Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Redmarkviolinist 3

Redmarkviolinist

Voice your opinion (talk page) (10/20/7); Scheduled to end 17:05, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Redmarkviolinist (talk · contribs) – Since my first edit in May of 2007, I have put forward 4500 or so edits, and 300 or so deleted contribs. I have had two admin coaches through the course of my editing. I feel that with adminship I could help out the Wikipedia community even further. ṜedMarkViolinist^{Drop me a line} 17:05, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. It is recommended that you answer these optional questions to provide guidance for participants:

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

Currently, I participate a lot in AFD nominations, nominating them myself and participating in discussions. Also, I participate a bit in CSD, and as an admin I would take this experience even further. There are a multitude of backlogs, such as the CSD's, that I feel I could help out more in. Having these tools would give me an advantage to helping out this project.

The tools listed here would be among the work that I would participate in, along with CSD nominations, closing AFD discussions, and any other projects that have backlogs. I will also participate in WP:AIV along with contributing at Wikipedia:Administrator's noticeboard.

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

My AFD contributions, assessing articles for WP:MILHIST, tagging articles for CSD, and writing articles such as the Battle of Marion, Battle of Appomattox Station, Battle of St. Mihiel, Siege of Calcutta, Battle of Hanging Rock, and many more. All of these are among my best contributions. I am a well rounded user, and I will participate in anything and everything that needs help. In my spare time I enjoy designing Userpages for anyone that needs one. A recent example is User:Leujohn.

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?

Just one issue. The details of it are located here. In the future, as I dealt with it in the mentioned situation, is to calmly solve the issue, and if I believe it is out of my control, to mention it to a higher authority.

Optional question from MBisanz

4. I am wondering what you have learned since you created Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians under 18? Do you still think it was a good idea? How would you handle editors who revealed that they were minors on-wiki in light of Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Protecting_children's_privacy#Counseling?

One of my stupidest ideas. Future note: take a look at User:Redmarkviolinist/List of Mistakes. Infringes on personal privacy. Not something I'd ever think of doing again. ṜedMarkViolinist^{Drop me a line} 17:45, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Optional question from the skomorokh

5. As you have had two unsuccessful requests for adminship, it might be illuminating to examine the issues raised therein. So I have two questions to ask of you, which you may decline to answer if you wish:

5a. Could you give your assessment of why your previous requests failed?

The very first nomination of myself was just dumb, whereas I had only about 500 edits, and no experience. The second nomination, I feel that I probably had still far from enough experience, but the comments that were addressed were much more illuminating than the first request.

5b. In what way do you think you have addressed the concerns raised in those discussions?

The main issue that the second one failed was because I rush when I work too much. I have improved much since that request. My CSD nominations are not as rushed, and I don't just tag any article with whatever tag. I have significantly improved (in my opinion) since these rushed requests. Also, I have a much better understanding of policy than I did. ṜedMarkViolinist^{Drop me a line} 17:45, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Optional question from Epbr123

6. What mistakes did you make with this edit?

Wow. I don't even know what happened there. That was a large mistake. It was vandalism and should have been removed. ṜedMarkViolinist^{Drop me a line} 17:27, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Optional question from DiverseMentality

7. Is there any circumstance in which you would delete a page despite a Hangon tag?

A:

Optional questions from Aitias

8. What would your personal standards be on granting and removing rollback?

A.

9. Under what circumstances may a non-free photograph of a living person be used on Wikipedia?

A.

10. An IP vandalises a page. You revert the vandalism and give the IP a final warning on its talk page. After that the IP vandalises your userpage. Summarising, the IP was sufficiently warned and vandalised (your userpage) after a final warning. Would you block the IP yourself or rather report it to WP:AIV? Respectively, would you consider blocking the IP yourself a conflict of interests?

A.

11. Under what circumstances, if any, would you block a user without any warnings?

A.

Optional question from Kaiwhakahaere

12. You placed a cleanup tag on Chief Royal Engineer. It is a very short article, so why didn't you clean it up while you were there?

A.

General comments

• See Redmarkviolinist's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool. For the edit count, see the talk page.

RfAs for this user:

• Requests for adminship/Redmarkviolinist
• Requests for adminship/Redmarkviolinist 2
• Requests for adminship/Redmarkviolinist 3

• Links for Redmarkviolinist: Redmarkviolinist (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/Redmarkviolinist before commenting.

Discussion

Support

1. Moral support I can see your commitment and desire to do more for Wikipedia .Please do not demotivated by the opposes .You are kind and helpful towards new users and are prepared to help them.Please try admin coaching.Good luck.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 20:40, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
2. Support 4,500 edits is close to my minimum for an admin candidate, but you've a clean block log and diverse activities here. I've skimmed through your contributions back to June, most of the articles you've thought worthy of deletion are now redlinks, and looking carefully at a couple that aren't they were rescued or otherwise borderline. I enjoyed reading Battle of Marion, (glad to see you are actually building an encyclopaedia) and couldn't find anything you said that was incivil - even when stressed. You have my trust. ϢereSpielChequers 22:20, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
3. Support I am not doing any "wrong queue" jokes here, because I feel the candidate is getting a raw deal and there's nothing funny about that. The candidate's content creation skills are highly impressive, which is a big plus in my book. His commitment to the project and to working with people appears to be in order, and his willingness to help redesign user pages shows someone who knows how to help others. The fact the candidate has the ability to acknowledge error shows a mature demeanor. Everybody makes mistakes, but only the intelligent people learn from them and move on to do better. The clean block record is impressive, too. And let's also not (pardon the pun) kid ourselves -- the candidate's age is clearly cited on his User Page and I am sure that's turning some people off. As far as I am concerned, Redmarkviolinist is in tune. Ecoleetage (talk) 22:45, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
4. I see him as quite experienced in various areas of the encyclopedia and am unconvinced by the opposition. Master&Expert (Talk) 23:32, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
5. Support. Age is not an issue for me as long as you can act responsibly. Good luck, Malinaccier (talk) 23:49, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
6. He's not going to destroy the databases or crash the servers or overthrow Jimbo Wales as far as I can tell (though the last perhaps is not a bad thing). Nousernamesleft (talk) 23:57, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
7. Utmost Support My encounters with him has been very pleasant. He is willing to accept critizism, and is very helpful. Good luck on your RfA! Leujohn ^(talk)
8. Weak support: Everyone makes mistakes, but yours aren't numerous enough for me to oppose. Your edit count is near the minimum for me to support, but I don't see any reason no deny you the bit. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 15:37, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
9. Support as candidate has never been blocked and has a creative user page.--A Nobody^{My talk} 19:21, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

   A creative what?! Garden. 20:40, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

10. Support; I don't see any decent reasons to oppose. Admins don't have to be good at writing content or editing images. Stifle (talk) 10:23, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Oppose

1. I have serious doubts about your judgment and your ability to communicate and respond to queries. As an admin you will have to respond to queries regarding your actions from irate editors. That you ignored two requests on your talkpage to remove an outdated userbox strikes me as odd; in the end someone had to remove it for you. That was indicative for me of a user who wants power, who wants titles and rewards.struck, wrong tone, not entirely what I meant to say: comment was more about acquiring status and not doing the work that that status entails. Your gaming of the last tag and assess drive for MILHIST, where you didn't accurately or properly assess articles in order to gain the title of highest number of articles assessed, seemed to me to be once again indicative. I note that you have listed it as a mistake, but at the time you were extremely unresponsive and I don't feel that you have learned from it enough. I really do think your edits to the encyclopedia are valuable, I respect your content contributions and all the recent tagging for milhist, I just don't think you have the right skills to be an administrator at the time. My gut feeling is that you are not ready. Regards. Woody (talk) 18:40, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

   First, about the requests, when I got back from the weekend, I had 3 messages on my talk page. I read over the suggestion, I was going to do it, but I got distracted both times, something I do need to work on quite a bit. I already stated on my list of mistakes, I didn't know that articles had to be tagged for task forces. Yes, I have learned from that, because if you check my recent contribs I have shown that I know how to tag for task forces. Take a look here: [1]. ṜedMarkViolinist^{Drop me a line} 18:53, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

   I had a look, hence my comment thanking you for your recent tagging. It is not that you didn't know, that is perfectly acceptable, it is how you responded when alerted to it. You did nothing as far as I recall and made little or no attempt to respond to concerns presented to you. The userbox thing simply reaffirmed that in my mind. Admins need the ability to communicate and admit when they are wrong, I don't think you can do that. Woody (talk) 18:58, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

   Note: I have struck some of my above oppose due to the very negative tone. I have re-read it and it doesn't portray the feelings that I wanted to get across. I really don't want to be too harsh as I do see you Redmarkviolinist as a valuable editor, just not yet ready for adminship in my opinion. Regards. Woody (talk) 23:35, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

2. Oppose - Unsure that candidate is ready for adminship, also per Woody (partly, I don't agree with all of it though). I'm keeping this vague so as not to cause pileon, regards — neuro^(talk) 19:38, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
3. Oppose I just don't see the need. Sorry. America69 (talk) #:19:49, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

   "The need"? Ironholds (talk) 20:19, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

   For the tools, probably; it's a common RfA trope. Whether the objection is a strong, valid one is disputed; see WP:NONEED for one view. 68.248.226.213 (talk) 22:19, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

   Yes, I meant the tools. America69 (talk) 23:38, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

    Bureaucrat note: I am striking off this oppose by America69. This is not a valid oppose till the America69 provides an objective reasoning. =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:22, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

   This is bad precident. I'm sorry, we have never stricken somebody's !vote because they didn't provide reasoning, I vehemently oppose starting now. Next thing you will end up with others striking !votes that they disagree with. The 'crats job is to weigh the strength of argument when closing, not during the RfA. Thus, I am being bold and reverting your striking of the !vote.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 16:20, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

4. Oppose: I see a pattern of issues which indicates this editor lacks the maturity to be an admin. Saying this, I want to be crystal clear that I do not oppose admin candidates who are under 18. The issue here is not age, but maturity on the Wiki. Hiberniantears (talk) 20:24, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
5. Oppose I have similar doubts to Woody about your judgment – in particular, your tendency to hasty decision-making – and concerns about your inability to engage with the consequences of those decisions. My impression, which may be entirely wrong, is that you are attracted by the status which various wikipedian roles confer and easily deterred by the hard work that accompanies them. I am sorry to have to oppose in these terms but I believe this nomination is way too premature. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 20:34, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
6. Oppose - as Hiberniantears said, user lacks of maturity. macy 22:17, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
7. Oppose I think you lack the consistency and moderation that Administrators require. X MarX the Spot (talk) 22:23, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
8. Oppose Have seen some shaky decision making and rushed decisions. Some of the opposes above say it well, but I don't think you are ready right now, maybe in awhile with a number of good edits and better decisions. --Banime (talk) 23:58, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
9. Oppose - Roger Davies and X MarX the Spot describe exactly what I feel when I go through your contributions and discussions. Sorry.    SIS  00:08, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
10. Oppose - Sorry mate, but I do not believe you are yet ready to be an admin. As others gave expressed above, I think many of your decisions are rushed and you have not yet learnt from your mistakes. For instance, even though it is on your "list of mistakes", you recently quick failed a GAN due to its length even though it was comprehensive, which is what matters. Also, your comments above stating you get easily distracted concerns me. Abraham, B.S. (talk) 00:28, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
11. Oppose This is probably the first time I've ever responded to an rfa but I have to agree with Woody that your skills in assessing articles have been very sketchy in my observance. The recent assessment on Japanese World War II destroyers shows that you really have a lot to learn about assessments. That and a couple of really strange GAR's. Not knowing how to correctly assess articles relates to adminship in the sense that if you don't have a grip on assessment protocols then giving you the admin tools isn't going to be any better. --Brad (talk) 00:47, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

    Hello Brad. I hope you don't feel like I'm hassling you, I was wondering what you meant by his assessment abilities. Japanese World War II destroyers has never been to GAN (created just over a month or so ago) and I'm not sure what "couple of really strange GAR's" you are referring to. Master&Expert (Talk) 06:09, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

    Whoops, sorry. Confused candidate with the one below. Master&Expert (Talk) 07:19, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

12. Regretful Oppose, I do believe that this user wouldn't do anything deliberately malicious, but there are too many shaky and questionable judgement calls in your recent past. Keep editing, do some good work, and you should be a good candidate in the future. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 05:11, 15 November 2008 (UTC).
13. Oppose per Woody, Roger, Abraham and Brad. I think you need more time to show that you understand all the responsibilities that comes with +sysop. -MBK₀₀₄ 05:56, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
14. Oppose - Mainly per Woody's argument, but also due to a number of GA Reviews I've seen you make that were very poorly done - and you've continued to review articles poorly despite several editors asking you about it and to improve. Skinny87 (talk) 08:08, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
15. Oppose - I think there's a need for the candidate to demonstrate the level of maturity required in an administrator, and that maturity must be demonstrated over a long-ish period of time. Nick (talk) 09:29, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
16. Oppose - Per the arguments brought forward by Woody, Roger, Abraham, & Skinny. Though your editing enthusiasm is incredible (of which I am very glad to see), your ability to make difficult judgement calls needs to improve significantly (and this is something that admins are often required to do). Kudos to you for your enthusiasm, but this nomination is premature. Cam ^(Chat) 19:42, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
17. Oppose - your formatting here and here is wrong, and other editors have to come along and fix it. Your picture here shows bad composition and lighting, and you didn't point the camera at the actual flower. You nominated it as a featured picture without knowing what species it was, and it looks like the FPC discussion is going to fail. No offense, but you need supervision; you're not ready to be a supervisor. - Richard Cavell (talk) 00:14, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

    If I'm understanding correctly, you're opposing partially because his image contained bad composition? –Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 01:27, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

    I guess his photography skills are lacking, but I'm not opposing him for that. He nominated an image for Featured Picture status when it ought to have been obvious to him that the image was not suitable. I don't work in images, generally, but I can see straight away that the image should not have been nominated. - Richard Cavell (talk) 01:52, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

     Bureaucrat note: Richard, I will have to reign in your oppose. I see no co-relation between a badly focussed image and adminship. Suitability is subjective, more so if it's a photograph. And the deletion reason he provided is not out of line under any circumstances. There's no need to faulting him for minor issues. Even after years of being here, I still struggle with some of the processes to get something nominated, especially the first time. Allow people to make mistakes and let them learn from these mistakes, do not chastise people for making harmless mistakes. If you can provide any further proof that the editor has goofed up again, please bring it to the community notice. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:46, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

    Nichalp, I am deeply, deeply offended that you have struck my vote in an RfA without adding something to my talk page or otherwise attempting to discuss it with me. You have undermined my authority as an administrator among these editors by doing so. You have not addressed the first sentence of my oppose !vote. May I !vote again? - Richard Cavell (talk) 02:58, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

    Richard, you have no such thing as "authority" - you have the trust of the community, but no authority over that community. You (and I) are nothing more than editors amongst editors here. Nick (talk) 08:50, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

    I acknowledge that I don't have authority of the type that you refer to. But I think that for an administrator to have his !vote struck undermines that administrator, and for the bureaucrat to do that means that something is very seriously wrong. I certainly was not expecting this type of response to my !vote, and this indicates that there is something seriously wrong with the way that I have behaved during this RfA - ie, that I have lost the trust of the community, I will resign as an administrator. I strike my !vote and apologize. - Richard Cavell (talk) 09:05, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

    Isn't it normal practice for 'crats to discount (or give low weight to) !votes they don't think are based on sound arguments, and only to strike comments that are clearly out of line? Richard's argument about the picture - that it demonstrated a lack of knowledge of the FPC process - is certainly one that I can picture people disagreeing with strongly, but it doesn't seem anywhere near improper or disruptive enough to warrant striking. Nichalp, could you explain why you think the comment is invalid rather than just a poor argument if that is the case? Or have I misunderstood the circumstances under which !votes are usually struck? Olaf Davis | Talk 10:35, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

    1. This is bad precident. I'm sorry, we have never stricken somebody's !vote because they didn't provide reasoning or because another person disagreed with the reasoning, I vehemently oppose starting now. Next thing you will end up with others striking !votes that they disagree with. The 'crats job is to weigh the strength of argument when closing, not during the RfA. Thus, I am being bold and reverting Nichap's striking of the !vote. I would have no problem with a note advising the !voter that you disagree with the stated position, this is routine. But to discount it in this manner, I agree with Richard, it sends the wrong message in a very public manner.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 16:20, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

18. Oppose Sorry, but Question 6 really said what i thought. I mean sure, we all make mistakes, but seriously, why would you tag the loch ness monster page? He was doing vandalism. You would revert it, not tag it. Sorry again. G ! B B i 3^{I4m 733t0rz} 00:28, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
19. Oppose - With more experience you'll learn CSD, like every other Wikitask, is not a race. Please mind your edits, as you may have the best of intentions of helping the project, but if another editor has to fix your error, then instead of helping... it becomes counterproductive. Just relax, spend some more time editing, you are on the right track. Don't worry about this process too much, each RfA teaches you something new.  :) - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ guestbook ♦ contribs} 05:50, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
20. Oppose needs to work no judgment. — JoJo • Talk • 19:12, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
21. Oppose - per Lankievel and my viewings of him. Sorry Redmark, but while you do seem to have some clue, your GA failure of Boston campaign along with your reviews of Belhalla's noms is mostly why I am opposing. GA reviews, even if they are failures, are supposed to help the main editor(s) of the article improve it! One sentence failures with no clarification of "why" they failed do not help. Again, my apoligies, —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 20:07, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
22. Oppose Far too capricious for an admin. Judgement and maturity are issues. Erik the Red 2 ~~~~ 21:29, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
23. Oppose Maturity is not a problem to me as long as you have good judgment, but you don't seem to have enough of that yet (I'm not saying you don't have, just not enough...) I don't find your answers to the questions very satisfactory either. I think you'll need a bit more experience. Chamal ^talk 13:31, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Neutral for now. I'd love to support, but the oppose from woody stays my hand (although I disagree with its tone). Ironholds (talk) 20:19, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
2. Neutral Can't make up my mind. I'd really rather not oppose, but I don't think I can support. Sam ^Blab 21:53, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
3. Neutral — As with above, I really can't decide. I think it's great that the candidate has made plenty of mainspace contributions, and knows what it takes to write an article. However, I'm going to have to agree with some of the points raised in the Oppose section regarding maturity. (Not related to age in the least) –Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 03:17, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

   Neutral: I'm not that happy with this RfA, but I'm in pretty much the same situation as Shapiros10. Anyway, I'll wait and see the others' ideas and the answers to the remaining questions. (Switched to oppose) Chamal ^talk 14:47, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

4. Neutral You are an alright candidate, one that would normally lead me to support per my RfA criteria, but many of the issues the opposing people raised do resonate within me. Because of this, I'm going to have to make an exception to my criteria and say, for this RfA at least, I am firmly undecided (contradiction anyone?). Keep up the good work, make another 500-1000 good edits, couple more months of good experience and you will get in. Please do not take this, or any of the opposes for that matter, personally. Foxy Loxy ^Pounce! 04:09, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
5. Neutral. Redmarkviolinist has fairly good contributions, but does not yet demonstrate a good enough understanding of policy. I don't regard the "loch ness monster" page as "vandalism", but rather as a test page from an immature editor. Axl ¤ [Talk] 17:55, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
6. Sorry buddy - I'm going to have to stay in the "not-voting-and-proud" camp (that's neutral to you and me) because I do'nt feel you're quite ready yet. To be honest, you strike me as powerhungry. Sorry mate. Garden. 20:42, 16 November 2008 (UTC)