Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Gigs

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

Gigs

Final (35/29/9); ended 18:51, 21 October 2012 (UTC) - withdrawn by candidate Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 18:51, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Nomination

Gigs (talk · contribs) – Hi. I'm Gigs and you've probably seen me around. I've hesitated to go for RfA in the past because I believe that we are all equal here (though some are more equal), and for a while there seemed to be what I considered an improper deference toward editors with the bit. That seems to be fading now as more and more established editors shy away from the RfA process. At the same time, that trend is creating more of a need for new, active, administrators to carry out the technical tasks that the bit allows. My goal on Wikipedia has never been to become an administrator, and I think my editing history reflects that. I am at times blunt, my edit count is "unbalanced", and I've participated in contentious discussions. I'm not a carefully groomed account with just the right ratio of article edits and the perfect number of months of edit history that has never uttered a harsh word. That said, I believe that I've usually acted in a way that furthers our encyclopedic mission. Having the sysop bit would allow me to help out in a few additional areas. I am happy to entertain any number of questions at this RfA, even silly ones, but I reserve the right to not answer them. Gigs (talk) 20:20, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I withdraw this nomination I appreciate the many thoughtful editors who commented on this RfA. I am impressed by the level of research that many put into their vote. I realize that I have had limited interaction with some well established editors, some of it in a negative context. I can completely understand reluctance to trust under those circumstances. I also appreciate the votes based on level of activity as a valid opinion, though one I don't share. Anyway thank you all for your consideration. Gigs (talk) 18:13, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. Please answer these questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?

A: I am a long time participant at WP:MFD, and somewhat active at WP:AFD. I sometimes like to watch the "Contributions of new accounts" list to offer guidance, trouts (warning templates), and AIV reports. I am somewhat active in COI linkspam monitoring, and I will probably continue that in the future. I think our article merge backlog is way too large, with over 12,000 merge tags waiting for disposition.

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

A: I have facilitated several RfCs and contentious policy issues, including heavy involvement in the development of WP:BLPPROD, and coordination of the WP:Mistagged BLP cleanup. I personally reviewed many hundreds of BLPs for BLP violations as part of the project. I have contributed a few policy essays which are linked on my user page (see subpage index at the bottom for some incomplete drafts). Other than policy development, I have been involved with giving third opinions on and off for a while now, and I've written a few articles as well.

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: The most contentious discussions had to have been the development of WP:BLPPROD and the BLP policy overhaul that happened around that time. There were times that my frustration showed through. It's hard to avoid any emotional involvement once you sink a lot of work into an effort. I try, and will continue to try, to keep in mind that the majority of editors here are doing what they believe to be best for the mission in general, which I guess is another way of saying "assume good faith". More recently I had some concerns about the thematic organization proposed on meta. I started that conversation on the wrong foot by questioning them on the US education RfC here on EN. Once I realized that was a counterproductive thing, I moved my !vote from the voting section and engaged with the thematic organizers that I had the concerns with directly.

Additional question from Lucky102

4. What do you enjoy about editing Wikipedia?

A: I've always viewed Wikipedia as one of the most successful open-source/free-content projects. Even before I created this account or did any non-trivial editing, I often read Wikipedia project pages just out of interest in how a user-contributed project of this size worked. Much of my motivation for contributing here is driven by my support for the free software style model of development and contribution. My lack of focus in a particular topic area reflects my broader interest in the success of the project. I like the fact that Wikipedia, even with its flaws, has still become a fixture that many people find useful, and a monument to distributed development of freely available content.

Additional question from Theopolisme

5. As you're involved in AFD/MFD, I'm curious to learn more about some of the more contentious nominations you've been involved in. Can you elaborate a bit on, a) one of your recent votes in an AFD (preferably not an obvious vote, but rather one that you had to think about ... then again, if time isn't on your side, don't worry about it), as well as, b) the steps you would take in determining consensus at an AFD/MFD.

A: This is an important question, because as some might be aware, I disagree strongly with the way that some subject-specific notability guidelines such as WP:ATH and to a lesser extent WP:PROF are sometimes applied as a bright-line test that overrides all concerns about meeting the general notability guideline indefinitely. That said, the role of the closing administrator to judge the application of a subject-notability guideline when the subject appears to fail the GNG seems to be somewhat limited based on the current practice. I would not seek to impose my personal opinions of these SNGs in AfD closures.

On the subject of judging consensus, I would only discount arguments that are clearly out of line with accepted community standards (wider consensus). The root of consensus is "consent", so to have true consensus, the dissenting parties must be willing to accept an adverse outcome, even if it wasn't their desired outcome. If the dissent is strong and is a reasonable interpretation of community-wide standards, a "no consensus" close would be more appropriate. Regarding a recent AfD, there is one I recently commented on which is very contentious. I will not link to it here since it's still open, and it doesn't need any canvassing. You can find it in my history.

Additional question from Tom Morris

6. In the past, you have expressed repeatedly the view that GLAM outreach projects represent a conflict of interest. Do you believe people working with cultural institutions have a problematic conflict of interest?

A: Thanks for asking this. I do think that a conflict of interest is created, for example, when a museum is encouraged to edit articles and expand coverage related to exhibits they have. The non-commercial nature and mission of the organization, in my mind, does not completely negate the conflict of interest that is created. Whether that conflict of interest is damaging to the encyclopedia or not really depends on the situation, but I think we should call it what it is, a conflict of interest.

Additional question from AutomaticStrikeout

7. What, in your opinion, is the most important thing to evaluate in determining a candidate's qualifications for adminship?

A: Why they edit Wikipedia.

7A If I may ask a follow up question, why do you edit Wikipedia? Go Phightins! 02:38, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

A: Because I think it matters, in the long run. I think we are making history here.

Additional question from Townlake

8. On your user page, you state: "The idea that people are not free to add unsourced, verifiable, personal knowledge goes strongly against the entire idea of a wiki." As an administrator, would your work adhere to this maxim?

A: Our sourcing burden is, of course, on the person who wants to restore unsourced information that has been removed. My point is that a knee-jerk "rv unsourced" is not something that's conducive to building articles, and if taken to the extreme, could be very damaging to the project. This sentiment is expressed in WP:EP, a policy that is not cited too often. This is part of a larger cultural conflict of being a wiki, yet also being an encyclopedia that should be verifiable.

8A. My question is a yes/no question, and you haven't actually answered the question yet. Do you intend to do so? Obviously you aren't required to, I'm just curious. Townlake (talk) 04:32, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

A: Since the statement is only addressing one aspect of a somewhat complex issue, I guess the answer is "no".

US Congressional Budget Office Graph of Outlays versus Revenues.

Additional question from TraderGail

9. At Talk:Trickle-down economics, answering my Wikipedia:Third opinion request, you recently said that the graph to the right "tends to indicate that trickle-down was never implemented as a macroeconomic policy in any meaningful way". My understanding is that trickle-down economics is a tax policy, not a fiscal policy. Why specifically do you say that this graph indicates that trickle-down economics was never implemented?

A:

Either this question needs to remain unanswered or be stricken. The question has nothing to do with a task they would do as an administrator, about theoretical events what he would do or anything related to RFA in general; This is merely an attempt to bring a content dispute to RFA. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 03:32, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Is the personal judgement required to answer a "Third Opinion" request without just making things up the sort of qualification necessary to be an administrator here? If not, that would sure explain a few things. The graph is no longer a content dispute, as it wasn't originally inserted by the person who was reverting it in, and they are no longer want it included. If I have broken any rules by asking this question, then I will withdraw it, but otherwise I think it deserves an answer. Is my question against the rules or not? TraderGail (talk) 13:50, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I'll answer this here if you promise to take further discussion back to the article talk page. My comment was merely making an example that we can't use raw data primary sources such as these CBO charts to support a synthetic conclusion. The fact that you disagree strongly with my example conclusion is a perfect illustration of why we shouldn't do this. Gigs (talk) 15:10, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

That is not an answer to the question that I asked at all, but I will respect your wishes and neither expect a response or reply further here. TraderGail (talk) 17:50, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Additional questions from Go Phightins!

10. Why are you going for adminship now and what is the benefit to Wikipedia granting you the tools seeing that your average edits per month over the last six months is right around 100? Was something going on that stopped you from editing, or was it just a Wiki-Ogre type thing?

A: I have never stopped editing, though I have slowed down from time to time. I'm really not sure why there is a focus on edit counts. I can install AWB and get a few thousand edits per month easily. That's just not the way I have contributed. When I write a third opinion, I can sometimes spend 30 minutes or do reading background information only to make a single edit. I recently spent several hours investigating a meatpuppet network that contributed a total of 6 or 7 edits to my edit count. So don't assume my low edit count means I'm not very active.

11. Sorry, I promise this is my last question: What is your opinion on the article in the Signpost regarding a committee for selecting administrators?

A: I do think sysop should be easier to take away. I started a draft proposal for what I called "administrative covenant" which would have basically been a binding form of admins open to recall with a standardized recall process. The process would have been binding once you signed on, but participation would be voluntary, and it would be up to the community as to whether they were going to require it from you to accept your RfA. This draft proposal is still in my user space, but after seeing so many proposals go through the mill and die, I decided to spend my time elsewhere.

Additional question by User:Kiefer.Wolfowitz

12. You made c. 30 edits to Julian Assange and its talk page. You supported the Assange article's naming the women who had filed complaints against Assange. You did not object to or remove allegations that Assange was the victim of a "honey trap" on these talk pages. How was your behavior consistent with WP:BLP, particularly with the requirement that WP articles avoid prolonging the victimization of persons? Kiefer.Wolfowitz 13:05, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

A: There's nothing in BLP that prevents us from naming the names of people who have gotten tons of coverage for being a victim, as long as we do it in a neutral and well sourced way that doesn't overly focus on the victim's details. Gigs (talk) 13:25, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

In this instance, you respected the talk-page consensus not to name the women. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 20:26, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Optional questions from jc37

In order to help determine whether you meet my criteria (including your knowledge/understanding of policies and processes in relation to the tools and responsibilities that go along with adminship), please answer the following questions.

• 13. How would you personally determine whether you are involved in any particular situation when deciding whether you should block (or unblock) an editor, and when deciding whether you should protect (or unprotect) a page.

• A: I think it's clear to most people that they should not perform controversial administrative actions in topic areas where they have strong bias or have participated in heated discussions. For the more gray areas, determining involvement is more about outside perception of a conflict of interest than it is about the administrator's internal motivations for performing an action, or any other concrete criteria regarding participation in a conflict or area.

• 14. Please describe/summarise why and when it would be appropriate for you to apply the policy to ignore all rules to a situation, while also explaining the interdependency between being bold and seeking (and/or following) consensus on Wikipedia.

• A: Rules should be ignored if the action in question, while not being supported by our documented rules, is one that most editors would agree is the right thing to do. If an action undertaken under IAR turns out to be highly controversial, it was probably a misapplication of the principle. Regarding boldness and consensus, I think that one of the most effective ways we have to develop content (and even guidelines), is for a bold change to be made. Lack of reversion or further editing implies consensus, to an extent. Bold changes and evolution of those bold changes is a much more efficient way to develop consensus than polling or talk page debate. I think an edit summary like "rv, no consensus" against a bold edit is particularly unproductive, since bold edits should be our first choice for developing consensus, with talk page discussion only occurring when that mechanism fails to lead us to a new consensus.

• 15. How do you determine consensus from a discussion? And how may it be determined differently concerning an RfC, an RM, an XfD, or a DRV.

• A: I already answered the first part of this in question 5. Regarding RfC consensus, that is a particularly tough question because so many of the larger RfCs have been unsuccessful in determining consensus lately. I recently closed a talk page discussion to downgrade WP:Attack page to guideline. In that case, there was one dissenting editor who seemed to be somewhat opposed to a downgrade and strongly opposed to turning it into a redirect. I went ahead and closed it based on rough consensus (of the other two participants) to make it a guideline and then contacted the dissenting editor to let him know, so that he could revert me if he felt strongly enough about it, since the discussion had so few participants. He indicated he was OK with that outcome, and no one else has reverted it thus far.

• I am not very familiar with Requested Moves, but I believe un-challenged requests there default to preforming the move, which is unlike XfD where un-discussed XfDs are usually relisted, or eventually closed as "no consensus", except in certain BLP circumstances. DRV is another area I am not very active in, but it appears that judging consensus there is a little more tricky given the larger number of possible desired outcomes in the bolded !votes. In DRV, the closer has to be careful to make sure that the arguments are relevant to DRV, and not rehashed AfD arguments.

• 16. User:JohnQ leaves a message on your talk page that User:JohnDoe and User:JaneRoe have been reverting an article back and forth, each to their own preferred version. What steps would you take?

• A: If the editors have technically violated the WP:3RR but respond quickly to a warning with a request to begin talk page discussions, then a block is not necessary or desirable. I'd suggest that they make use of third opinion, which may give them a chance to cool off while they are waiting for the third opinion.

• 17. Why do you wish to be an administrator?

• A: I already am, really. With this RfA, I want a bit in the user database that gives me some extra technical tools and the accompanying implication of community trust in my judgement to use them properly. -- To offer a more straightforward answer, my more immediate use for the tools would be to assist with MfD closures, occasional AfD closures, and dealing with problematic new users that would fall under AIV and UAA (though I haven't focused as much on that lately). There aren't too many areas of policy development that I'm not already involved in, so I doubt I will have many opportunities to close policy RfCs, and will probably stay on the commenting side of those for the most part.

Additional question from Dweller

18. In your answer to Q8, you mention WP:EP and appear to claim that its "sentiment" supports your view that we should leave unsourced claims in mainspace. How do you come to have that view when the very policy you're citing says:

Unsourced information may be challenged and removed, because on Wikipedia a lack of information is better than misleading or false information—Wikipedia's reputation as a trusted encyclopedia depends on the information in articles being verifiable and reliable. To avoid such challenges, the best practice is to provide an "inline citation" at the time the information is added (see: WP:Citing sources for instructions on how to do this, or ask for assistance on the article talk page).?

Thanks.

A: If someone believes an unsourced claim to be misleading or false, then by all means it should be challenged. The mere fact that it's unsourced, in my opinion, is not a very good reason to challenge it, unless it's a statement that is controversial or has BLP implications. I don't think this position is very far out of line with normal practice. If someone started sweeping mainspace and deleting all the unsourced information merely for being unsourced, I doubt they would last very long.

Additional question from Tazerdadog

19. If you are given the mop, will you be open to recall, and if so what conditions are necessary to trigger a recall? Tazerdadog (talk) 18:12, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

A: I drafted, but never presented to the community, a proposal called Administrative Covenant, which was basically a voluntary, yet binding, commitment to a standardized recall process. I will give up the tools if, at a well-advertised (like WP:CENT), RFC/U, an uninvolved closing bureaucrat determines that there is consensus for the removal of my bit. I can't make that promise binding, but all I can say is that I wish there were I way I could.

Additional questions from jc37

20. Ok, So I've read through quite a few of your comments on a lot of pages regarding a lot of topics. And I've read over Wikipedia:Two prongs of notability. To keep this question focused on adminship, let's look at this in terms of WP:CSD A7/A9, or in closing an XfD or a merge discussion. How to you does notability differ for information presented as a "stand-alone article" as opposed to being presented as "a section" or in some other way "a part of" some article?

A: Notability does not apply to article contents, only what subjects merit standalone articles. The content of articles is only governed by editorial discretion. There have been proposals in the past for a guideline for "relevance" of article contents but nothing has come of them. The exception to this is that some list articles have decided through local consensus to limit list entries to topics that pass notability. This isn't a global standard and it needs to be agreed to with local consensus.

21, I see that you have saved User:Gigs/Randomcratic in your userspace, with the note: "...I think it makes some interesting points so I am preserving it here..." - What about this essay did you find interesting, and (more importantly) why?

A: I don't agree with every point in the essay, but I do think that it makes a valid overall argument. Often when someone tags a problem, they are effectively saying "someone else fix this". I've been in favor of making most article issue tags hidden or on the talk page of articles. I feel like the ethos of WP:SOFIXIT that is such a part of wiki culture was at some point lost. All that said, I think the tide is shifting a little bit, I no longer see so many article littered with dozens of citation needed tags the way that was common several years ago. I think XKCD may have helped that a little.

Additional question from Sven Manguard

22. In the other RfA that's running right now, you said "It's not plagiarism if you cite where you got it.", to which another user responded "Incorrect". Do you still stand by this statement? If you still stand by it, where is the boundary between plagiarism and close paraphrasing, and where is the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable writing vis-à-vis close paraphrasing? If you no longer stand by the statement, how do you justify making it in the first place?

A: I do stand by the statement absolutely, but I can see where the detractors are coming from. Plagiarism implies an ethical breech of presenting another's work as your own. If you give sufficient credit to the other source, you are not plagiarizing, but you may be infringing on copyright. What constitutes "sufficient credit" could be open to reasonable interpretation, but I don't think that considering a citation "sufficient credit" is out of line with our current practice.

An example is our direct use of text from the Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911 version, which is public domain. We have directly used text from this in 12,176 articles, and the only credit is a small one-line template at the bottom of the page, without inline citation in many cases. If editors would like to advocate for a higher standard of attribution than mere citation when it comes to plagiarism, then a massive cleanup effort will be needed with regard to our current use of public domain sources.

To answer your later questions : With regard to plagiarism, the defining factor is giving sufficient credit. The boundary with regard to close paraphrasing and acceptability under copyright law is a legal question. It hinges generally on the "creative spark" involved in the expression. Facts are not copyrighted, only the particular way that those facts are expressed that includes such a "creative spark". An author should distill the facts from a source and write entirely new prose to express those facts to avoid close paraphrasing. As with any legal question there's plenty of precedent and nuance I'm leaving out here, but this is the general idea. Thank you for an opportunity to respond on this topic. Copyright law is something I've studied extensively and I enjoy talking about it, which I guess is clear from the length of this response.

-- If I may expand on this a little further, clearly our goal should not be to copy public domain sources wholesale, even if it doesn't technically fall under plagiarism or copyright violation. The RfA nominee putting this forward as "his best work", I agree is cause for concern, and could constitute plagiarism even if the articles by themselves would not violate our plagiarism guidelines.

Additional questions from Trevj

23. Considering your extensive experience in BLPs, do you think that the "chance for libel and slander to slip through the cracks" is applicable to biographies of those who are no longer living? Thanks.

A: It does seem strange that I'm bringing BLP up in an AfD about someone who's dead. At that time the conversation had expanded the the athletic SNG in general. To answer your question directly, my concern is applicable to all articles, but some more than others. The highest risk articles are BLPs of low-profile people that may meet an SNG, may not meet the GNG, and are poorly watched. My personal opinion is that we should generally be merging these biographies into larger articles that are easier to watch and maintain. That opinion has met with considerable resistance, and may never become the consensus.

24. In April 2009 you nominated Category:Rapists for deletion. Do you still maintain that protestations of innocence by the convicted are generally valid (in the knowledge that rape is a complex crime)? Thanks.

A: I never maintained that. The issue I have with a category name like "Rapists" is that it is a context-less pejorative identity label, often applied to people who would contest such a label (whether the label is fitting or not). To me this is a problem, and especially so for BLPs. We can use factual categories such as "people convicted of rape", "people accused of rape", etc that don't have any such problems.

Sorry - perhaps that was a poorly worded inference. Anyway, it seems from your answer here and subsequently at the time that your concern was the wording of the category name. Thanks. -- Trevj (talk) 15:46, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

General comments

• Links for Gigs: Gigs (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
• Edit summary usage for Gigs can be found here.
• Stats on the talk page. Theopolisme 21:58, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

• Hi Gigs. Above, answering Tom's GLAM question, you gave as an example of conflict of interest "when a museum is encouraged to edit articles and expand coverage related to exhibits they have." There are certainly examples of ways that even educational or cultural institutions coule act that would be a conflict of interest—like adding excessive links to their site or editing their institution's article. However, it is not clear at all to me how the actions you've called out, which really just represent contributing subject matter expertise, are a conflict of interest at all, so it makes your response seem more reflexively anti-expert than anything else. I would generally not be comfortable affirming the judgment of an editor who seems likely to alienate our allies in the business of sharing information in the public interest, so I'm curious if you wanted to clarify that. Dominic·t 03:08, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
  • As our article on COI states, "The presence of a conflict of interest is independent from the execution of impropriety." Maybe it's my free software roots showing, but discriminating based on field of endeavor rubs me the wrong way, which is why I don't think non-commercial entities with an educational mission should get a free pass on this issue. If we are taking that a step further and endorsing the COI editing through an official program, I think we need to be even more careful about potentially problematic edits. Pretending a COI doesn't exist seems counterproductive to me. Recognizing that its there is the first step in developing guidelines to help prevent it from becoming a problem. Gigs (talk) 04:25, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
    • No ever suggested that anyone be given a free pass for good intentions; I even pointed out examples of problems that could occur. But you're suggesting the opposite—they are all guilty no matter their actions. You haven't actually answered my question. In what way are our interests in conflict when a cultural institution contributes its expertise on a subject in which it specializes? You are speaking somewhat carelessly in my opinion, in painting with such a broad brush. Dominic·t 05:12, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
      • A conflict of interest will always exist whenever someone is editing topics directly related to their employer. As I just said, the existence of a COI is independent from improper actions. I'm not suggesting "guilt", only that GLAM represents an official endorsement of COI editing, and as such, is something we need to approach very carefully to avoid more incidents like the recent ones. Gigs (talk) 05:29, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
        • Well, I asked a direct question, but you're talking in such generalizations that it is hard for me to tell whether you've actually considered the issues at hand here or you are just being provocative. You seem intent on insinuating something scary with comments like "editing topics directly related to their employer" while avoiding the serious discussion to be had. Should a scholar of revolutionary American history not contribute articles related to revolutionary America because it is a topic directly related to their employment? Do you literally think that having a Monet puts the Met's interests in conflict with Wikipedia when it comes to improving the quality of content on Wikipedia about Monet? Or, more realistically, since this is how most GLAM projects have gone in the past, in simply contributing digital images of the Monet or hosting an editathon on him? Being generous, I think you have confused having an interest in those topics with having a conflict of interest, and those are quite different. The museum and Wikipedia both have an interest in improving the quality of content about Monet, but that is a shared interest, not a conflict of interest. I don't think it is pretending or discriminating to say that. You have also said "official" now twice, but I don't think that even makes sense in the context of Wikipedia. Dominic·t 06:52, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
          • Thank you for engaging with me here before registering your opposition. I can understand how, based on our limited interaction, you may not be able to trust me. I hope we can engage in the future on this topic no matter what the outcome here. If this does succeed, I think you will find that your concerns were unfounded; that I can easily separate my personal opinion from my evaluation of community consensus for administrative purposes. Gigs (talk) 14:18, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

---

Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review his contributions before commenting.

Discussion

Support

1. Support per nom. --John (talk) 22:06, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
2. Support. A fine user, I see no evidence of irresponsibility with accounts and I can easily get over an imbalance of edit count. While (s)he may not always be politically correct with their language towards other users, has never crossed the line and become uncivil for a good chunk of their edits going back a bit. No reason to suspect (s)he isn't the real deal and could not be trusted with the bit. The Illusive Man^(Contact) 22:19, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
3. Support until provided with a satisfactory reason not to. AutomaticStrikeout 22:25, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
4. Support, great user. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:38, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

   Support don't see a reason to oppose. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 23:07, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

5. Support Qualified and competent. I don't know if it's just because it's the same option I chose to use at my RfA, but I think I prefer when experienced candidates go with the self-nomination. It simplifies things and reduces the political nature of RfA. Kudos and good luck. -Scottywong| verbalize _ 23:56, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
6. Support I'm uncomfortable with your position on GLAMs, but that's not a reason to oppose a candidate who is likely to be a good admin. Nyttend (talk) 00:43, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
7. Support. The edits I see are good and fine and thoughtful. I don't need to see more zeroes at the end of that number to appreciate their quality. Good luck. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 02:11, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
8. Support despite the position on Glams, which I entirely disagree with. But I see the argument Gigs makes more as a rhetorical position; I don't expect it would lead to a rash of blocks for museum staff and deletions of their work by this editor. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 10:09, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
9. Longterm editor with a clean blocklog and mostly quite sensible edits. The comment on the GLAM sector is troubling, but like Nyttend and Kim Dent-Brown I'm inclined to support despite that as a net positive. ϢereSpielChequers 12:20, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
10. Support Like others, I don't entirely agree with your position on GLAMs but I can see where you are coming from and you can support your position, which (I believe) is important for an admin, and an editor in general. I also understand what Dennis (among others) are saying regarding your frequency of editing, and one of my bug bears is users with tools who don't use them. However given that you have gone for an RFA I am comfortable (and I hope) that you plan to use the tools the community is trusting you with. I hope this RFA succeeds and you start using your new mop well in a week. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 12:51, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
11. Reasonable and dedicated, and has been for years. - Dank (push to talk) 13:03, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
12. Support Really good answers to questions (I don't agree with them all, but they are reasonable and well explained) and I've had good experiences with this editor. Hobit (talk) 13:56, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

    Moral Support: Long term editor with a clean block log and reasonable edits, but needs to deal with concerns that have been raised. - Ret.Prof (talk) 15:13, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

13. Support I asked a question above and the candidate answered brilliantly!--Lucky102 (talk) 19:49, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
14. Support no reason to think that this user would abuse the tools. --rogerd (talk) 20:13, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
15. Support Strong, competent, informed, great reasoning Why he/she wants to be administrator. In back-and-forth Q&As above, I think one or two questioners are not capable of understanding that Gigs really did answer their questions completely and reasonably. I assume those questioners will vote oppose, but IMO their views should be discounted. --doncram 21:02, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
16. Support — On balance, I am not convinced that granting Gigs adminship would be to the detriment of Wikipedia, which is what RfA is supposed to gauge. Certainly I do disagree with some of his positions pertaining to sourcing and our coverage of biographical articles, but simply holding radically different views than the norm is not enough in itself to convince me that somebody would abuse the sysop bit for the purposes of advancing their position. Dominic's oppose is not concerning to me, for the same reason as I've outlined already with regards to sourcing and BLPs; however, there is the added caveat that it does show a willingness on Gigs's part to stir the pot a bit, which I have no problem with so long as it's not taken to such an extreme that it belittles the opinions of others. I am reasonably convinced that it does not, and so this is a non-issue insofar as it pertains to this user's suitability for adminship. The only oppose rationale that actually holds any water for me is that of Dennis Brown, who I think shares the same gut reaction that I myself had gotten while reading his answers to the questions. Admittedly, something rubs me the wrong way. I don't think Gigs intended for anything he said to come across as pretentious, nor do I think he is even in possession of an inflated ego by any stretch of the imagination, but comments such as "I already am [an administrator], really" or " I am happy to entertain any number of questions at this RfA...but I reserve the right to not answer them" do give me pause as to whether or not he can adequately assess the perception that his words might give off to others. Nevertheless, when all is considered, I believe we can trust Gigs with the added bit. Kurtis (talk) 21:08, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

    Follow up on my talk page. Kurtis (talk) 22:58, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

    I am also a little bit concerned about the link OhanaUnited provided below, in that it demonstrates a slight misunderstanding of what constitutes plagiarism. The opening sentence of Wikipedia's plagiarism article reads as follows: "Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the 'wrongful appropriation,' 'close imitation,' or 'purloining and publication' of another author's 'language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions,' and the representation of them as one's own original work[.]" So even if a source is cited, it still falls into the grey area as far as calling it "plagiarism" goes. Nevertheless, he acknowledges close paraphrasing as a copyright issue, so this is something of a moot point which would have no bearing on anything Gigs might do as an administrator. Kurtis (talk) 17:35, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

17. Support Was expecting to cast my 4th oppose vote when I saw you up for nomination, as Ive seen you about and havent liked your strongly worded contributions to discussions, especially concerning outreach and COI. But having sampled your other contribs, you generally seem reasonable, constructive and of good temperment, so no real reason to think you'd misuse the tools. FeydHuxtable (talk) 21:18, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
18. Support - We need more help and we need to give more candidates an opportunity to help. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:42, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
19. Support No problems here, and the help is needed! Michael (talk) 02:09, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
20. Support, from neutral Thanks to the clarification of question 17's answer, I now support this RFA. Solid user, solid contributions, and due to the elaboration on answer 17, he hits the nail on the head of "no big deal". Go Phightins! 02:13, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
21. Support I was planning on voting neutral, but your answer to Question 17 convinced me to support you. Good luck! Kevin Rutherford (talk) 03:22, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
22. Support - some minor concerns, but overall a good candidate who will benefit Wikipedia with the extra tools. GiantSnowman 10:31, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
23. Support - we need admins who are ready, willing and able to wade in to a contentious and hot-headed situation without making it worse. Gigs has demonstrated this ability. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tazerdadog (talk • contribs) 17:55, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
24. Strong Support From someone who has crossed paths with Gigs multiple times, including disagreeing heavily at times; I know Gigs has the experience and knowledge of policy required for adminship. His participation in the areas he wishes to work is stellar, and his policy knowledge is fine-tuned. None of his opinions lead me to believe that he would cause disruption to the project. It is good to be wary of COI editing and question a specific outreach that promoted it. This shows that Gigs has ethical character, which is important as admins are representative of Wikipedia as a whole. ThemFromSpace 20:17, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
25. Support. Gigs is an experienced and thoughtful editor who is familiar with the policies, and who I believe would be an asset as an admin. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:09, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
26. Weak support. Lacking content creation, but there is evidence of productive interactions with other editors. Generally sensible. Axl ¤ [Talk] 23:15, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
27. I don't have any problems with an admin whose opinions are inconvenient or, more generally, do not match the current consensus of the community, provided he can be trusted not to try and subvert said consensus using his mop. I see nothing that suggests Gigs should not be afforded that trust. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 01:21, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
28. Support. Fully qualified. I trust this user to not abuse the tools and respect the responsibility that comes with the position. -- œ^™ 02:54, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
29. Support Good understanding of policies, good contributions to them over the years. AndreasKolbe JN466 07:50, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
30. Support, of course. As a side note, what on earth does the definition of "plagarism" have to do with being an admin? Irrelevant questions are irrelevant. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 08:11, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
31. Weak Support Strong concerns regarding his response to question about Julian Assange and per his editing in 2011. Please review Wikipedia policies regarding WP:Biographies of living persons: Avoid victimization, Privacy of names, Presumption in favor of privacy. (Otherwise, a reasonable, independent, highly capable editor with back-bone, who could become a useful future administrator.15:25, 17 October 2012 (UTC)) You accepted talk-page consensus, so this disagreement need not disqualify you even today. I updated my oppose to "weak" support, in this RfA. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:43, 19 October 2012 (UTC) (18:30, 19 October 2012 (UTC) Removed confusion with contemporaneous RfA.)
32. An extremely clueful editor that, per his own statement, is essentially an administrator in standing already. Those few opposes that have any point to them at all seem to chastise him for having an opinion, even though he's quite plainly in deference to the project's consensus as a whole even when he strongly disagrees with it. As for the lack of articlespace contributions, the reason to care about raw editing figures (unless you're one of those dreadful types who believe that the project should be run by whoever has the most FAs) is because edit count is usually closely aligned with clue: it is, however, possible to develop clue through means other than pounding away on articles, and there is no doubt Gigs has managed it. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:39, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
33. I only just noticed recently that this editor wasn't an administrator. Some concerns, but agree a net positive. On a slight tangent, having ~25% article space contributions is fine. Some article editing patterns don't fit the pattern of obtaining DYKs. If someone arrives, and improves a section of a large article, there are no awards (or at least none that I am aware of). Or, if an article is skewed towards a POV, there is no award for cleaning up the issues. We want admins that deal with issues, not spend all their time writing articles; Admins are there to support editors, we want them to act in a non-editing capacity and if they can't then they should remain editors. IRWolfie- (talk) 20:29, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

    Admins are editors. Editors should be spending their time writing articles. That is what we are all here for. We do not want admins who act in a non-editing capacity. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:53, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

    Sure, we expect them to make edits, but the reason we have them as admins is not for the volume of their article edits. We don't remove the bit from admins because they've been closing contentious discussions, closing AfDs, blocking problematic editors etc and not doing enough article edits. They are the janitors to ensure the smooth running of things, and an editor who makes a lot of contributions to the related boards is well suited to be an admin, more so than an editor who doesn't interact with others beyond article edits. If you want to see if he has a sufficient amount of WP:CLUE for being an admin then look at his contributions in the wikipedia namespace. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:36, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

    I did look at his contributions last month. He expanded the intro to Latency (engineering). Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:21, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

34. 'Support': Understands why rational policies are important, doesn't F.A. around with irrelevant guff. Nevard (talk) 03:09, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
35. Long-term contributor who is communicative, knowledgeable, and generally sensible. Yes he has some strong opinions but I don't see anything to suggest that he might use admin tools contrary to consensus. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 03:20, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose: User:Gigs#One_line_rants this section makes me nervous. Beyond that, low volume of main space edits to me is troublesome and indicates may not have a complete understanding of core content issues that content editors face. We're hear to build an encyclopedia. We can't do that with content. See no GAs, no DYKs, no FAs, no claim of credit for elevating articles to B that indicate familiarity with content issues. No comment on non-content work in oppose. --LauraHale (talk) 02:29, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

   Oh give me a break. On revisiting, that was a bit rude. Tony (talk) 11:53, 17 October 2012 (UTC) Since when did admins have to produce DYKs, or for that matter GAs or FAs? Admins need a different set of credentials, even if they may overlap with high-value content creation (and I certainly don't count DYKs as high-value content). Coming from you, this is a giggle—you've reacted with discourtesy when ways of improving your basic writing skills have been pointed out (by others). Tony (talk) 08:01, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

   Elaborating: Subject specific notability is important, and Gigs has argued for a more universal sport notability criteria, with out considering different local popularity of a sport. Second and third level football have different levels of media coverage in Australia versus the UK. Cricket in the USA has different levels of media coverage compared to cricket in India. Hence, sport specific and regional criteria are necessary, and broad brush strokes cannot be used for notability. His COI views indicate some one at the MET should not contribute to Monet related articles, while Serbian nationalists editing Serbia and Croatia articles have less inherent COI problems. His lack of active content creation, based on edits to the main space and lack of involvement in processes, demonstrate a lack of knowledge dealing with these issues. If he does not have familiarity in sourcing articles across different countries, while insisting similarities existing, strikes me as not being equipped to deal with content level disputes. He's been active in that area in his comments. Hence, this is a major concern. --LauraHale (talk) 01:31, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

   Those aren't my views on COI at all. I think our COI guideline needs to differentiate between a conflict of interest, and inappropriate editing driven by a conflict of interest, something it conflates hopelessly right now. I think this confusion in our guideline lead to a lot of the earlier misunderstanding, and is contributing to problems all over right now. I've begun working on a draft replacement COI guideline that does just that. You and anyone else interested are invited to collaborate with me on it. Regarding sourcing, it was my work searching for sources for many hundreds of unsourced BLPs as part of the BLP cleanup that lead me to my current position on notability of people. I understand it represents a minority opinion and not the consensus at the present, and I accept that. Anyway thank you for your consideration and your follow up. Gigs (talk) 15:55, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

2. Based on admittedly limited observation, Gigs seems to be too much of a provocateur. His responses above do not inspire confidence in his judgment, and it was only a couple of weeks ago that he was flippantly suggesting we delete all GLAM projects. I fear the positive contributors he could alienate with the block or delete button and that attitude. In the interest of not letting that discussion thread above dominate this page, I am going to leave it be and just make this my final opinion down here. Dominic·t 07:06, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
3. Oppose per Dominic and the answers and discussion above. KTC (talk) 09:06, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
4. Oppose Not much of a consistent editor. Based on my observation, edits boomed on 2009 and shrank this year. TruPepitoMTalk To Me 10:46, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

   I should point out that I had a major illness from September 2011 to mid January 2012. I had a perforated colon and major surgery to remove part of it, and a tough recovery with several follow up procedures. I managed to avoid getting a colostomy bag and I am doing well now so I guess the long process and recovery was worth it. I did not mention this before because I didn't think the low monthly edit counts would be so much of an issue considering my long history. Much of the inflated edit counts earlier than that were due to my involvement in Mistagged BLP cleanup. Gigs (talk) 14:45, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

   Well, I'm sticking to Oppose. Some are quite proving their own points. TruPepitoMTalk To Me 09:27, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

   No problem. My comment wasn't targeted toward your vote specifically. Thanks. Gigs (talk) 13:57, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

5. Oppose Dominic pretty much sums up a good chunk of my feelings. He is too much of a provocateur. And not really a fan of his answers to the questions. -DJSasso (talk) 12:56, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
6. Oppose Relatively low IMHO article space edits and content creation to effective evaluate editors behavior and discussions on article content. Plus, the comments alluded to by Dominic-t above about GLAM were indeed flipant and reflect a complete lack of understanding of the importance of outreach for the future of the project. Of course the comments can be explained after the fact, but they were made and one must assume they were made with sincerity. This is not an editor I would trust with the tools. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:19, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
7. Oppose (previously neutral) after seeing answers and looking closer. I do not think candidate has the right temperament needed to be an admin, plus concerns expressed in my neutral comments. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 14:40, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
8. Oppose—In requesting the promotion, it seems reasonable to expect that they should demonstrate that the inability to perform specific functions crucially diminishes their long-term contributions to Wikipedia. Given the scarcity of the editor's contributions since December 2010, their justification for requiring additional tools presently in October 2012 is casual, indefinite, and unconvincing. Without a significant increase in activity, or an elaboration on their rationale, the encyclopedia would not benefit substantially from presenting additional controls to the user. Mephistophelian (contact) 15:20, 17 October 2012 (UTC).
9. Oppose. The candidate's understanding of COI is frankly ridiculous, and he ought not to be given the power to police it. Malleus Fatuorum 15:36, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
10. Oppose—As much as this user seems like a good user, I don't see enough activity to prove the need for these tools. I am usually very picky with things, but I see I am not the only one who sees this. I see that you also mention you had a major illness from September 2011 to mid January 2012. I understand that you were dealing with a lot but you still don't see much activity leading up to this RfA. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 15:45, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
11. Oppose, specifically due to the concerns expressed by Dominic, which I share, and explicitly not on the rationales of "need for the tools" or "edit count", both of which are bogus. — Hex (❝?!❞) 16:32, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
12. Oppose - While I don't think numerous GAs or 10,000 edits a month are required to become an administator, I do agree with Dominic's assessment. - SudoGhost 22:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
13. Oppose. I have found this user unwilling to accept consensus on BLPs in WP:Prof and repeatedly pushing his POV there. I do not trust him not to misuse administrative powers to promote his own views. I think he is temperamentally unsuitable to be an admin. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:31, 17 October 2012 (UTC).

    I believe this was my only discussion directly on WP:PROF, though I have from time to time expressed my distaste for it elsewhere, such as in question 5 above. There's a difference between accepting the current consensus and agreeing with it. Gigs (talk) 23:52, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

14. Oppose mostly in agreement with Dominic and Mike Cline. I really don't see the level of activity that would indicate a need for the tools. That and concerns with COI/GLAM lead to opposing. Best regards, Cindy(talk to me) 00:30, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
15. Oppose per Dominic. I wasn't committed either way, but then I saw your comments at the talk page of the second PC RfC and Dominic's point began to be very persuasive. Sven Manguard Wha? 04:14, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

    If you have the inclination, I think those discussions could benefit from your further input. I just want to see PC/FR succeed and I feel like things are foundering now. Gigs (talk) 14:35, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

16. Oppose- Has made too many judgement mistakes to be a reliable admin. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 04:17, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

    Could you please provide some diffs to support your statement? -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 04:24, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

    All the examples cited above are enough for me to oppose. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 21:07, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

17. Oppose mostly per KW above. Not enough experience for me. Intothatdarkness 14:33, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
18. Oppose. What Dominic said, what Mike Cline said, what Kiefer said, what Malleus said. I'm not impressed with A.5, nor with the claim in A.15, "I already answered the first part of this in question 5". Moreover, I detect a note of arrogance that the editor has not, in my opinion, earned. Drmies (talk) 15:04, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
19. Oppose. What Drmies said. — sparklism ^hey! 18:44, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
20. Oppose. Re: Drmies & MF. Leontopodium alpinum (talk) 03:26, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
21. Oppose per LauraHale, Dominic·t and Malleus Fatuorum. Bidgee (talk) 09:50, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
22. Oppose Non contributor. Only 25% article space edits. No record of producing quality content. No understanding of BLP or COI policies. Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

    What sort of percentage of article space edits do you think the average admin has? IRWolfie- (talk) 20:21, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

23. Oppose – Arrogance, misunderstanding of key policies, and lack of article contributions. TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 19:39, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
24. Oppose per above, lack of experience, misunderstanding of policies, etc. TBrandley 20:10, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

    Just noting here that Gigs is very familiar with the policies, and with some of the problems that the policies raise, so while people are of course free to oppose, I wonder whether the last few opposes are based on a misunderstanding. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:57, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

    They're pile-ons. Once you get to a certain critical mass of opposition, it gives people who are looking for a reason to oppose the security to simply make one up. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:44, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

25. Oppose per MF, Dennis Brown, and Dominic.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 22:26, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
26. Oppose. For the record, I couldn't care less about Gigs's lack of featured content or the distribution of his edits. But his attitude doesn't seem right to me for an admin. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:35, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
27. Oppose. Per Dennis, similar concerns. Lord Roem (talk) 18:23, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
28. Oppose per poor understanding on copyright.[1] OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 00:50, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
29. oppose - the las diff is enough for me to oppose. mabdul 01:31, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

    I would ask you two to examine the issue more closely. Malleus' comment was based on a mix-up, confusing me and QuiteUnusual, and Drmies and I discussed it on his talk page in a much more nuanced fashion. I'll probably withdraw this RfA today anyway, but I don't appreciate being accused of things that are patently false. Copyright is one area of law that I have a very solid understanding of. Gigs (talk) 18:02, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Neutral

Until I see more comments, I don't think I could choose support or oppose.Moved to oppose. You have done tons of work but I would prefer to have seen more activity. Main reasons; average edits count in active day: 11.0, active dates in 2,578.1 days: 1,009 days (39.1%), the most frequent day in this period: 3/4/2010 (131). -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 22:50, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Neutral for now.Moved to oppose. I see 1086 edits in the last 18 months, which is only 60 edits a month. I understand we all have gaps in our histories, particularly early in our wikicareer, but this is more than a gap, this is a consistent history over a reasonable period of time. I'm not necessarily fixed down here, but at this time, I can't see the benefit to Wikipedia. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 01:03, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

UPDATE - To clear up the question of deleted edits: He has 16 deleted edits in the last 18 months (admin only link), which would only raise his average per month to just under 61 edits. This doesn't alleviate or modify the concern. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 12:16, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

1. Per the nomination statement, the candidate has an stated interest in Afd, hence his track record in making good CSD calls (potentially misleading link removed) is relevant. Alanl (talk) 02:41, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

   I don't think Scottywong's tool shows deleted edit's summaries. So if a CSD was accepted that tool wouldn't find it. Only by looking through his deleted contributions could you find it. (Or if he kept a CSD log). Legoktm (talk) 02:48, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

   Apparently my comment has been mis-interpreted, and I should make it clear that I was referring to Scottywong's edit summary search tool, not the admin score one. Legoktm (talk) 16:37, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

   Would an admin please review and comment on his csd nomination history? Alanl (talk) 03:20, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

   You can actually use the edit summary tool (which I would give a link to but am on mobile) -- just search for "Notifying about CSD"/whatever in the User_talk space, and "Tagging CSD"/whatever in the article namespace. Numerator/denominator. Theopolisme 10:49, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

   Link to what Theopolisme is referring to. Legoktm (talk) 10:52, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

   That's pretty interesting. I have never gone through my CSDs that still exist as articles. Looks like many of them are self-reverts for various reasons (usually a technical deletion that I thought I needed but then figured out I didn't), and a couple are "rescues" of things like unsourced negative BLPs. Gigs (talk) 17:00, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

   Persuadable neutral I don't know, there's something not quite right but I can't put my finger on it. I'm honestly not entirely sure how he plans to use the tools other than WP:MFD. Abd some of his answers are pretty vague, specifically questions 7 and 8. I am a bit confused about his answer to question 17. That said, I have any reason to think he will abuse the tools, but, as I said, there's something not quite right that I can't quite put my hand on. Go Phightins! 20:10, 17 October 2012 (UTC) Moved to support per clarification of question 17

   I will expand my answer to 17 to be more straightforward. I guess I was trying to cleverly express that I don't think "being an administrator" is something that would define my identity as an editor. It would be silly to pretend that nothing would change, since all my actions would be subject to much increased scrutiny, but I've never viewed it as any kind of achievement or even "promotion", to use our term of art. Gigs (talk) 20:35, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

   I'm still working on my typical RfA research. But I just wanted to agree with GP that the answer to 17 rubbed me the wrong way as well. I appreciate your clarification. My first read of it gave me the impression of: "I'm already an admin, I just need you little people to give me the tools I so richly deserve." - I'm glad to hear that that wasn't your intent in your response. - jc37 23:05, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

   Heh, yeah that's not what I meant at all, pretty much the opposite, in that everyone here that keeps the encyclopedia running is an administrator, whether they have the bit or not. I think it was a case of overly self-editing. My first response to it was "I don't want to be an administrator, I want to be an editor with the sysop bit", but I figured that might give people the idea that I don't take the responsibility seriously, or realize how people view you differently once you have it. Gigs (talk) 23:16, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

   In what way would people view you differently if this RfA were to be successful? I for one rarely have any idea whether another editor is an administrator or not, and care even less. Malleus Fatuorum 01:01, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

   It's mainly newer users and outsiders that are still under the impression that "administrator" carries extra authority. I'm in the same camp as you, I couldn't tell you offhand whether many of the editors I interact with on a regular basis have it or not. Gigs (talk) 01:17, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

   I'm reading his answer to question 17 in an entirely different way. He appears to be saying that there shouldn't be a distinction between administrators and the rest of the editors that keep the encyclopedia running. His desire isn't to run in order to "become an administrator". He would like the extra set of tools in order to enhance his ability to maintain and improve Wikipedia. That, I believe, is exactly what "no big deal" is about. Ryan Vesey 01:07, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

2. After considering relevant factors, I land neutral. It is as much a deficient process as what becomes a concern regarding the candidate. If adminship truly was "no big deal" and "easy in, easy out" was the order of march, Gigs is a good prospective admin and I'd gladly support. Considering how things are done, I understand the reluctance that has moved so many to oppose. Because the largest deficit lies with the process, I will not oppose. 76Strat ^String da _Broke da (talk) 10:59, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

   I wish there were a binding way I could agree to recall. I totally understand your sentiment. Thank you for your consideration. Gigs (talk) 13:44, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

3. I don't mind that the editor wades into contentious discussions voicing an opinion. There are very few topics which shouldn't be open to discussing. But therein leads to my trouble. I find I have a LOT of questions for the editor that I'd like clarified and/or expanded. And every question I've asked (and others have asked) so far, has me wanting to ask continued follow-up questions. But I think that such discussion would be much longer than the timeline of an RfA : ) - However, without that, I don't feel I can support based solely on the candidate's contributions to date. There are more than a few things I've read that I think were a quick, seemingly truncated comments, which I think may have been helped with a much more full comment for clarity. (Though of course, despairing of falling into the zone of Bradspeak : ) - The GLAM situation being one example that others have brought up. But neither can I oppose. I see a fair amount of "clue" in their comments above and elsewhere. Which I guess plants me squarely in neutral. - jc37 19:56, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

   We can talk sometime, even if it's after this RfA is over. I felt the same thing, that in this limited format of the RfA I wasn't able to fully elaborate on some things without straying too far off topic. It's easier when a candidate is just regurgitating what standard consensus is, but when it's someone who has personal opinions in a lot of policy areas, I can understand the difficulty. Thanks. Gigs (talk) 20:09, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

   This has nothing to do with my comments above, but I really liked the essay User:Gigs/Randomcratic. (Though I re-read it several times because the word "boss" could be a perjorative, which, while I now believe I understand the perspective of the writer, at first glance it was lending inappropriate semantic weight : )

   Though apparently I liked it for different reasons than you did : )

   But then, that's the wonder of Wikipedia. It brings together people of divergent opinion, and through collegiate collaboration, what we're making here should hopefully be better than what any one of us could have done individually : ) - jc37 20:20, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

4. Neutral - I have seen Gigs around for a while, and while I've disagreed in the past with some of the positions, in my review I was impressed by the amount of good work. I think the "controversial" label is misleading. I've seen a lot of really good, nuanced interaction from Gigs, much of which impressed me. I'm neutral because of the rather low workload as of late, and because, despite the above, there are some occasional concerns. I think that some of the opposes are piling on, which is why I bother to even !vote. Shadowjams (talk) 20:49, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
5. Neutral I note what seems to be level-headed discussion (e.g. Talk:Climatic Research Unit email controversy), your various reasoned work against vandalism and the new COI draft, but am currently undecided. -- Trevj (talk) 12:02, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

   I've read and re-read the candidate's answers, with a view to supporting. His answers are generally well explained, and the fact that he queries existing policies is admirable. Crossings with other editors don't appear to have got out of hand, but the COI/GLAM statement does indicate a misinterpretation as far as I'm concerned. This seems to leave me in a neutral position, because I've not found any recent valid evidence which would prompt my outright opposition, nor too many overwhelming reasons to support either. If this RfA's unsuccessful, perhaps any outstanding issues will be covered more appreciably next time. -- Trevj (talk) 00:46, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

   There was one misunderstanding on my part with the GLAM thing. It was my impression that the primary goal of most of the GLAMs was to get employees of the GLAMs organizations contributing directly. I have found out in the last couple days through further discussion with GLAM organizers that the primary way that they have operated to date is to use the GLAM employees as a resource. This is much less of a potential COI I think, and if I had known that back when the MfD came up I probably wouldn't have put forth such an extreme position. So there was a little ignorance on my part, and I overgeneralized the "city GLAMs" which have caused so much controversy lately with the core GLAMs which operate much more responsibly. I think a COI guideline rewrite is important so that we can clearly delineate the mere existence of a potential COI vs actions damaging to the encyclopedia, and so that we can have more precise vocabulary for discussing this stuff going forward. Thank you for spending so much time on this. One thing that has really impressed me is how thoughtful some of the RfA participants are, even if they have found themselves in the oppose column eventually. Gigs (talk) 17:26, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

6. Neutral, from Support There are a few concerns now where I don't feel comfortable supporting. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 08:35, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
7. Neutral While I've had no firsthand dealings with Gigs and they seem to be a capable editor, I see too many differences from community consensus to feel comfortable with additional tools at this time. Miniapolis (talk) 18:18, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
8. Neutral - to avoid a pile-on. With the exception of this month, possible due to the participation in this RfA, Gigs' edits have averaged 49 in the last 12 months. While some RfA candidates in the past have have successfully claimed that the course of their editing could involve many uses of the admins tools, I don't see this as being the case here. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:22, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
9. Strong neutral I'll suggest that perhaps they made this RFA request at a bad time - i.e. so close to having been away for very valid reasons. Valid or not, not all editors pay attention to such reasons. That was probably, on hindsight, a poor judgement call. I have typically seen reasonably positive interactions with Gigs, at least from memory. There are a few issues raised her that make me say "hmmm", but I don't see enough to make me believe they would be anything but a net-positive. (✉→BWilkins←✎) 10:58, 21 October 2012 (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.