements, but even as bitmaps I think they serve their purpose well.
  2. Articles I created essentially from scratch include Rule 184, Antimatroid, Pseudotriangle, Dilworth's theorem, Comparability graph, Greedy algorithm for Egyptian fractions, Odd greedy expansion, Grötzsch graph, Split graph, Projective configuration, Robert P. Dilworth, Václav Chvátal, William Berry (artist), Christopher Burkett, Mendocino Headlands State Park, a number of stubs, and no doubt others I've by now forgotten. Of these, my favorite as a contribution for general interest in WP is Rule 184, while my favorite as a piece of technical depth within the mathematics section more specifically is Antimatroid.
  3. Additionally, I have edited several articles from stubs to much more complete status, including Cyclic cellular automaton, Regular number, Plimpton 322, Sylvester's sequence, Znám's problem, Squared triangular number, Størmer's theorem, Pell's equation, and Pell number.
  4. Rule 184, Cyclic cellular automaton, and Pseudotriangle made WP's front page via "did you know" after my edits.
  5. Sylvester's sequence and Znám's problem made Good Article after my edits, though given the historical animosity between the Good Article and Math projects I have no confidence that they will remain with that status.
  6. Most of the many remaining articles on my watchlist are there because I made some positive contribution, though smaller, to them. In particular I have frequently added sources to or cleaned up the sources of poorly-sourced math articles; my university connection is helpful here in giving me easy online access to many journal articles.
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 don't find it unusual to disagree with someone about an edit or an AfD at a level that is easily resolved through discussion either in the discussion pages or even the edit description lines. And when a disagreement of this type threatens to become an edit war, my usual response is to back off, avoid getting close to any kind of 3RR violation, and hope that enough other editors will agree with my position that I don't need to stay involved. As for stress, it's not really an issue — if I started finding WP editing too stressful I would find something else to do with that time. So here are the few situations I can recall that, while not really causing me significant stress, rise above the easily-resolved level:
  1. From late September 2006 until early March 2007 I was (with User:Milogardner and various IP addresses that I believe to be the same user) involved in a long slow edit war over Egyptian fraction. The article prior to that point was, in my view, a disaster of Gardner's making: he is knowledgeable about the subject but not a clear writer and with a very idiosyncratic and narrowly focused view of the area. So I undertook a major restructuring and defended it (with the occasional help of some other Wikipedians) by regularly reviewing Gardner's edits and reverting many of them; this spilled over also into some other articles and my talk page. My discussions with Gardner were occasionally tense but rarely uncivil in either direction, I think, and his continued efforts to make his point of view known through my repeated reversions did, I think, end up leading to improvements in the article. I would be leery of taking such a role again; it smacks too much of WP:OWN, but in this one case I felt that the effort was necessary to prevent readers from being misinformed by the article in the form that Gardner was taking it.
  2. I was peripherally involved in a request for arbitration after having commented in favor of more reliable sourcing on a RfC at Indian mathematics. The author of the RfA asked me to repeat my comments there, which I did. I'm not convinced that my involvement made any difference to the case, but it was an interesting look at the way some of the less-visible parts of Wikipedia work.
  3. Early this May, I used some less-than-professional language (the word "bitch", in its sense as a verb meaning "to complain") in an AfD, leading the person to whom I had used that language to request both there and in my talk page to be civil. I immediately apologized for the language, and it should probably have stopped there, but my correspondent soon thereafter slapped a {{notability}} tag on the Wikipedia article about me, followed by several similar tags to other faculty at my home institution. I suggested on his talk page that this did not have the appearance of a good-faith edit (which suggestion he also objected to as a violation of WP:FAITH), but I did nothing about the tag on my own article, since I feel it would be a WP:COI violation for me to make substantive edits on that article other than to correct factual inaccuracies. Since then he and another editor got into a minor edit war about the tag but the issue seems to have settled down.

General comments

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Please keep criticism constructive and polite. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review Special:Contributions/David Eppstein before commenting.

Discussion

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Support

  1. Support per nom. —AldeBaer 16:13, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
  2. Support as a great candidate for the tools. Cheers, Lanky TALK 16:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Support I was tempted to support based solely on my brief memories of David and his thorough and well-written answers to the questions, but I spent some time reviewing his AfD contributions and they only solidified my opinion. He may not be the most versed in admin-wiki-terminology (mostly restricted to AfD), but I feel his composure, Wikipedia goals, handling of conflicts, and understanding of policy make him a fine admin candidate. Leebo T/C 16:24, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Support as positive contributor and worthy of tools. Smmurphy(Talk) 16:42, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Support per what has already been said. He will use the tools well.--Cronholm144 16:47, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Support. Since I watched some of the Egyptian fractions debate from the sidelines, I agree that David handled that well, and his civility is noted. He is a useful contributor to mathematics articles, and should make a good admin. EdJohnston 16:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Support. David Eppstein is one of the most consistently level-headed WP contributors I am aware of. I am always impressed by the thoughtfulness and civility of his dealings with other editors even during contentious discussions. -- Dominus 17:12, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Support, good editor and good answers. Comments on that AfD mentioned in Q3 don't worry me in the slightest. - Zeibura S. Kathau (Info | Talk) 18:13, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Support based on my experience, especially with the events at Egyptian fraction. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 18:48, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Support - His composure and logical clarity in deletion debates has not ceased to impress and reassure me. Best of luck, GracenotesT § 19:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Support per nom. -- Phoenix2 (holla) 19:52, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Support. Obviously. Bucketsofg 20:27, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Support, looks good. Kusma (talk) 20:31, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Support seems like a great contributor, and answers look good. -Lεmσηflαsh(t)/(c) 20:49, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  15. Support Your contribution are solid, though i would have preferred a less ambiguous answer to question 1--Agεθ020 (ΔT • ФC) 21:01, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  16. I support this user's request. I wonder if we have any other elected admins with articles. Abeg92contribs 21:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh sure, there are a handful. William Connolley, for example. There are a few others. Keegantalk 05:33, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  17. Support, admin material. Charles Matthews 21:04, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  18. Support David has a need for the admin tools as demonstrated by Q1, and he's showed that he knows policy. Nothing problematic, either, so I don't see no reason not to support this request. Btw, nice Erdős number. :-P Nishkid64 (talk) 21:10, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  19. Support - No reason not to afford him the admin tools. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:27, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  20. Support based on answers to questions and his talk page - exemplary civility and collaborative spirit Lipsticked Pig 21:33, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  21. Support: knows his onions & gets things done. Pete.Hurd
  22. Support although I hope the mop doesn't take too much time from his writing articles. Johnbod 22:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  23. Support, contributions look solid and I'm pleased with the answers to the questions. Arkyan • (talk) 23:04, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  24. Support I like what I see. Jmlk17 23:52, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  25. Support We have from time to time disagreed at Afd, but I respect his answeers and his reasoning and his standards.DGG 23:55, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  26. Support, looks good to me. TimV.B.{critic & speak} 00:22, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  27. Support -per nom .--Cometstyles 00:40, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  28. Support - I feel he will use the tools properly. --Tλε Rαnδоm Eδιτоr 00:52, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  29. Support Every edit I've of his that I've come across has been a boon to the encyclopedia. Though he might not make great immediate use of the admin tools, he is a responsible editor who will use them correctly when he needs them. nadav (talk) 00:54, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  30. Support pretty obviously, sensible and talented editor. EliminatorJR Talk 00:56, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  31. Support Looks awesome. His answers to the questions are, in no uncertain terms, superb. Have we ever had a "notable Wikipedian" admin before? (Besides those notable for WP, that is.) -- Kicking222 00:58, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Admin User:Arthur Rubin is Arthur Rubin for an example notable mathematician wikipedia admin. Pete.Hurd 03:03, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    And the recently promoted User:Alvestrand is Harald Tveit Alvestrand. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:15, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  32. Support. Excellent contributor. Savvy. --Shirahadasha 01:40, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  33. Support, contributions demonstrate trustworthiness. --Spike Wilbury 03:51, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  34. Support We rarely disagree, clearly demonstrating his superior qualifications. ;-) Demonstrates subject expertise, writing skill, social skill, and effort. --KSmrqT 04:37, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  35. Support, an absolute no-brainer! He's super civil all the time. Always looking for a way to help. One of my models for how to keep cool in stressful situations. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 05:04, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  36. Support I have seen a lot of good contributions from him. Great guy. Mattl2001 07:12, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  37. Support--MONGO 09:34, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  38. I must admit that I haven't seen much of David in the past, however a quick review of his contributions from the last two or so months, as well the answers and support above, make this an easy decision. Good dedication to the project. Daniel 10:45, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  39. Support, very much. Neil (►) 11:55, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  40. Strong Support a no-brainer, couldn't trust this candidate any more. It's good to have people like Mr. Eppstein here. —Anas talk? 13:57, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  41. Support nice work so far, good luck. Gryffindor 14:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  42. Support. By the way, let me know if someone eventually discovers that P = NP, or if there's a polynomial-time solution to the travelling salesman problem. I could use a quick solution for 10,000 deliveries. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 14:55, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  43. Support. I cannot see that your having the tools will have anything but a positive effect on the project, especially if they will help in the course of your regular (high-quality) editing. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 18:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  44. Support – Very effective editor, focussed on improving Wikipedia.  --LambiamTalk 18:36, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  45. Strong support Excellent user. Acalamari 18:47, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  46. Support Yay for academia! Admins with subject-area expertise are always welcome. Xoloz 21:50, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  47. Support he's got his own wikipedia page, but hasn't edited it extensively, which I think is as good an indicator as anything. David Fuchs (talk / frog blast the vent core!) 00:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  48. —Ruud 00:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  49. Support - fully qualified candidate, no issues or concerns. Newyorkbrad 00:32, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  50. Support per top notch answers to questions and overall record. Good luck! Riana ⁂ 02:30, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  51. Support; one of the best candidates around; excellent all-around Wikipedian. Antandrus (talk) 03:11, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  52. Support. Excellent mainspace and image contributor. -- MarcoTolo 03:36, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  53. Peacent 04:56, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  54. I'm Mailer Diablo and I approve this message! - 08:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  55. Support, absolutely. Sarah 10:35, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  56. Support. Consistently helpful and sensible editor. Geometry guy 11:07, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  57. Support We need more admin candidates like this. --Ed (Edgar181) 18:12, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  58. Support, strongly endorse this worthy candidate. RFerreira 19:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  59. Support as nominator (I almost forgot :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:22, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  60. Support Knowledgable admin. Gotta support someone who also comes from UC Irvine =) ----Ðysepsion † Speak your mind 19:56, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  61. SupportD. Recorder 20:46, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  62. Support good mathematical contributions, and works well with others. Could possible benifit from some admin coaching. --Salix alba (talk) 23:00, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  63. Support. Excellent Wikipedian, very qualified to be an admin. Turgidson 23:10, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  64. Support your edits touch me in a special way --Infrangible 01:02, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  65. Support - Majoreditor 02:49, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  66. I was cautious regarding Kotepho's concerns, below. Our non-free content is non-trivial, in two senses: it is not always easy to understand, and it is very important that we get it right. I am supporting because: 1) Wikipedia:Non-free content was in a state of flux during the month before the upload in question, one of the disputed versions would have allowed the upload until a free image was available, and David may well have read and familiarized himself with that version; 2) the discussion at Image talk:Eppstein-UC03.jpg has convinced me that David respects our policies and will enforce them; and 3) he hasn't indicated that non-free content evaluation was anything he intended to involve himself with, while he seems knowledgeable and capable in the areas he outlined in his answer to Q1. If he later decides to branch out his admin activities from those areas, then as long as he familiarizes himself with the relevant policies before doing so, he should do fine. ··coelacan 06:32, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  67. support this person to become a administrator very helpful yuckfoo 01:04, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  68. Thought he was one. --Merovingian (T-C-E) 03:34, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  69. The latest discussion at Image talk:Eppstein-UC03.jpg eases my concerns. Kotepho 05:12, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  70. support Taemyr 16:12, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  71. Support Good user to have adminship. Captain panda 22:38, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  72. Support I trust the user and account. Keegantalk 05:26, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  73. Support -- Gogo Dodo 05:43, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  74. A notable person as a Wikipedia admin? If they show that they properly understand Wikipedia's purpose and rules, then sure, why not? TML 08:26, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  75. Support. Excellent work. JPD (talk) 11:24, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  76. Support- Great editor. Eddie 15:25, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  77. I'm falling over myself to support this user for adminship, and so should you. I am a little biased, though, as I studied mathematics in college. His images contributions are great, particularly this one [1]. I'm confident that even without a lot of mucking about in project space, this user understands our policies well and will seek out more information when he encounters hazy areas. ➪HiDrNick! 00:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  78. Support A great editor. Would become an excellent administrator. --Siva1979Talk to me 03:06, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  79. Support. Has made strong contributions, seems trustworthy. Jayjg (talk) 03:57, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  80. Support, seems to be a good candidate, good luck. Carlosguitar 07:24, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  81. Support, sticking head out with respectable and reputed real life vocation. Brave academic with the attitude needed to work with often anonymous contributors. Shyamal 09:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  82. «Snowolf How can I help?» supports this candidate as he's quite sure he won't do anything stupid with the tools
  83. Support - Great contributor; level-headed and patient. Tom Harrison Talk 14:47, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  84. Support - FayssalF - Wiki me up® 16:50, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  85. Support - Creative and does good work, valuable Modernist 18:44, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  86. Support. Excellent contributions and thoughtful answers. --Seattle Skier (talk) 19:13, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  87. Support. Nominated by the fine Oleg Alexandrov. No more needs to be said. Regards, —Celestianpower háblame 22:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Uploading a with permission fair use image for your own article makes me question your understanding of this project's fundamental goals. Kotepho 12:53, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Am I allowed to respond? Because to me that reads as an inaccurate summary of what actually happened in that situation. I don't wish to debate the issue of image licensing policy here, but see discussion at Image talk:Eppstein-UC03.jpg and User talk:David_Eppstein/2006#photo for context. As for "for my own article", it was only at the request of another user who wished to add the photo to that article; by that time I certainly knew WP policies well enough not to add a photo to my article on my own initiative. —David Eppstein 15:40, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To summarize, it appears to me that David undststands the goals of Wikipedia well enough to have released his entire gallery in the public domain, but he had little choice with a portrait of him shot by the university. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:18, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I made this one CC attribution sharealike (it's not in the gallery because it's not a scientific illustration), but the rest are PD as you say. —David Eppstein 18:09, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Reading your links only reinforces my opinion. Wikipedia's goal is to produce a free encyclopedia that anyone may distribute, even for commercial purposes. Nevertheless, non-free content is allowed in certain cases where it would be impossible to have free content. Images of living persons are generally not accepted use of non-free content unless the person in question is Howard Hughes or other such atypical circumstances. Accepting images that only we have permission to use, for noncommercial usage, without derivatives, or educational use only does not further our goals and accepting them actively impedes--which is why we don't do it. Wikipedia is served better by not having an image at all or having a bad quality one that is free, rather than a non-free one that content reusers must then laboriously remove or examine to make sure their use is legal. Kotepho 23:27, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Is this the place for debating image licensing policy? Please note only that the policy has changed significantly since I uploaded that image. —David Eppstein 23:35, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Our image policies are not that much different from a year ago (for example, we stopped accepting permission for Wikipedia only two years go), they are only actually being enforced. For the most part, they are not up for debate as they have been set by the Board. However, my issue is not with you disagreeing with our image policies or our ideals; it is that you appear to not be knowledgable of them or understand them. Kotepho 00:02, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The resolution of the Wikimedia Foundation, making this official policy rather than a guideline, is from 23 March 2007.  --LambiamTalk 13:10, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, no, it was a local en.wiki policy at WP:FUC for at least a year before the Foundation resolution. But see my comment above; the interpretation of the policy was the subject of a slow dispute during the month before the upload. ··coelacan 20:13, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

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.
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