Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/DavidLeighEllis

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

Withdrawn by candidate. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 23:26, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

DavidLeighEllis

Final (0/4/0); ended 23:36, 9 February 2014 (UTC) - Withdrawn by candidate -- JamesMoose (talk) 23:36, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Nomination

DavidLeighEllis (talk · contribs) – I first came across DavidLeighEllis at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. He is extremely active at AIV and UAA as well. From my limited interactions with him, he seems like he knows what he's doing and can be trusted with the mop. --Bigpoliticsfan (talk) 22:28, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:

I am honored to accept this nomination. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 22:46, 9 February 2014 (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: Blocking vandals, handling page protection requests, and closing AFDs in which the article is to be deleted.

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

A: I have travelled to Los Angeles to take File:CathedralOfOurLadyOfTheAngels.jpg, and to Sacramento for File:CathedralOfTheBlessedSacrament.jpg and File:CathedralOfTheBlessedSacrament2.jpg. Other photos I've taken for Wikipedia include File:StMaryoftheImmaculateConception.jpg, File:StJosephDusk.jpg, File:SantaClaraLibraryCropped.jpg, File:SantaClaraLibrary2.jpg, and File:SantaClaraLibrary3.jpg. I've reverted lots of vandalism and closed many AFDs as keep without, to the best of my knowledge, any of the closures being overturned. I've corrected lots of spelling errors, and added a bit of content to articles such as California rocket fuel [1] and Paracetamol [2]. I have extensively cleaned articles such as olanzapine and clozapine of unsourced content, and fixed many citations on Catholic teachings on sexual morality. I also added the section The intrinsic futility of activist editing to Wikipedia:Activist.

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: On 613 commandments, content that I added was reverted by another editor [3]. I found a second reliable source to cite my content, and restored it, after which the other user removed it again [4]. After a discussion on the talk page, a compromise version was worked out, which I added to the article [5]. My only mistake during this process was restoring the content once with the same source cited.

4. What mistakes have you made, and how have you learned from them?

A: I once reported a user on WP:UAA because a substring of his username contained an English language scatological expletive. I now gather that Wikipedia allows usernames which are legitimate in other languages, even if their English reading is unfortunate. If elected to adminship, I will not be responding to UAA requests. I also created template:uw-unwelcome as a way to respond to a few particularly noxious racist and anti-Semitic trolls. The consensus of the community was that such a strongly worded template was inappropriate, even when dealing with racist or anti-Semitic users.

General comments

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

---

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

Discussion

Support

Weak support - Recent issues such as this inappropriate UAA report are concerning, but he seems to be a good editor overall and I think he can handle the tools. --JamesMoose (talk) 23:01, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Moved to oppose after being made aware of talk/user page issues --JamesMoose (talk) 23:16, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Strong oppose Editor has a history of baiting and taunting others: see [6], [7], [8], [9], and this amongst many others. Replies on talk page indicate that they view feedback asking them to stop this atrocious behavior as a joke, ie [10], [11]. This is precisely the sort of behavior that we want to screen out of the admin candidate pool. VQuakr (talk) 23:04, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

   That is connected to the template:uw-unwelcome issue that I reported as a mistake in question 4, and is over six months old. I now understand that the community believes that even racist and anti-semitic users should be treated with politeness. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 23:07, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

   You mention it as reply to a question about a mistake, but say, The consensus of the community was that such a strongly worded template was inappropriate, even when dealing with racist or anti-Semitic users. Nowhere do you give any indication that you learned anything from it (ie, that you should have known it violated WP:BITE prior to receiving any feedback whatsoever), and your dismissive talk page replies imply quite the opposite. Meanwhile, you proceeded to do this more recently, and this, IMHO, exhibits a continuing eagerness to censor that disqualifies you from adminship. VQuakr (talk) 23:20, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

2. Oppose per VQuakr. While these may have been six months old, you've only been editing for 11 months, thus is still very recent.
3. Oppose The candidate is overeager and this has lead to a series of recent bad decisions. Examples include NAC of AfDs ahead of time (relevant sections on their talk: 1, 2, 3—haven't looked in archives). The above-mentioned UAA report, and comments made in this discussion, failing to get the point even after he was informed of the username's validity. Finally the candidate failed to take the advice on their talk page that this is too early a request (my interpretation would be a polite way of hinting an RfA is unlikely to pass due to these recent issues). benmoore 23:14, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
4. Oppose Per the issues mentioned above, unsuitable temperament for an administrator. --JamesMoose (talk) 23:16, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Neutral

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.