User:Kudpung/UP Policy

Some of the reasons why I do and say certain things on the Wkipedia are because I'm an admin and I have to be careful what I do and say - but so should every one else ;)

Conflicts

1. I often use customised messages instead of user warnings - even our official templates can cause rancour.
2. I quietly revert good faith editing errors and sometimes put friendly, helpful comments on talk pages.
3. I occasionally make genuine attempts to clean up the crap of lazy editors and fly-by-nights, but it does not give me pleasure.
4. I stay reasonably civil at most times, although less so with blatant and obvious vandals and spammers, and I sometimes give short shrift to pompous, arrogant, or patronising editors who try to behave like admins.
5. I don't believe editcountitis, self-righteousness, and arrogance, are qualifications for barnstars or adminship.
6. Gaming the system is sick, I don't take the bait, but I get sick of the deceit and fake self-righteousness.

Deletions

1. My interpretation of deletion is in this essay.
2. By the time I've done enough research for a speedy deletion, a PROD, or an AfD rationale, an inexperienced page patroller has often already wrongly tagged the article.
3. Why does every sports person who has played one professional game, every street musician, every bit part actor, every kid who went on X Factor and Got Talent, and every small town hack and painter merit an article on the flimsiest of sources, while life-long academics have to jump through a whole page of hoops?
4. I show no mercy whatsoever with people, bands, and organisations (even 'non-profit' ones), who are looking for free publicity at the cost of our volunteers' free time.

Meta

1. Many participants at RfAs have varying opinions on the quantity of content work that is expected from RfA candidates, but the basic premise is: Editors who wish to police pages should know how to produce them - and have demonstrated it.
2. My !votes on Requests for Adminship are done after thorough investigation of the candidate, and based on these criteria.
3. There's a strong consensus that the RfA system needs fixing. In 2011 I created and coordinated a huge investigation into it. IMO, according the massive research that we did, the major item for reform is demonstrated here. Some claim that RFA2011 didn't do much. It got its message across though, and it's a nicer place today (2015) than it was then.
4. The Arbitration committee has more pomp and circumstance than the British Houses of Parliament, is bogged down in its own bureaucracy and is generally too lenient. Kudos to the arbitrators nevertheless for the difficult task and the massive time sink that it is. Membership there is not a vertical promotion, it's just a sideways shift in a Wikipedian's focus - one that befits those who really know what they are doing and and have demonstrated it to the community.
5. I am utterly amazed that so many editors think new page patrolling is not worth doing properly, or even strictly necessary. I think it's one of the most fundamental functions. It's the only firewall against attack pages, hoaxes, and blatant nonsense, and needs to be done by mature, experienced users. WP:AFC should be closed down and merged to it.
6. 'Consensus' is Wikipedia's most abused word. The rules should not need to be rediscussed every time they get broken, or when just one editor disagrees with them. Consensus is crucial to the Wikipedia process, but long debates often cloud their own issue and could be concluded more frequently by a show of hands without further commenting.

What I would like to see

1. A splash page for new editors, one that preferably replaces our traditions 'welcome' system, that explains without walls of text, some of the basic principles of editing and expected behaviour.
2. A more inter-active and more (young) user friendly landing page to replace the Page Creation Wizard.
3. A 'soft block' system forcing good faith, but disruptive editors to go on an adoption scheme.
4. A New Page Patroller tutorial, or mentoring system run by experienced editors. IMO patrolling needs a near-admin knowledge of policy and should not be confused with counter vandalism.
5. A list of disallowed sources for WP:BLPPROD.
6. Clarification of notability for schools (or lack of it) and taken into policy.
7. Fewer help desks - although I created one myself. What we need is a centralised visitor/user help system, with a drop down menu to choose the department they want.
8. More of the common tools available to webmasters, to be used by Check Users, and extension of the 'stale' period.
9. A greater effort to recruit potential mature-minded young users to Wikipedia and its maintenance tasks.
10. An effort to gently dissuade univolved inexperienced users from hat-collecting and clerking or commenting in areas that are strictly admin-only.
11. Less pandering at PROD and AfD for obvious inappropriate pages and more CSD criteria.