Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jamesofur

Jamesofur

Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (34/4/2); Scheduled to end 09:29, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Nomination

Jamesofur (talk · contribs) – I am presenting Jamesofur to the community for consideration as an administrator on the English Wikipedia.

James' contributions to articles has been on the minor side, however he is a prolific worker on various WMF projects:

• Admin at the Simple English Wikipedia
• Global SysOp and Global Rollbacker (verify)
• CheckUser at Simple English Wikipedia
• Rollbacker at Commons, the Simple English Wiktionary, the Simple English Wikiquote, the Simple English Wikibooks and here on the English Wikipedia (verify)
• Accountcreator here on the English Wikipedia
• OTRS volunteer (in fact most of James' most recent contributions have been in this area)

On English Wikipedia, James is a coordinator for Wikipedia:Abuse response, though recently his role there has been more helping other people in the project rather than doing it himself, although he still deals with big cases.

I feel that James would benefit from admin tools here on the English Wikipedia - they will help with his OTRS and abuse work here, and I am sure that he will not misuse the tools - I would trust him with them without hesitation.

It is with pleasure that I present him to you for your consideration. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 08:40, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: Thank you Steve, I've thought about this for a very long time and I think I'm ready. I know I'm not the normal candidate, I do a ridiculously small amount of article work (not a single page created in the en main space) and do work across a wide spectrum of projects. While I may not trust myself with article work I love this project and the work of the Foundation and do whatever I can to make it better for both the readers and the editors who make it great. I do this wherever I can though I tend to focus on vandalism and spam related issues cross-wiki. I feel that having sysop here could help me and the community and would be able to lend my assistance with blocks and deletions (I am able to monitor AiV almost constantly on IRC) and my OTRS work much easier. I should also make sure that people know (for transparencies sake) that after thinking about it I did ask ArbCom to vet me for en CU. Obviously that's a long shot even if I get the nomination but this could obviously effect it and it wouldn't be fair not to make it known. James (T|C) 09:19, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

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

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

A: My biggest focus will be (as it is xwiki) with abuse and vandalism as well as with OTRS undeletions/deleted revisions. I used to try and leave tickets with deleted images or articles for local sysops but I've given up on that and resorted to repeated prodding on IRC to find someone to help me out. Fairly simple tickets sitting around for 14+ days is just ridiculous. I also am on IRC (and in CVN channels) constantly while doing work and will likely be fairly active on AIV, available for anyone who needs help on IRC and helping to work through backlogs a couple hours a week. I do anticipate working at SPI as well. While I don't clerk there my work as a CU at Simple Wikipedia and as a Global Sysop have me chasing vandals that often hit En as well and I already work with En CUs frequently on IRC and the checkuser-l mailing list as well as the rest of the SPI team on their IRC channel. I anticipate that the extent of my involvement will grow as I become someone able to do more work myself.James (T|C) 11:10, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

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

A: I think my best contributions have been relatively "wiki gnomeish". I don't do a lot of article work, I can't claim an FA or for that matter even a DYK but I do work wherever I find it whether it is little reference changes, removal of BLP violations, spelling mistakes or something more complex trying to support the project as a whole and those who are able to do the article work I respect so much. While more complex most of my other work is relatively "gnomish" with a focus on the abuse and vandalism that can disrupt the encyclopedia and the WMF projects in general. I've worked with Abuse Response quite a bit as one of the coordinators (and the only one remaining active) and even as I work in other areas have continued to assist and mentor the new project recruits we have now as they work to gather information on the abuse and contact ISPs. I also work on the OTRS permissions and copyright violation queues, on commons and here on En, verifying the permission (or lack of) given and making sure it gets updated on wiki (and bothering as many admins as possible in the process to make sure I get what I need :) ). My other big project on en is working to help trace and stop vandals and spammers, both those who attack just En and (even more often because of my other hats) those that go cross wiki. James (T|C) 11:10, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

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: I can't think of any conflicts over editing (part of this has of course been my lack of article editing). I've had conflicts with vandals of course who were not happy about being blocked (I've had my fair share of emailed death threats but par for the course especially with long term sockers). While I've had disagreements over policy (the global sysops vote was a long one, or you can see me really rant about Steward Inactivity for an example) I don't think I've had anything that has really gotten to the point that you would consider a conflict. James (T|C) 11:10, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Questions from delirious & lost ☯

4. As someone who works with m:OTRS what is your opinion of the No Legal Threats policy (WP:NLT) and its application? How do feel about the less often cited counter-essay Don't overlook legal threats (WP:DOLT)?

A: WP:DOLT has it right. The NLT policy is good overall, it is impossible to have a good editing atmosphere with someone running around spitting angry and threating to sue everyone. That being said while some people may make threats for issues that we do not accept (some just want full control over everything on the web about them for example) the vast majority of them have legitimate concerns (usually BLP related) and it doesn't matter who is saying the problems or how they are saying it the article problems MUST be addressed. If you stay calm and fix the legitimate issues you are likely to stave off a block completely or at the very least need a much shorter one. Like any block an NLT block is meant to be preventative, not punishment, and if they see understanding from people and they see they are being listened too and the issues fixed they are very likely to calm down and no longer be a problem that warrants a block. James (T|C) 11:10, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

5. What do you think shows the best totality of your behaviour as an editor? borrowed from Tznkai [1]

A: Ahhk picking 1 thing to show what I do is NOT easy... Part of me would want to say my own essay. It explains alot of my feelings in general, why not try to do something and try to help out and allow people to try and help. I would probably say if you want to pick 1 article just to show how I operate you can pick a recent example at an Australian Idol article of all things. I went to the article because I got an email from someone trying to give permission for text to go on it (I'm still waiting for a response to a question which is why you don't see an edit regarding that yet) and when I read through it I found glaring (at least to me) BLP issues. That's tends to be how I end up operating, I work on the things that interest me such as OTRS or vandalism investigations (I absolutely love copyright law, and helping others, hence my work on permissions) but then when I come across something else for any reason I try to make sure it gets done. This doesn't always mean I do it myself (I constantly poke around for someone on IRC to help me out, especially if they are better at something then I am) but I'm not satisfied until it's fixed or at least on it's way to being fixed and in capable hands. James (T|C) 12:42, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

General comments

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

---

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

Discussion

• Stats have been placed on talk page -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 09:29, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
• Basic Cross-Wiki stats have been placed on the talk page. I will do more indepth analysis later today, hopefully. Out of the 9075 edits which James has made cross-wiki, 45% of them are to the English Wikipedia, 23% to the Simple English Wikipedia and 14% at meta wiki -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 13:53, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Support

1. Support as nominator -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 09:29, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
2. Tim Song (talk) 09:33, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
3. Support - fantastic contributor to many Wikimedia projects. James easily has the knowledge to perform en.wiki admin tasks and I can see they would be extremely beneficial in undertaking OTRS actions. A great candidate. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 09:33, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
4. Hell yes. Has sufficient clue and has done a great job with sysop tools in various wikis. Dammit, I hate edit conflicts. Pmlineditor ∞ 09:35, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
5. Definitely. BigDom 10:10, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
6. Obvious. --Mkativerata (talk) 10:11, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
7. Support per nom.--White Shadows ^{you're breaking up} 10:37, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
8. Even with the admin highlighter installed, this is 100% true. I thought you were an admin... (X! · talk)  · @485  ·  10:37, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
9. Aye. No-brainer. Black Kite (t) (c) 10:40, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
10. Seems fine by me. Stifle (talk) 10:48, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
11. Despite his colorful activities on 'other' wikis, I'll still support .. hey it's your business! ;D -- œ^™ 10:56, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

    And who are you to talk? Jafeluv (talk) 16:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

12. Support - trustworthy editor. PhilKnight (talk) 11:10, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
13. Support Clearly very experienced in behind-the-scenes work, in areas where we really need it. Not bothered by lack of article creation - the "You can't understand the admin job unless you create lots of articles yourself" argument has always seemed obviously false to me. -- Boing! said Zebedee 11:29, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
14. A great editor for sure. I was a tiny bit concerned with your answer to 4, but I trust you have the sense to block only when necessary. If you do end up blocking someone for legal threats when they feel that an article about them is bad, remember that writing variants of {{blocked subject}} is an appropriate way to start communication. NW (Talk) 11:50, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

    Aye I agree, perhaps I should look over it again because that doesn't sound like what I wanted to say lol. My main thinking is that by talking to them and responding to the legitimate problems (which they usually are) you can usually avoid a block completely and if you end up making one it will end up being much shorter. Just blocking at the start can easily just make things worse and make them angrier for no reason at all. James (T|C) 11:57, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

    Yep, I agree completely with that approach. In my day job I work on a commercial web site with a large online community, and from time to time we get angry threats of legal action over some community-added content (sometimes actually via lawyers). But just showing willingness to listen and take their concerns seriously almost always disarms them and turns it into a civil and friendly discussion. -- Boing! said Zebedee 12:48, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

15. Support - Not the most active of editors on en-wiki, but certainly does enough to put sysop tools to use. Given the substantial level of privileges he's been demonstrably trusted with elsewhere in the WMF projects, I struggle to think of any downside to giving him adminship here too - he's been around enough to know our local policies. ~ mazca ^talk 12:45, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
16. Support No issues here. ~NERDYSCIENCEDUDE (✉ message • changes) 13:04, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
17. Strong support Already privileged as Checkuser on a sister project, and has shown nothing to cause any concern at all here. More admins are very welcome. Aiken ♫ 13:08, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
18. Support Trusted user across multiple projects. Chance of inverting and becoming a damaging influence to this project? Zero. So what if he "only" has 3000 edits? --Hammersoft (talk) 13:08, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
19. Support Whilst I usually have concerns over editors with so little content contribution, in this specific inst I believe that the candidate has amply demonstrated their ability to consider policies and guidelines with care - I trust their judgement, and their cross-wiki contribs show a considerable amount of common sense, a rare commodity indeed. Coupled with their knowledge of legal matters, I see this as a definite benefit to the project. They wrote, "I absolutely love copyright law, and helping others" - I find the former mind-boggling, but extremely valuable, and I can vouch for the latter from their work in account creation. I trust the candidate, in particular his open attitudes, knowing when to be bold, and knowing when to ask people with more experience in specific areas - so indeed, why not?  Chzz  ►  13:20, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
20. Support par reaction to my comment \ question in the neutral section. No doubt that James will use the tools correctly, and his answer reflect a clear need for them as well. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 13:32, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
21. Support James is a very experienced and trustworthy contributor. I have no doubt that he would use the tools wisely, as he has elsewhere. Rje (talk) 13:39, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
22. Support I have the opportunity to work with James on OTRS and on the wider wikimedia scale, and I think his becoming a sysop would be a benefit to the project. In my experience, he has the temperament to deal with the pressures of being an admin and the integrity not to abuse the tools. Good Luck! -- Avi (talk) 13:41, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
23. meets User:Dlohcierekim/On_RfA. OTRS and admin elsewhere's offset low recent edit count. In fact, focus will be on OTRS. Dlohcierekim 13:45, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
24. Support – a very helpful and knowledgeable user elsewhere, so why not here. – B.hotep •talk• 13:52, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
25. Support - credible. Nifky^{^} 13:57, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
26. Was going to sit this one out because I know some will oppose on principles of what might be called fairness or consistency of standards, and I don't want to take a position on that general issue, but it seems to me that there's zero chance that this particular candidate will go off the rails. Enthusiastic support. - Dank (push to talk) 14:52, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

    Wow. Well said. Dlohcierekim 14:54, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

27. Support May not meet my typical criteria for RFAs, but I have no reason to believe this candidate will misuse the tools, for fairly obvious reasons. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 14:55, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
28. Will candidate break en.wikipedia with extra bits? Clearly No. Will candidate use extra bits to help en.wikipedia? Clearly Yes. Pedro :  Chat  15:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
29. Good dude, will make a good admin. --The Evil IP address (talk) 15:22, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
30. Support Definitely. Already has global sysop anyhow.  fetchcomms☛ 15:32, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
31. Just to note that the global sysop proposal that passed is not as far-reaching as the one that was originally proposed; if my understanding is correct, a global sysop account means nothing on most wikis with more than 10 active administrators, so he doesn't have any special admin-related rights here or on any other of the thirty or so biggest WMF wikis. However that doesn't mean it's any position to get or to retain, and I think that the combination of his work on other wikis and the work he's done here is enough to convince me he's ready for the job. —Soap— 16:12, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

    My understanding is that wikipedias can "opt out" from global sysop rights - for example, the larger wikipedias with sufficient admins will do so. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 16:38, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

32. Pedro compressed my thoughts perfectly (except he used the shift key twice too much). Jafeluv (talk) 16:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
33. Support No reason to oppose. --The High Fin Sperm Whale 16:43, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
34. Support Trusted. <debate/> I don't see how 3500 edits over three years can be considered as marginal involvement. Pascal.Tesson (talk) 16:46, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose - While I have no doubt that are responsible, you don't have nearly enough involvement here for me to justify giving you the tools. You are definitely a valued member of the project at large, but from your record I don't see a solid interest in building the English Wikipedia. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 10:57, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

   He has over 3000 edits here in a varied number of tasks. Please tell me the RfA standards haven't changed so drastically over the years. Look at the quality of his edits across many Wikimedia projects (including a substantial effort on this encyclopedia) - I honestly don't follow this oppose reason at all. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 11:40, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

   Ryan, they obviously have risen drastically otherwise we wouldn't have so many opposes. Aiken ♫ 13:05, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

   When I first started participating in RFA (Spring 2006), I adopted 3,000/3 months. Some saw this as too high. Certainly I opposed a candidate who was actually ready at the time, but I was into "setting high standards." Since that time, I've seen opposes for "< a year." People have made arguments for 6,000/6months based on the expansion of the admin role since Spring 2006. I still hold with 3,000/3 and advice waiting till 6,000/6. One cannot apply litmus tests, however. Some editors with >20,000 edits will never have a clue, others with < 3,000 are quite clueful. I look for indications in the candidates edits and talkpages. My RFA subpage has more info that some may find interesting. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 14:00, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

   In short, edit counting is a poor way to evaluate a candidate. Aiken ♫ 14:04, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

   When James and I were discussing this before we started the RfA, he was aware that this may be raised as an objection. While I obviously disagree with it, Kraftlos is certainly entitled to this opinion. May I suggest that no further discussion of this oppose is required (or future oppositions using the same reasoning)? -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 14:19, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

2. Oppose lack of contribution to the English Wikipedia. lack of content contributions. While I appreciate this user has contributed substantially to other Wikipedias, they only have 424 edits here in the last 6 months, of which only 97 are to the mainspace. Most of this users edits were using Twinkle to revert vandalism in August 2009. -Atmoz (talk) 13:55, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

   Quick question. I have less than 500 edits in the last year. Should I resign as an admin? Pascal.Tesson (talk) 16:47, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

3. Oppose Evidently does an admirable job at the other places but there's not enough been done, in either quantity (especially lately) or quality (especially content), to take a mop here. But I hope he sticks around and gets stuck in. Plutonium27 (talk) 14:59, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
4. Oppose Lack of involvement at the English wikipedia. Does surely a good job at other projects, but I would prefer someone with a heavier involvement at en wiki. Pantherskin (talk) 15:27, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

   You might prefer someone with a heavier involvement here but this is not an election where we are asked to choose one candidate over the others. Pascal.Tesson (talk) 16:38, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Looks okay, and I'm not one of the "must have written audited content" crowd, but I can't bring myself to support someone who's never created a mainspace page.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 11:51, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

   Neutral for now First and foremost i do not doubt your contributions to the project as a whole, as they are quite impressive. I especially like your resemblance to a swiss army knife when it comes to working in different sections and your privileges on other projects demonstrate your a highly capable editor who can be trusted with the extra bit. In other words: I have no doubt whatsoever that you can be trusted.

   However, i'm currently neutral as it would seem that you haven't been editing the English wikipedia until 2009/08 (Save for 10 edits made over the course of 2.5 years). It would seem that a total of 3,551 were made on this wiki, with 2,232 of these edits are made in august 09 alone. Most of the recent months show just around 100 edits, with a majority of your edits being automated vandalism patrol (I never oppose someone on the basis of automated edits, but 3k vandalism patrol edits is relatively low when taken into perspective).

   Seeing the amount of edits on this wiki every month here i would ask: How many times would you require / use administrative privileges every month on this particular wiki, and is this amount of such a magnitude that this couldn't be handled trough regular channels? Edit count doesn't reflect IRC activity or deleted contributions so i presume i may be basing myself upon a fairly irrelevant number in this case. Even so i would like some confirmation that i am; And i assume that other editors might be asking the same "Editcount" question :) Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 12:23, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

   I wouldn't say they are irrelevant numbers you are basing it on and I can't say for sure but I do have a feeling that my use would be fairly extensive and quickly. It would definitely make things alot easier and quicker, at least half if not more of the "Permission Received" and similar more recent edits have included page or file restores which required me to try and find someone on IRC to help with (which can either be very quick, or take hours). It would also allow me to check what I'm asking to be restored more easily, a week or two ago I had a ticket that gave permission for something entirely different then what was on the page they mentioned and since then I've had to have sysops explain or pastebin the deleted edits for me to look at which obviously took even more time (and I swear is one of the reasons people don't respond as quickly ;) )

   The other thing is IRC as you mentioned. I am basically on IRC 24/7. Obviously some of that time I'm afk at class/meetings/work but basically all my time in my room whether studying/watching tv/reading or whatnot is spent at my computer even if I'm not actively editing Wikipedia. I already do this both so that I can watch the cvn channels and be pinged if someone needs me and it is an easy matter to have my computer ping when an AiV report comes in which is probably exactly what I'll set up. While I obviously do a lot of work on other wikis the phrase "all roads lead to Rome" fits here really well, almost all roads really do lead to or through En and so I end up looking here for SOMETHING almost regardless of what I'm doing whether it's a CU investigation or my senior papers. :) Oh, and just a note on the automated edits (huggle) and the obvious one month jump in edits from that. I stopped using Huggle mostly because I felt the templates didn't really do it for me (wanted to be a bit more personal) it was also about the same time that I branched out more to projects that seemed to be less served which is why it led to an immediate drop here :). James (T|C) 12:41, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

   Excellent response, and i can sympathize with he fact that most of the OTRS work will lead back to the English Wikipedia due to its popularity. I think you addressed my only concern ("A real need for the tools") most adequately, thus i will travel up a few lines, towards the support area :). Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 13:32, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

2. Neutral Well, I really don't like the fact that Jamesofur's had less than five thousand edits, it's good to see an user with rollback stopping vandals and never being blocked. But the edit count just doesn't meet my edit count requirement (five thousand), sorry. --Andromedabluesphere440 (talk) 14:40, 15 April 2010 (UTC)