Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Canadian Paul

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

Canadian Paul

(47/0/1); Scheduled to end 16:44, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Canadian Paul (talk · contribs) - Canadian Paul joined Wikipedia in January 2005 and started making major contributions to the project at the beginning of this year. His main focus is on biographies, so he is well versed in both WP:BIO and WP:BLP. Paul holds himself to very high standards and is able to admit to and apologise for mistakes. He has experience of good article reviews and AfD discussions, particularly those relating to biographies. Fair-minded and accommodating, Paul will be a valuable admin to help maintain our articles on on living people. Tim Vickers 07:26, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:

I accept the nomination and thank User:TimVickers for nominating me and giving me this opportunity. As for the first nominator, I don't recall being nominated, though since I was so inexperienced at the time, I might not have understood what was going on. In any case, if I need to formally reject the first nomination, I will do that.

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 admin work do you intend to take part in?

A: When User:TimVickers first offered to nominate me, this was the question that I really wanted to think hard about. My main purpose in being here is to contribute to the improvement of the articles and enhance the quality of the project. Before deciding whether or not to accept, I had to make sure I could directly relate the use of admin tools to that end. I came up with three tasks that I feel directly relate to this and influenced my desire to become an administrator.

1. The rather straightforward task would be to help with the deletion backlogs for WP:SPEEDY, WP:PROD and WP:AfD, all areas that I have prior experience in. To connect this to what I said above, the removal of material that is either inappropriate for inclusion (a significant portion of WP:SPEEDY) or that which consensus has deemed to be inappropriate for conclusion (certainly WP:AfD and arguably WP:PROD), is just as much a contribution to the quality of the encyclopedia as is helping bring articles to good and features status.
2. Protecting the biographies of living people. As person who has been the subject of... I'll call it "unsourced material"... in their personal life, I have a high respect and understanding for the guidelines and rationale behind WP:BLP. Not everyone on Wikipedia is Paris Hilton. Many are, for example, professors who are well-known and influential in their fields, but otherwise maintain private lives that they wish to keep as far removed as possible from the public eye and for good reason. It's absolutely essential that anything in these people's biographies is sourced. In the past 48 hours, for example, two separate people have added death information for Salome Gluecksohn-Waelsch, which I have reverted both times because, as of yesterday, I was unable to find an obituary to substantiate the information. Common sense tells me that, if two different people add the information, it's more likely truth than some conspiracy. WP:BLP is a paramount concern, however, and thus a source must be provided. One of the best quotes I've heard while working on the Deaths in 2007 page is that "Wikipedia has very little to gain from being the fastest and much from being the most accurate."
3. I want to use my past experiences (see my answer to question #3 below) for the benefit of other Wikipedians. If made an admin, I would immediately add my name to WP:AMDB and focus a significant portion of my time on Wikipedia at WP:ANI. In my "travels" through Wikiworld, I've encountered many an excellent user who has been chased off the project by POV pushers and users with the intent to harass. On several occasions, I've observed cases where a completely neutral editor went to fix a detail related to a Wikipedia policy and ended up getting dragged into an undesirable situation between two POVs. For me, helping keep experienced, highly contributive and knowledgeable editors on the project is just as essential to improving Wikiquality as working on an article myself. I am, of course, not talking about just blocking whoever is harassing users that I think are just trying to good. In fact, a block is something that should only be used in a situation where it is absolutely obvious that it is required, when you can employ it and not have even a modicum of hesitation that you may not be doing the right thing for the situation. Rather, I think just setting aside some time to work through issues and support those users who are feeling stressed out can go a long way. Adminship is no big deal, and it certainly doesn't give you a "higher rank" above others, but people come to admins for help because they are people that the community has decided to support and trust, in large part due to their understanding of the policies. People volunteer their time here when they could be doing a lot of other things with their talents. They're not going to stay if the project causes them stress.

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

A: I would say that my best contributions to Wikipedia center around the Good Article process. For the last two months, I have been heavily involved in the Good Article review process, averaging around one full review per day since I began. Doing this had the joint effect of making me more familiar with Wikipedia's policies (as you cannot evaluate whether or not an article is "good" unless you are intimately familiar with the criteria) and allowing me to improve the quality of articles that I might not have otherwise worked on. For my efforts, I was made the first Good Article reviewer of the month, something that I am immensely proud of. I have some contributions on the other end of the Good Article coin that I consider my best contributions to Wikipedia: Major League Baseball (video game), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (NES) and Wade Mainer, all articles that I built from nothing into Good Article quality articles, all subjects that aren't exactly high profile subjects.

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: Yes. As I mentioned above, there have been several recent episodes that I am ashamed of. I explained this to my satisfaction on User:TimVickers talk page, so apologies for the cut and paste here.

With users Ryoung122 and User:Bart Versieck about a month or two ago. It started when I nominated one of Robert Young's articles, Gladys Swetland for deletion and was accused of, among other things, "conspiracy to commit supercentenarian Holocaust." The accusation got to me, and I unfortunately stooped to low levels in response and it was quite a kerfuffel. In the end, however, I did fully and sincerely apologize here (at the bottom of the page) and we worked things out. As you can see from my talk page, we can at least get along now. Bart Versieck was involved in the debate as well and, quite frankly, his continual breaking of promises to not edit others comments (he's been blocked several times, had one WP:ANI and the latest message on his talk page is regarding this type of behavior) really got on my nerves. The angriest I got with him was about two weeks ago and can be found in his User_talk:Bart_Versieck/Archive_1. Both of these editors have had problems with other editors, which is clear from their talk pages, but this does not excuse my uncivil behavior.

I would argue that I have learned from it. Some recent examples:

1. Rather than confront Bart Versieck, since then, I have just avoided him.

1. User:Perspicacite me of vandalism and I then explained my actions on his talk page, to which he responded by templating me for vandalism. Rather than let the situation escalate, I removed the accusation from my talk page. When they replaced it, an admin reverted it and then told me that it was fine to keep it off my talk page.
2. In response to this personal attack I simply responded asking him to respect NPA. I later moved my response to his talk page and removed the attack from mine. This diffused the situation, rather than fueling the fire.
3. Most recently, on Talk:Charles Barkley, I was the subject of complaints about a quick fail good article review I did. After pointing out that I was GA Reviewer of the Month, I decided that the best way to end the complaints was to not only review the article, but to give it a full copy edit as well as a peace offering.

Given these actions, I can understand if the community has its reservations about my nomination. I regret what happened, but I feel that full disclosure is important. Aside from that, I was brought up to WP:ANI at one point about alleged comments I had made against anonymous users, which was a gross exaggeration of a series of poorly worded edit summaries. I had written "anons don't get to decide our priority" while changing the priority for some WP:CANADA articles, when it might have been better to have written "non-project members do not get to decide Wikiproject priority," which is more generally accepted. After apologizing for the misunderstanding and remarking that I was a little disappointed that the issue went right to WP:ANI rather than being discussed with me first, the person who made the original complaint accepted the understanding and the debate tapered off into a more general discussion about the position of anonymous users.

Optional Question from SJP

4 If you could change any policy, what policy would you change? Explain why you would change the policy. Thanks for your time, and good luck on your Rfa.--SJP:Happy Verterans Day! 19:21, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the question. I apologize if this sounds trite, but if I had the magic wand of consensus, I would like to see the policy concerning Wikipedia:Notability (people) for athletes changed. Currently as it stands, the consensus has accepted that anyone playing on the top level of any sport or who appeared in the Olympics is automatically eligible for an article. This leaves the door open for articles such as Kenichi Yamamoto and Hiroshi Yoshizawa (there seem to be a lot of Google results for them, but I don't believe that many are relevant to the actual people named in the article, as evidenced if you add the parameter "+skiing" to either of them). A somewhat less extreme example would be Bernt Østerkløft, who has few sources available for expansion. For sports fans out there, that doesn't mean that, if the policy were to be changed, I'd go around nominating every non-medal winner for deletion. Rather, I think the information would be more appropriate in the form of a list (something less blunt, but with the same idea as "List of Olympic Skiers at the XXXX Olympics" or perhaps including the detail from their articles in Ski jumping at the 1952 Winter Olympics). As it stands, there's really nothing out there (at least on the internet) that can be used to expand their articles and all of the information could easily be summarized in a grander list. This, in my opinion, would conform better with the overall policy for notability. For example, Ida Frabboni-Saletta was deleted for the exact reason that there was no information out there about her besides her "rank."

Optional Questions from Nat

5. What is the difference between banning and indefinite blocking?

A:Indefinite blocks and banning can be similar at times, but carry two entirely different interpretations. An indefinite block sets no end to the block, but does not inherently assume that the user or IP will be blocked forever. It may be imposed in the case of a legal threat, for example, because, per WP:LEGAL, allowing the user to continue editing might worsen the situation. The block has no time limit in this case – it can only be lifted once the threat is credibly rescinded. If the block was never lifted, then it could be a de facto ban of sorts. A de jure ban (and for the purposes of the remainder of this response, a "ban" can be interpreted to mean a full ban, rather than a partial ban, unless otherwise noted) cannot be the result of a single user (unless you happen to be Jimmy Wales) and is the result of a formal decision by either the Arbitration Committee or the Wikimedia foundation to revoke the editing privileges of a person. An administrator cannot, for that reason, "unban" a user. A block can (and usually is) used to enforce the ban and, in the case of permanent bans, the block will necessarily be an indefinite block.

6. If you ran into a extreme POV pusher, and he/she has not committed any vandalism, what steps would you take to deal with this individual?

A:WP:NPOV is a core policy of Wikipedia, and every attempt must be made to ensure that it is respected. Having said that, however, every attempt must be taken in a measured and sequential order. The way to handle it, whether as an administrator or otherwise, is to begin with WP:DR and build from there. An important policy is to assume good faith and even with an extreme POV pusher, we cannot immediately jump to the conclusion that they are here to disrupt the project. People must be assumed to be reasonable and dealt with as such. The page should be protected upon request only in the event that the editing is becoming disruptive and that the project is suffering from it. Giving the editor a chance to cool down can only be helpful. In extreme cases, the editor in question might be blocked, but only if, as per WP:BLOCK "consensus among uninvolved users [is] that the violation is disruptive." Thus if I were involved directly with pusher, I would ask an uninvolved administrator to review the situation. This should be an absolute last resort, only employed after WP:DR has been followed and only when it is almost unquestionable that it should be used. I'm not a big fan of even mentioning the possibility of a block, but I can imagine that there could potentially be a situation where an individual is so intransigently defiant of consensus that it becomes disruptive to the goals of the project.

7. How do you understand WP:NFC as it applies to promotional images and other non-free portraits of living people used for the purpose of showing what the subject looks like?

A: The first criterion for non-free content is that there must be "no free equivalent." To minimize legal concerns, the definition of this must be very narrow – it is not enough to say that it would be very difficult to obtain a free equivalent, it must be impossible (Or at least reasonably so. The policy is more lenient with deceased individuals because it's unreasonable to assume someone will build a functional time machine and take a picture of them when they were living). Since it is theoretical possible to obtain a free image of a living person, even if it would be practically impossible (it's unlikely that John Babcock or Reinhard Hardegen are going to allow anyone to drop by their house and take free pictures of them), any non-free portrait automatically fails this first criterion and thus does not qualify for fair use. An exception to this might be if the person's notability stems from something that is unreproduceable in the current stage of their life. For example, if someone was know for a landmark case in drunk driving that changed the penalties for drunk drivers in America, and the case rested on the difference between a previous modeling career and a current disfigurement, it may be acceptable to use a non-free image of the living person to show what that person looked like before the accident. In their current disfigured state, however, a free image could be produced, and thus the same rationale would not apply to a non-free image of that. In this case, the image is not being used to merely illustrate the subject, but to to display something of historical significance (we assume here that the person is notable for the above reasons) that would be "impossible" to reproduce. I imagine that this sort of situation occurs rarely, thus accordingly these exemptions must be made sparingly.

8. Would you be willing to add yourself to Category:Wikipedia administrators open to recall if promoted? Why or why not?

A: Absolutely I would be. My nomination carries with it a promise that I have taken past experiences and mistakes and learned from them. This position is based on community trust and every person who votes in support of me its putting their faith into me, among many other things. If I have failed to live up to my promises, have lost the support of those who voted for me or no longer meet the standards of what it means to be an administrator then the community has as much of right to take the tools away from me as they did to give them to me in the first place. I am accountable to them.

9. What is your interpretation of WP:IAR and under what circumstances should one follow that policy?

A:WP:IAR? goes into a lot of detail about what the policy actually means but, in my mind, there's no better way of phrasing it than WP:IAR itself: "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." It is a pillar of Wikipedia and, in my mind, goes hand in hand with another one: "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia." Anything that contributes to the ends of that goal is paramount to all other concerns. It is meant to prevent rules from getting in the way of those goals. Paradoxically, however, WP:IAR must be applied to WP:IAR itself. Ignoring certain rules will never contribute the end goal. Death threats, legal threats and personal attacks, as obvious examples, must always be respected because "Wikipedia has a code of conduct." WP:IAR allows editors to be bold if they think breaking a rule will contribute to the end goal, but does not exempt them for responsibility, nor does it hand them a blank cheque to do as they please on the project.

10. Optional question from LessHeard vanU

Q: Would you comment on the discrepancy of the number of edits from October 2007 and the months immediately preceding?

A: Certainly. Over the last summer, once my undergrad was over, I decided to become more actively involved with Wikipedia. At the time, however, I didn't have regular access to the internet and, while my number of edits increased, they did not do so substantially. On August 19, I joined WP:CANADA and decided to increase my level of contribution through that channel. Starting around the end of September (ish), I began to work on the backlog at WP:CANADA's assessment, which consisted of a few hundred articles if one takes into account the articles added during the course of my "assessment drive." This "drive" spilled into October, at which point I became actively aware of the number of Olympic athlete stubs. Since there was consensus that they were all notable, I decided to at least clean them up to Wikipedia's standards. Since this type of clean up (per WP:DATE, by adding stubs, default sorting categories) does not take much time or thought, I was able to clean up many Olympic articles in a relatively short amount of time, hence the very high count in October (and also explaining my hypocrisy in creating several Olympic stubs per the table on my user page – clean up including avoiding messy redirects and people with different names). Over the course of that period, two frequent contributors adopted the proper style for Olympic articles, and thus, beginning in November, I am no longer as involved in that project. My latest project, working on List of centenarians, has brought similar, although somewhat less intensive clean up work on the individual articles. For several reasons, including the fact that the backlog at WP:CANADA rarely exceeds 40 articles at any given time, and that it's getting closer to paper time for graduate students, I suspect that my contributions will be comparable, although somewhat less than in October, especially since, if I am given the tools, will be a greater focus of my time as per my answer question #1. I never knew about service awards until I got my first barnstar in early September but, I have admittedly been using them, even though I don't really subscribe to the idea that edit counts mean much in most cases.

Thanks. No, edit counts per se don't necessarily mean much - but big variations may, and there wasn't anything I could see in previous discussion that gave any mentioned it (and I don't care to trawl the contrib history to see if I could work out my own reasons...:~) ) The response you gave makes perfect sense, and I see no reason not to support. LessHeard vanU 01:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

11. An administrator has blocked an editor and you disagree with the block. What is the policy about unblocking and do you intend to adhere to it?--MONGO 04:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

A: The policy at WP:BLOCK is very clear. With certain exceptions (such as a block for a legal threat that has been credibly rescinded), unblocking should either be discussed with the blocking editor (much preferred) or at the admin's noticeboard (if for the blocking admin is unavailable or agreement cannot be reached). Wheel warring is just as unacceptable as edit warring, if not more so since the community has endowed the admins with a certain level of trust to hold good judgment in situations. One of the pillars of Wikipedia is the code of conduct, and a critical subset of that is WP:CONSENSUS. Admins are not above the law and the policy is unambiguous, so I absolutely intend to adhere to it if I am given the tools.

General comments

• Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Canadian Paul was created in February 2006 by User:Whitstable, but was not completed and was never transcluded. I decided not to delete it, and just created a second page. Tim Vickers 07:32, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
• See Canadian Paul's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool. For the edit count, see the talk page.

RfAs for this user:

• Requests for adminship/Canadian Paul

• Links for Canadian_Paul: Canadian_Paul (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)

---

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

Discussion

Support

1. Support, as nominator. Tim Vickers 17:49, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
2. Support I am supporting him/her because this user is well experienced, knowledgeable, Tim Vickers nominated him for adminship, and because his great answers to the questions. Good luck!--SJP:Happy Verterans Day! 18:01, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
3. Rudget _zŋ 18:19, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
4. Support. Good work throughout Wikipedia. -- Jack 19:49, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
5. Support Not a single wisp of doubt in my mind that CP is both trustworthy and knowledgeable. His work at GA has been commendable. VanTucky ^Talk 20:51, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
6. Support per above votes. --RandomOrca2 20:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
7. Support Seems to know every GA rule by heart, makes me wanna be a bit Canadian actually.-Yamanbaiia 21:30, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
8. Support per the answers to my questions. Good luck with this RfA, eh? lol... nat ^{Lest We Forget. Remember the sacrifice.} 22:49, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
9. Someone jumped the queue :) Daniel 01:11, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
10. Support Appears to have the gnomish aspect already sorted, nothing to indicate likely abuse of tools. LessHeard vanU 01:41, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
11. Support A very trustworthy user. The tools given to him would only benefit this project further. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 03:47, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
12. Support For the benefit of the project. Twenty Years 04:00, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
13. Support Canadian Paul has been an excellent participant in the Good Article process, is very thorough in his reviews of articles, and will make an excellent admin. Dr. Cash 06:25, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
14. Support no problems here American Sasha 06:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
15. Strong Support Seems like a great nomination, although he does write a lot :P Seems to fully understand Wiki policies and will do a great job with the mop!
    Gonzo fan2007 ^{talk ♦ contribs} 07:01, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
16. MaxSem^{(Han shot first!)} 08:13, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
17. Support - an excellent editor as far as I can tell. — xDanielx ^T/_C 12:37, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
18. Support--MONGO 19:05, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
19. Support — Rlevse • Talk • 21:23, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
20. Strong support from another tragic player of Moraff's World. LOL. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 23:51, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
21. Support John254 03:21, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
22. Support Interactions with this editor have been pleasant, and seems to have kept a cool calm head in the few conflicts I've observed. Ealdgyth | Talk 06:13, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
23. Support Jmlk17 09:35, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
24. Support per nom. Great work in article-building, no concerns. --Bloodzombie 14:02, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
25. Suuport -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 14:24, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
26. Yes Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 15:33, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
27. Support - user page looks fantabulous, lots of good edits, great answers to questions, and no issues. 15:50, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
28. Support per nom. Epbr123 15:57, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
29. Support. Known him for a while, no major issues. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 16:32, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
30. Support - seems to have experience of all the relevant areas. No issues that I can see. WjBscribe 04:20, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
31. Support - good candidate with all relevant experience now acquired. Lradrama 14:46, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
32. Support after looking at his contributions.Biophys 16:39, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
33. Support - No issues, trust with tools. - Shudde ^talk 23:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
34. Support trust with the tools. Carlossuarez46 03:48, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
35. Support trustworthy. —Anas ^talk? 03:54, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
36. Support — Save_Us_229 17:08, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
37. I'm Mailer Diablo and I approve this message! - 15:20, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
38. Support - gnomish and dedicated without mop, I trust he'll do even better with it. --Qyd 21:10, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
39. Support - looks good to me.-h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 22:57, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
40. Support Same here, looks good to me. Neal 03:20, 16 November 2007 (UTC).
41. Excellent Contributor who is dedicated and active for a while, very trustworthy Support. Marlith ^T/C 04:39, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
42. Support per honest answers to questions above. Keeper | 76 17:05, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
43. Support Appears to be a good canidate for the role. • Lawrence Cohen 20:42, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
44. Support Would make a great admin, no reason not to trust -- Duke of Whitstable (talk) 21:45, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
45. Good user. Acalamari 23:00, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
46. Support. I suppose the user above also supports. =) Heights^{(Want to talk?)} 18:00, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
47. Support I have conversed with this user, and have seen them around, looks like a great candidate. Dreamy ^§ 21:30, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Neutral - I am concerned about this editor's attitude toward anon-IPs. Edit summaries reading "Anons don't get to decide our priority" and his AN/I response[1] to this are not to my satisfaction. Many IPs contribute usefully, and I think we should value their edits based on the merits of their ideas and not the type of account they used to post them. Rklawton 21:00, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

   I respect your view on the situation, especially in light of the fact that anon page creation is going to be re-enabled (at least temporarily) and thus a potential admin's attitude towards anons is a key factor when considering the possibility of the increased numbers of speedy deletions. An editor biased against anons may allow that to factor into their decision whether or not to speedily delete a page. As I mentioned in my answer to Question #3, and as I believe is even shown in my response in your diff, I have absolutely nothing against anonymous editors, as I've found many of them to be far more aware and respectful of Wikipedia policies than some users who have thousands of edits. Was my edit summary phrased poorly? Absolutely, and I heartily apologize for it. The user in question changing the WP:CANADA priorities was an anonymous user, but I have also commented to registered users that they too should not change project priorities unless they are members, or at the very least provide a good reason to do so, as 90-95% of my assessments are given in a reason in the summary or on the talk page. A more appropriate summary would probably have even ignored the fact that a non-project member changed the ranking, and would have merely commented on my personal rationale for changing the assessment. If any one needs more clarification on the subject, I am very willing to provide it although I do want to state very directly that every contribution is judged by its merits, not by any status of author. Cheers, CP 23:29, 12 November 2007 (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.