Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Patar knight

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

Patar knight

Final: (52/7/2); closed by User:Kingturtle as successful at 3:11, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Nomination

Patar knight (talk · contribs) – Today I have the honor of nominating Patar knight for adminship. I noticed PK in my patrolling of the wiki and decided to investigate further. After investigating, I have decided to nominate him for adminship.

Pater knight has been an editor since 2006 and has made a name for himself as an article assessor, being cited several times by the MILHIST Wikiproject for article reviews and assessments. Also, his edits show a good understanding of the deletion policy and practice, particularly in notifying editors of articles he has tagged for deletion. Lastly I see good copyediting on his part, which is always needed.

I believe if selected by the community, PK will continue his content review work work in the CSD review areas. Patar knight has shown the skills and understanding of policy required of an admin and the ability to apply it to content. For these reasons I put him forward today to the community. MBisanz ^talk 01:59, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept this nomination. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 02:19, 21 June 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: I would work primarily in CSD, where I have a fair record. I think that I can capably delete pages which fall under the CSD-criteria, and help cut down on the backlogs that we sometimes develop over there. I also intend to close clear-cut cases at AfD, UAA, and AIV, of which the latter two can also develop deep backlogs. As an added bonus, I’m Canadian (eh?) so if I do get the bit, while all the American admins are eating their Thanksgiving turkey, celebrating the 4th of July, I’ll be here to reduce the backlogs that can spring up (sometimes into the hundreds).

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

A: I have some vandalism reversion here and there, citing unsourced statements in articles, adding cited factoids, doing peer reviews for WP:MILHIST, and a lot of gnomish and elfish work (e.g. tagging/assessing pages for WikiProjects, fixing grammar/spelling, and fixing the layout of articles); but no prized DYKS, GAs, or FAs. This does not mean that I don’t know what Wikipedia is about: building an encyclopedia. Every little contribution that I make, is but a tiny ripple in the great wave which is Wikipedia. <= Not clichéd.

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: Most of the conflicts that I have been in are minor ones, where some new user isn’t happy about their newest article being tagged for speedy deletion. I have always responded civilly, and pointed them to the relevant guidelines and policies. I will continue treating those who have conflicting views with me with civility in the future.

Additional question from User:Wizardman

4.A WP:BLP is up for AfD, whose coverage is rather scant and mainly negative. It's a split, no-consensus decision. Should said no consensus closure default to keep or delete? Why?

A: Normally in this situation, the answer would be to delete, since BLPs, above other all other articles, should be neutral and well-sourced, since our articles can affect real people negatively. However, it also depends on the strength of the sources presented by the keep !votes in the AfD discussion. If the keep !votes presented reliable sources which can be used to contribute enough positive content to balance out the article so it is neutral and well-sourced, a no consensus closure would be appropriate in this situation.

Additional optional questions from Amorymeltzer

5. What would you say have been your best contributions to the Military History WikiProject? Are there any contributions - peer review or otherwise - that you are particularly proud of or humbled by? ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 03:19, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

A: That's actually a tough question. I would have to say that I am equally proud of my Military History WikiProject peer reviews, of which I have 16 (unless I miscounted), and my constant tagging and assessing of articles. While doing New pages patrol, I constantly tag articles within the MILHIST scope, but the tagging/assessing contributions which I am the most proud of are the ones made during the two Tag and Assess Drives and the B-class assessment drive. In the first T&A drive, I was just learning the ropes at assessing articles, but I learned quickly, and just missed to deadline to assess my quota. In the subsequent T&A Drive, and the B-class assessment drive, I was already a confident assessor of articles, and managed to finish my quota both times, evidence of which is on my user page.

Additional optional questions from Groomtech

6. Do you believe that Wikipedians have rights? If so, what will you do to uphold them?

A: Well, whenever someone mentions rights on Wikipedia, the first thing I think of are new users' complaints about their right to freedom of speech being violated. However, these complaints are groundless, since the 1st Amendment only applies to limitations on free speech by the US Congress, and Wikipedia being independent of the United States Congress, is not subject to it.

All users have the right to be treated civilly and not be faced with personal attacks. Wikipedians also have the right not to have their personal information divulged involuntarily. Users in good standing also have the right to vanish. And the short paragraph right under the edit box reminds me of a right I forgot: the right to be credited for your edits, per the GFDL.

These loosely-defined rights, could be upheld in numerous ways: engaging uncivil editors in discussion to try to defuse the situation, issuing blocks if there are continued personal attacks or attempted outings, and do my best to avoid violating GFDL when deleting/merging articles (though I doubt I'll be doing much of this anyways).

Additional optional questions from Jarry1250

7. Hey Patar. I notice you have an automated warning on your talk page. In this particular scenario and more generally, what are your views on editors - both "good" and "bad" - removing warnings from their talk pages?

A: Well, policy does not prohibit any user (registered or IP) from removing warnings from their talk page. However, I will clarify my own views on "good" and "bad" editors removing warnings. For the purpose of this question, I will define "good" editors as solid content contributors with no significant prior incidents, and "bad" editors as those who have vandalized or broken policy purposefully in the recent past.

When "good" editors remove warnings, it either means that the warning was in error (like in my scenario, see User talk:Patar knight#Removing Speedy at SaketAgarwal and WereSpielChequers's summary), or that they have read the warnings, taken at least a quick look-over at the policies that they were directed to, and understood their intent. These types of removals are acceptable, since the user will do their best to avoid the same problem(s) in the future.

On the other hand, if "bad" editors remove warnings, it is not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe they will take the route of the "good" editor, and become constructive users. However, if they repeatedly continue to ignore warnings despite having removed them from their talk page, and if it is a blockable offense, then obviously, they should be blocked.

Additional optional questions from S Marshall

8. Please show an edit you have made to a policy or guideline. If you have made no such edits, please describe an edit you would like to make. (This question is intended to be an opportunity for you to show that you have thought about Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, and how they should be interpreted.)

A: After digging through my Wikipedia space contributions, I found only one edit to a policy or guideline: [1] to WP:Plagiarism. It was a gnomish change, much like some of my other edits. For the most part, I'm happy with policy and guidelines as they're written. However, they are not perfect, and can be interpreted in different ways by different people (e.g. letter vs. spirit), and consensus surrounding them can change.

Additional optional questions from Jafeluv

9a. To give the creator time to improve a new article, how long should an editor wait before adding a speedy deletion tag, and how much should an an administrator wait before deleting a page tagged for speedy deletion? How does this depend on the criterion used and the content of the article (assuming that the article does meet the criterion it was tagged for)?

A: This would depend on the content of the article. I'll state my opinions on speedy deletion taggings for the different criteria. They are all based on policy, with some leeway for common sense.

If it is blatant vandalism, an attack page, copyright violation with no useful free content, spam, patent nonsense, submitted by a banned user immediate tagging and deletion is warranted. Anything else should be subject to at least a short review before tagging or deleting.

Test pages, pages with no context, pages with no content, or pages with notability concerns but are short in length, should not be tagged right away, since many editors do not establish the entire article in the first edits. For these, waiting a minute or two, or for a couple more edits before tagging can prevent gaffes. Upon tagging, the administrator should not delete before they have time to try and find sources which can be used to expand the article, and should wait for a couple of minutes to analyze future edits. If the page is slowly progressing to meeting notability guidelines, userfication is preferable to deletion. Otherwise, if the article is clearly not progressing towards inclusion, deletion is fine.

For recreated deleted articles, apply the same criteria as for spam, copyvios, vandalism, etc. if it is created almost immediately after its deletion through a discussion. If it has been a couple of days afterwards, treat it per the previous paragraph before deleting, since the creator might have discovered new, meaningful content to add.

New articles with notability concerns which seem complete or are unlikely to be expanded further should be tagged quickly to engage the creators to resolve the issues before they leave. Biting newcomers is a concern, but the templates for speedy deletion notices are friendly enough, considering the message. The same method should be applied to foreign language articles already present on a foreign language Wikipedia. Actual deletion should wait until the admin can do at least a cursory machine translation, a wait which might give the creator time to translate the article. If the article is not transalted, or the rough translation is unpromising, deletion is okay. If the translation is promising, and no article exists on the English Wikipedia, deletion should not happen. Instead, stub the article using the machine translation and add an applicable template from Category:Expand by language Wikipedia templates

Of course, for deletions, hangons with valid rationales would slow down the article's deletion, unless the contents of the article are obviously undesireable. Ideally the time should be taken to look for sources on Google before deletion for every type of CSD-able article, except for attack pages.

9b. (Continued from question 9a) What about if the page is tagged with {{construction}}? Again, how does it depend on the criterion used and the content of the article?

A: If it is tagged with {{construction}}, it should not be tagged and/or deleted immediately unless it is an attack page or obvious vandalism. In almost all other cases, even a terrible article can develop into one which meets our guidelines and policies. If it has some meaningful content, give the user some breathing room, and when they stop editing, and it still meets CSD-guidelines, consider userfying it or PROD-ing it (preferably without the notification if using Twinkle/Huggle) and dropping a note on the creator's talk page. If there is no meaningful content, tagging it for CSD or PROD after the creator has stopped editing is fine.

The admin should not delete pages with {{construction}} immediately. They should consider and do an online search and removing the CSD tag if they believe that there is some meaningful content, since they should try and assume good faith to account for possible print sources. Wikify the article, add an "expand" tag. If there is no meaningful content, consider userfication with a notice on the talk page. If any deletion happens, it should be after at least one day (24 hours) to try and give the creator a window to improve the article.

Questions from Tony1

10. What is your view of the notion of AdminReview, a community-driven process—still in draft form—for dealing with prima facie reasonable grievances against the use of or threat to use administrator tools in a way a user believes has breached admin policy?

A: Yes. Wikipedia definitely needs a way of reporting possible admin misdeeds for community review. The way we do it now, mixed in with a hodgepodge of events at ANI, is not necessarily the best way. We have a forum for administrators wanting a review of their own actions at Wikipedia:Administrator review, but they are only initiated by admins themselves. A page which listed both threads of self-initiated reviews by admins, and threads initiated by non-admins who wish to report admins (in different sections) of course would be nice, and would (hopefully) reduce the strain on ANI. However, the methods which you have proposed at the link provided seem overly bureaucratic, and too empowering to non-administrators (e.g. admins cannnot serve as the coordinators). All that's really required is a good, old-fashioned discussion.

11. In terms of dealing with an experienced editor with a reasonably good behavioural track record who has been rude to another editor (perhaps very rude) in a heated environment, do you take the view that a viable alternative option to blocking may be a firm request to strike through the offending text and apologise to the target? What criteria would be relevant to judging whether to use this strategy?

A: Yes, that alternative measure would be fine. All editors are human (except bots), and can lose their temper. The editor in question was as you described, in a heated situation, and has had few incivility incidents prior to this. We can forgive and forget the first incident of this level, since the editor's past has shown that they are generally quite civil.

Of course, this all depends on the situation. If the offending editor repeatedly used very rude text in several different edits and with a fairly long time, we should be less lenient. Also, "reasonably good behavioural track record" can have different meanings: Several moments of minor incivility? A few incidents of more severe incivility? Previously one isolated of extreme incivility with a civility block? These varying levels of incivility should be dealt with increasingly more stringent measures.

Additional optional question from Pgallert

12. Please disclose your age. If you don't want to do that, please explain why age is not to be considered at RfA.

A: It's already pretty public on my userpage, in the blurb at the top. I'm 16, but this doesn't mean I'll be immature, rash, arrogant, stupid, annoying, lazy, and incompetent as an administrator. Just as candidates shouldn't be judged by race, gender, political view, sexual orientation, or religion, one should not be judged solely on age. All candidates should be judged on their merits and the experience and qualifications which they can bring to the table. So if you're going to oppose based on my age alone, please at least include one other reason, or provide diffs which show how my age would affect my judgement and capacities as an admin.

Additional optional questions from Offliner

13. A report about user X's disruptive behaviour is submitted to an admin noticeboard. Soon afterwards, a large number of X's supporters show up, arguing for X's innocence. In turn, an equally large number of X's opponents drop in and present evidence against X's supporters. The discussion degenerates into a complex dispute where it hard to see who has done something wrong and who hasn't. As an admin, you have been tasked to sort out the mess. How will you approach the sitation?

A: If the "disruptive behaviour" of X is obvious, and X's opponents present solid evidence, while X's supporter's arguments are weaker, then the appropriate sanctions would be taken against X. If both sides present exhaustive amounts of evidence, then it seems like a task to give to the Arbitration Committee. If the situation has gotten to such a level, then a simple admin can't resolve it by taking action himself, since there is probably a deeper problem than vandalism or simple edit warring. Also, a decision by the Arbitration Committee is far more final than a "consensus" created by a sole admin. However, I doubt I'll be the one asked to do this heavy lifting anytime soon.

Questions from User:Carlossuarez46

14a. What policy areas have you contributed to?

A. Barely anything at all. When I first started editting in 2006, I wasn't interested in contributing to policy and outlines. I only started gaining interest after that fateful day when I clicked on recent changes, and became a vandal fighter, before moving on to NPP. Now that I'm interested, I found that most policies are already established, and have wide consensus, and I have little issue with most of them.

14b. If you had the power to change a policy, which would you choose and what would you change and why?

A. The best change which I can think of is adding something to make administrators more accountable for their actions, since that's a source of huge controversy on Wikipedia, the removal of bad admins.

14c. Do longstanding essays (WP:SNOW, WP:OUTCOMES, WP:ATA, for a few) have any weight in XFD debates?

A. If incorrectly used, both in spirit and letter (e.g. "Keep per WP:SNOW, there have been two years ago there were five nominations, and all were kept" as the first !vote), then very little weight. If they're referred to as being policy (e.g. if a Radio station is up for AfD, a !voter should not !vote x because WP:OUTCOMES says that Radio stations generally result in x), then also no. However, the three you mentioned, all embody the majority view of the community. If someone's AfD nomination statement is "I hate this show, and don't think it should deserve a Wikipedia article", then pointing them to WP:IDONTLIKEIT is fine. If there are 100 keeps, 2 weak delete, and someone adds a keep !vote which only refers to WP:SNOW, that indicates that an admin should go close it early. In conclusion, they only have weight when they are used in the way the community intended them to be used.

14d. Should WikiProject be permitted to adopt policies that conflict with community policies or guidelines for articles within the scope (two examples: can WikiProject FooSport determine that any competitor in FooSport at a university level is notable? that no stubs of FooSport biographies be permitted and any stubs must be redirected to team roster lists until something beyond a stub is written?

A. If any sort of guidelines like that are adopted, they should be subject to at least some form of community review like an RFC, a, since WikiProjects are generally composed of individuals who have a keen interest in that subject, and might not necessarily be neutral. So many members of WikiProject FooSport might think that anyone who plays FooSport at level x is notable, even if it doesn't meet WP:NOTE. However, if they can do a good job convincing a majority of the community which shows up that those level x FooAthletes are notable, and there was wide participation among the community (e.g. Village pump, RFC, CENT, maybe a watchlist notice), then consensus is consensus.

General comments

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

---

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

Discussion

• All questions are optional, but are you going to answer mine? Carlossuarez46 (talk) 19:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

  Sorry about the wait, I was caught up in RL activities. They are answered now. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 00:09, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Support

1. Support As nom. MBisanz ^talk 02:25, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Support per nom, and discussions like this. All evidence points towards a reasonable editor who has the interests of the project at heart. Tan | 39 02:43, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Support Good find. -download ׀ sign! 02:45, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Support Oh, why not? Meetare Shappy ^Cunkelfratz! 02:52, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Support Seems rational, open and honest. Good luck! ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:59, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Support Patar is a solid editor who I'm sure will use the admin tools well. Nick-D (talk) 03:03, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Support, I like the answer to my question. Wizardman 03:36, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Support; I trust the nom, and the candidate seems fine. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 04:00, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Support The candidate has an extremely impressive history at WP:MILHIST. A strong record of assessing shows not only devotion to the project, but is a good indicator that the editor is familiar with a lot of the intricacies that can and will pop up during his tenure as an admin. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 05:03, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
10. Support Seems trustworthy. hmwithτ 06:42, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
11. Support A trustworthy editor. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 07:05, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
12. Support. I think Patar knight would make a great admin based on his contributions to date, and I see nothing which indicates possible abuse of the tools. ···日本穣^? · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:26, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
13. Support I'm a bit wary when someone tags an article as A7 and then after it was declined improves it to demonstrate that it would not have met A7 anyway. But it's the only problem that I saw when checking the last months of the candidate's contributions. Other than that, I see no problem with their speedy work and I have not found any other problems that would give me a reason to oppose. If you get the mop, just remember to rather make improvements like the one mentioned above before considering deletion. Regards SoWhy 10:45, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

    Will do. ;) --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 13:43, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

14. Support is helpful with userfication and speedy deletion nomination. However has hardly uploaded any files! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:21, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Support mainly per SoWhy and for a clean block log and civil communication, also I had some positive discussions with the candidate in March (User talk:Patar knight/Archive 3#Ciera keyes). ϢereSpielChequers 13:31, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
16. MBisanz is quickly becoming, if he wasn't already, one of the best RFA nominators, and users like Patar are the reason why. :) ceranthor 14:38, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
17. Support No problems here. Good luck! Pastor Theo (talk) 19:56, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
18. Per well thought out answer to Q4. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 20:32, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
19. I looked at the AfD brought up by Dlohcierekim, and while you had a misconception about the speedy deletion process, I'm sure you have learned from the experience now it has been brought up and clarified. Best of luck, Malinaccier (talk) 20:42, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
20. Support My first time in contributing to these; I've looked at his logs and he seems to be the type of person one'd want. Fuzbaby (talk) 21:34, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
21. Canadian, eh? I like the citations for article reviewing, he's given very good answers to the questions, and we need more admins working CSD. On top of that, I trust SoWhy's review and Matt's nom. - Dank (push to talk) 02:16, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
22. Support I see no problems with this editor that would convince me he would abuse the tools. The answers to the questions are good as well. Timmeh 02:53, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
23. Support Patar knight is a very expierenced editor, so he is the perfect choice to become an admin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JayLeno175 (talk • contribs) 03:01, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
24. Seems fine. Stifle (talk) 10:13, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
25. Support excellent answer to Q4. Maxim_(talk) 12:38, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
26. Support per User:A_Nobody#RfA_Standards in that you have User:Patar_knight#Honours_and_Decorations, have never been blocked, no one is currently opposing you, and per good or reasonable arguments in Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Lightsaber_combat_(5th_nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glitch City, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Force lightning. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 14:59, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
27. Support, good answers to questions. --Aqwis (talk) 15:19, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
28. Support I find this user trustworthy enough for some extra buttons.--Koji† 19:21, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
29. Support Luke, come over to the dark side... :) In all seriousness though, good editor, good contributions, and good luck. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:44, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

    Never. I'll never come to the Dark Side. You have failed, your highness. I am a Jedi like my father was before me! Couldn't resist responding to a Star Wars quote. I think I got most of the words right. :) Thanks, --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 04:15, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

30. Support No issues. America69 (talk) 22:02, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
31. Support reasonable chance of being a net positive :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:34, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
32. Support Couldn't think of a better candidate. ERK ^talk 06:55, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
33. Support – The candidate seems to be mature and level-headed with a good understanding of policy. He also interacts well with others, which is very important for an administrator. Questwolf (talk) 12:10, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
34. Support — Aitias // discussion 18:17, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
35. Support As per track and user has been around since Sept 2006. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 21:08, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
36. Support In general I do not support candidates whose age is under 18. However, I believe the candidate can be trusted as an administrator because he is calm, highly mature, clueful, intelligent and civil. The answers that he gave us show his high understanding of Wiki policies and rules that need for administrators. So why not? --Caspian blue 00:30, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
37. Definitely trustworthy. Jafeluv (talk) 07:13, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
38. Support Solid candidate. I've seen some of his posts in various places, always clueful, well thought out, and friendly. Easy to work with. — Ched :  ?  07:40, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
39. Nakon 08:27, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
40. Support from one young'in to another. Good luck! One two three... 09:44, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
41. Support, based on a real life acquaintance. Quite nice, supportive, trustworthy, all this compounded by his work in various projects on Wikipedia. Definitely a solid candidate who'd make a good admin. The Userboxer^Complain/_ubx 17:24, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
42. Support, I've looked through this user's edits, and he's hardworking, polite, and sincerely wants to improve the 'pedia. – Quadell ^(talk) 20:55, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
43. Support Why not? -FASTILY ^(TALK) 21:16, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
44. I never knew Patar knight is as young as he is: I've seen him around many times before, and always thought that he has good judgment, and that he was older. Regarding "stressful adminship situations", the only people who find adminship stressful are admins who seek out drama: regular admin work has hardly brought about any stress in my own experience and in the experience of other admins I've asked about stress. He's been on Wikipedia for nearly three years it seems too, and he's familiar with what's going on here. Acalamari 23:44, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
45. Support This user is a very friendly and helpful user that I meet a while ago. He is a user who understands policy and with the tools will be a very effective editor. I have no doubt he will make a good admin.Teeninvestor (talk) 13:54, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
46. Support I have worked with this editor for a couple of years at Milhist and always found him unfailingly courteous, hardworking, and sensible. He's not going to rush around breaking things. With a wise head on young but broad shoulders, he'll make a fine addition to the admin corps.  Roger Davies ^talk 06:05, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
47. Support. I was surprised to see you were under 18 - all contributions I've seen from you did not give me that impression. In the end, that's what matters to me - I will scrutinise younger RfA candidates more because there's a greater chance of immaturity; but if it all looks good (as it does with you) it causes me no issue. I'm very impressed with your contribution record and your question answers, and I'm confident you'll do well as an admin. Best of luck. ~ mazca ^talk 15:38, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
48. Support No reason to believe that you would misuse the tools, and you seem to always have a clear, cool head on your shoulders. From one Canadian minor to another, MacMed^talk_stalk 02:37, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
49. Support. Good trouble-shooter.Biophys (talk) 05:12, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
50. Support - Garion96 (talk) 17:40, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
51. Support. I have good respect for his work and wikignomic energy. Like others, I was surprised to learn the candidate was only 16. He has consistently come across as having more maturity and knowledgeability than many RfA candidates I’ve seen who are much older. I don’t see the point behind those opposing his nom because of his youth; maturity is not conferred automatically at a particular age and absent prior to it. On Wikipedia, his three years of commendable contributions play a more significant role and suggest he is ready for the bit. Does he need to learn more about the in’s and out’s of Wikipedia? Of course, so do we all, admins and non-admins alike. Askari Mark (Talk) 20:33, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
52. Support If he can do the work, we need him. There's nothing magical about a birthday.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:57, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose Peter Damian (talk) 06:45, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

   Any particular reason? Stifle (talk) 11:24, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

   Far too young, and has some strange views about editors' rights. No way. Peter Damian (talk) 12:51, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

   Forgive me for badgering an opposer, but which of my views about editors' rights do you find strange? --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 21:01, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

2. Sorry, but I believe that non-adults should not be administrators absent exceptional circumstances. This is because adminship can occasionally involve very high-stress situations, which have a potential to impact the real life of the administrator and other people, and it is significantly more likely that non-adults, who have comparatively less life experience than adults, will on occasion not be able to handle these situations well. I stress that this is a purely abstract consideration and not a personal assessment with respect to Patar knight, whom I would likely be glad to support as soon as he's a bit older.  Sandstein  09:23, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

   As a young administrator myself who received the tools a few years back at an even younger age, can you please provide some examples of non-adult administrators handling high-stress situations on Wikipedia poorly? I think myself and many others have proven that young people are perfectly capable of being fine and upstanding administrators. One two three... 09:41, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

3. Oppose While the editor seems solid,

   a) I'd like to see more substantial audited contributions as in WP:AN and WP:ANI. (The candidate has only 3 contributions there, none of which were substantial.) This is a particularly important indicator of judgment and given the young age, I'd like to have a bit more indication of good judgement.

   b) I'm concerned about the misunderstanding of CSD tags per Stifle in the neutral section especially since this is the area that the candidate expects to do most of his/her work. Toddst1 (talk) 14:56, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

4. Oppose - Sorry. It's the age thing. While we obviously have many excellent administrators who are under 18--several of whom I would consider friends--I don't believe Wikipedia should promote any more, period. Admins must, to a lesser extent than Oversighters, deal with potentially legally-sensitive information. Were that information to be leaked out of Wikipedia (as has happened at times, I don't have links handy), any legal ramifications (particularly civil suits( could fall upon the minor's parents. I don't think that's something we should be encouraging; people must be responsible for their edits here, and the capacity to view sensitive deleted information brings with it the capability to do something with that information. At least if an admin is over 18 they are legally responsible for their own actions, in both the criminal and civil sense. Don't get me wrong, you seem to be a fine contributor and not in the slightest bit prone to any rashness. I just think we should have a bright-line policy about anyone with extra buttons required to be over the age of majority in the jurisdictions in which Wikipedia is legally incorporated. Won't happen, of course, but still. //roux   07:33, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Opposer—After such good answers to my questions (and others), unfortunately I have to agree about the age issue. There's a very promising candidate, but not for at least a year. Sorry. Tony (talk) 14:05, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Oppose The answer to Q13 is vague and doesn't give clue: here, as for most of the questions, it lacks examples (actual or hypothetical) and especially diffs, which would help to see beyond the somewhat by-rote and insubstantial responses. As for Q12, differentiating by age of a minor is not comparable to doing so by gender, race, religion etc - the reasons as outlined by Roux (and by other editors/admins elsewhere) explain why. Whereas the extent of these potential issues and risks are open to interpretation and debate, it is ostrich-like - if not willfully and stubbornly dismissive - to insist that they don't exist at all and that to hold otherwise is unfairly discriminatory. That the candidate chooses to use this its-discrimination-like-all-the-others argument and then direct that such opposes be considered invalid is telling. Yes, it is frustrating but who should want adminship so much to run such risks anyway? Plutonium27 (talk) 00:31, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

   I was uncertain whether to put this in with the !vote or to phrase it differently as a comment/query under the question itself. So its separate here. Q1: the flippant suggestion that a Canadian admin has unique availability advantages rather suggests that admins don't exist outside of North America. Joking at RFA risks backfiring. Opening with a clumsy effort like that is poor judgment. Plutonium27 (talk) 00:55, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

   What would be your suggestion of a clearer answer to q13? I chose not to use examples and/or diffs for most of the questions because the situations they described were understood to be hypothetical, and the use of examples and/or diffs would not add much further insight, and would add to the tldr of the responses. Okay, fair enough, you can't be sued as a minor. But except for that, I would have to say that age is the same as gender, race, and all that jazz: It can't easily be changed significantly, and people will have negative stereotypes of you before fully analyzing you. In that sense, it is the same: an arbitrary judgement based on a common stereotype. Yes, my response was a partisan one, but I did not say that opposes based on age were inappropriate. I stated that "oppose[s] based on my age alone" were. So "Oppose Too young", won't cut it. But any of thoughtful opposes which mentioned age in this section would be fine, since they explain the reasoning behind it (e.g. Sandstein, Roux, Tony1) or give other legitimate reasons (e.g. Peter Damian, Toddst1, and yourself). My answer to Q1 does not suggest that there are no admins outside of North America. Since American and Canadian holidays are often on different days, or just not celebrated in one of the countries, on certain days (e.g. American Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, the number of online admins from the United States (which provides most of the admin corps) will drop, usually at a time where admins in other time zones are less active, and the backlogs naturally increase. I, being Canadian, would be in the same general time zone, would be able to reduce those backlogs. Thus, Q1 should be taken somewhat seriously. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 01:58, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

   Errrmmm.. actually no, our own courts have held that some segregations due to age (drivers licence, voting, signing contracts, age of consent for sex, consent for medical procedures, etc) are not discriminatory in the same way that discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, etc. That is to say they are discriminatory in the narrowest sense of the word, but the interests of the public good vastly outweigh any problems such laws may cause. Which is essentially what I've been trying to get at here: it is in the best interests of Wikipedia as a project and the WMF as a legal entity to ensure that anyone with extra access to the system is a legal adult, if for no other reason than the WMF can then say "that legal adult entered into our terms of service contract of their own volition, our hands are clean." //roux   09:45, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

   Sorry, I should have clarified. All my comments on age being discriminatory would be in the context of situations similar to a job interview. I have no problem with age segregation imposed by governments, since they do more good than harm. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 13:01, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

7. Oppose. The user incorrectly judged the situation during a move request at [2], claiming that there was a consensus when in fact there was none (see my argumentation at [3]). Such mistakes are something that admins should not do, especially if he intends to close similar discussions in the future. Answer to question 13 was sufficient, but I'd like to have heard a more detailed answer. I'm also concerned about point 1 in the neutral section. Other than that, the candidate looks good, but I cannot support at this point. Offliner (talk) 03:47, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

   As I also mentioned on Offliner's talk page, at the time of my comment, there were 15 supports to 6 opposes at that time for the move, while the previous consensus for the current title was 24-23. Even if we factor in the !votes made by the editors in the first discussion who had not yet voted in the second discussion, the count would be 28-26 for the move, it is still a change in consensus from marginally supporting one viewpoint to marginally supporting another viewpoint. In my reply to Offliner on the 2008 South Ossetia War talk page, I did not claim that there was a consensus to move the article,only that it had changed. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 04:31, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

   A change from 24-23 to 28-26 does not represent a change in consensus. Offliner (talk) 05:18, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

There is an overhealming support to move this article right now [4], so I don not see a problem.Biophys (talk) 13:10, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Neutral

1. I am concerned about the lack of understanding at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mariofan110. Anyone can remove a CSD tag. Even if we believe it is obviously speediable. Even if we believe it's a sock.Dlohcierekim (talk) 13:31, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

   Actually, the creator of a page can't. Stifle (talk) 10:13, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

   You know, I would like a candidate comment on this. In Q1, you state, "I would work primarily in CSD, where I have a fair record." In the AfD linked above, you state, "Speedy tags aren't supposed to removed by non-administrators, unless they're obviously wrong..." This was in June 2009, only a few weeks ago. Can you show what section of WP:CSD gave you this impression or interpretation? Do you still believe this? Tan | 39 14:04, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

   Okay, I was going to try and not engage the oppose/neutral !voters, but since Tanthalas has asked for a comment, I will do so. During New Page Patrolling I don't think I ever came across this sort of situation before. Previously the only results that I had seen were delete/decline by admin, tag removed/changed for incorrectness by a non-admin or the non-admin "fixing" the problem (e.g. adding sources to make it ineligible for A7, redirecting it to another article as a possible search term). Of course, I've come across creators removing the speedy tags, and have issued the proper warnings to them. I would just have to say that that pattern became what seemed like the norm for me, and was strongly reinforced by the text in the speedy deletion tags (e.g. see the text of Template:db-a7), which seems to contradict what the actual policy page says. Also, after re-checking the CSD page while that AfD was still open, I recall remembering that this part of the policy was only stated in the lede. I am now aware that this is not the case, though I still believe that this can sometimes articles which are obviously applicable under the CSD to remain undeleted for unreasonably long periods. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 04:08, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

2. Currently, he's beating around the bush in too many of the answers (q4,q6,q7). I'll wait until more questions and answers trickle in. --Pgallert (talk) 18:06, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

   Staying neutral in this RfA because with my question I obviously have summoned some opposes. I'm sorry for that, but age has been brought up in other RfA discussions, and therefore I believe it should be disclosed. I'd like to point out that I cannot support because of your answer to q12 and others, not because of your age as such: Age is not the same as gender or race or anything like this. I can rightfully oppose e.g. if the applicant is 8 years old, but I cannot oppose in an uncontested way if the candidate is *[insert any weird sexual orientation here]*. This is why I disagree with your answer to q12. Also, that you conclude that I must be an opposer just because I asked this question, this is a non-sequitur. I was neutral at this stage, although leaning towards opposing. Some other answers also raised my eyebrows (q4: If the BLP article has no sourced and neutral version to revert to it should be speedied. If you have an opinion as to how well-sourced and neutral the article is, you should !vote in the AfD, not close it. That the AfD non-consensus closing defaults to delete I could not find in the BLP policy, but I am open to correction. q6: I would think of many more rights. WP:RTV is not a right. q7: Warnings may be removed. By everyone. That the user might still be blocked has nothing t do with it.) --Pgallert (talk) 16:58, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

   • Neutral - willingness to answer 10 questions at RFA shows willingness to perpetuate a broken system and to engage in, in not instruction creep, some form of creep. Also, the question about rights is "NOT A GOOD QUESTION" (commenting on content not contributor) and so almost any answer given, by any editor, is going to be "NOT A GOOD ANSWER", but this answer is particularly poor. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 19:03, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

   Unless something has changed I do believe that anon votes do not count insofar as RFA pages are concerned. At any rate, as this is nominally neutral, it is at the moment of little consequence. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:46, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Lets hope the 'crats know what is and isn't a countable vote. I haven't looked to see if it was edited before your comment, but, I avoided numbering my comment. for the reason you mentioned Whoever changed it might like to think about what they did and change it back. Oh, and nothing on RfA is a vote, that's why people joke about NotVotes, so I have no idea why having or not having a number in front of my comment (which the RfA page says anyone can make, _{you have read RfA, haven't you? :P}) is so important. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 23:06, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Because, Mr. Pointy IP Address, as you so aptly pointed out, the page states, "Any Wikipedian with an account is welcome to comment in the Support, Oppose, and Neutral sections, but IPs are unable to place a numerical (#) "vote". The candidate may respond to the comments of others." This means that you should probably either create an account if you want to make an observation in the Neutral section, or limit your comments to the "Discussion" section, above. Or, make your observation as a response to someone's comment. By making a numbered "vote" - no matter what you or anyone else likes to call the numbered comments - you're obviously trying to prove something here, and it's a bit out of the scope of this particular RfA, dontcha think? Tan | 39 23:12, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Settle down, Tan, the ISP didn't number his/her vote, I did. It was a mistake on my part because I was under the impression that they should all be numbered signs in front so as to maintain uniformity in the number count (not that it matters). I apologize for this, as it was not my intent to cause anyone trouble. Next time I will reread the instructions before presuming something is or isn't incorrect on an rfa page. an unlogged in TomStar81 71.153.240.96 (talk) 01:13, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

First, I'm not riled up. Secondly, you probably know as well as anyone that saying anything like "relax" or "settle down" is condescending at best. Thirdly, my main point was that IP comments - made on their own, not in response to someone else - should go in the "discussion" section above. That point still stands. I do retract what I said about the numbering; my apologies. Tan | 39 01:45, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

"Mr pointy IP"? AGF please. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 18:24, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I apologise to the candidate for disruption to their RfA. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 18:24, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. No harm done. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 21:05, 24 June 2009 (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.