User:Akradecki/Admin coaching


 * This is for Esperanza's admin coaching of

Process: Material is placed and developed here. There may be exercises, things to read, questions posed and answers given, etc. Use the talk page for more ephemeral stuff like process related questions,

Intros
Place introductions here please.

My name is Larry Pieniazek. I've been doing things online for well over 20 years now, and am a keen student of communities and how they do things. There's some bio stuff on my talk page... I live in Michigan (in the US) with my wife and 2 kids and I like LEGO. I've been an administrator in other communities in the past. I have been an administrator here at en-wikipedia since mid May 2006. I am also an admin on commons, and I'm standing for Steward on Meta. As it said in my RFA questions especially #1, my focus is on things other than vandal fighting. I've been trying my hand at just about everything that admins do, though. In real life I work for IBM as a system architect (figuring out how software projects and systems can best be organised and carried out). I think Wikipedia is the neatest and most important thing that has been done on the internet yet! (I mostly cribbed this from a previous coaching page... still true) ++Lar: t/c 03:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm from Scotland although I'm currently editing from California. I'm still quite a new admin, having been promoted in late August. I'm a regular vandal fighter. I'm not sure where the main focus of my work is these days; it is undergoing change. I do a lot of spelling corrections and the like, and I am currently working on trying to resolve conflict over date linking (see User:Guinnog/date linking). I want to get more involved in policy and the community here. I also need to remind myself to keep writing and improving articles, and not to get stuck just doing the tidying up. I also regularly welcome new editors to the project. I currently have 6803 pages on my watchlist and have made over 25 000 edits. My interests include aviation (especially crashes), trains, Scottish football, punk music and fiction. Like Lar, I am still 100% convinced that Wikipedia is a great project. --Guinnog 17:41, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Agenda/Checklist/what you want out of this
List of things we should try to achieve: (let's jointly develop this list together but here are a few things to think about, we three will restructure this as needed)
 * Why do you want to be an admin? You should have a clear understanding of this. It's not all wine and roses, it's hard work... so why?
 * What does an admin do and is it interesting to you? what areas are most interesting? what areas are least?
 * Some reading to get you started is often helpful.
 * exercises - I have seen exercises and will be reusing some of them, things on deletion, on blocking, etc. For the most part it's not that there is a right answer, it's that you are comfortable with why you came up with the answer. Adminship is a combination of the need to respond really quickly sometimes, and the need to be very deliberate and thoughtful sometimes. Part of being a good admin in my view is knowing which is which. How do you tell?

Admin Reading list
To get you started... Here are a few things to read and think about from Lar (Guinnog may add more)

Out of left field:
 * User:NoSeptember/The_NoSeptember_Admin_Project is an amazing array of resources on adminship. In that array I would look through a lot of things... browse around! but here is User:NoSeptember/RfA_talk_topical_archive_index a good list of things for further reading
 * User:CatherineMunro one of my favorite essays, period. Think about what it means, think about adminship as merely one thing, one tool, one process that helps us do the overall goal. How does it fit?
 * User:Mindspillage/admin one of my favorite essays on adminship. Could you be this good of an admin? I'm not sure I myself am, but it is something to strive for.
 * User:Essjay/Neutrality Another take on how to be a good admin. Neutrality, impartiality, fairness. These are so important! Look within yourself and see if you really think you can do things this way. If not, perhaps adminship is not right for you (generic you, no comment on anyone in particular intended)
 * It is really a shame that this page was deleted, it's really very good. I can retrieve the text and mail it to you for review if you decide you want to read it and think about what it says. It's broad... it gives you a lot to think about, and it touches on a lot of themes... ++Lar: t/c 15:52, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Retrieving that would be great. Feel free to either email it to me or to post it as a subpage here. If it needs a more permanent home, I've been contemplating a subpage from my user page for wikiphilosophy essays that get generated through this coaching process. As the original Essjay essay artlce was GFDL, I don't see a problem reloading onto wikipedia. Akradecki 19:36, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
 * see User:Akradecki/Admin coaching/Essjay neutrality ... That stance is not necessarily for everyone, but it's a thought provoking read. ++Lar: t/c 02:01, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Just a quick note...I've read this, but want to think about it for a while before responding. I don't think I agree with it all, but it is indeed thought provoking. Akradecki 05:10, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Tip of the day/July 8, 2006 What does this rule really mean? What is the spirit, not the letter? How do you enforce spirit when trolls and trouble makers are going to want the letter, and then want to twist it around on you and wikilawyer?

Think about some of those and see if any of them color your thinking... You may have read some of them already. You don't necessarily have to read every single one in the entire admin project (although if you want to, you'll be much better informed). What I am interested in is a discussion on what one or two of them meant to you, whether you agree or disagree, and why, and so forth. These can be a springboard for good discussion. ++Lar: t/c 03:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Reading list discussion

 * Tip of the day/July 8, 2006 - Ok, I thought I'd start with this one. So far, as a regular editor, the closest thing I got to this was 2 in one day, here and here. The other guy was insistent in his edit, and instead of pushing it, we discussed it a bit and I decided that, though I still think it's better the way I saw it, it really wasn't worth arguing over. Some of the things I've learned that might be applied in the future, both with my edits and if getting involved in a dispute between 2 other editors:
 * Have patience - unless the subject of particular edit is blatant vandalism or somehow genuinely harms the article in one way or another, is it really necessary to settle it in the next two minutes or next two edits? Usually not, and a little patience can lead to heads cooling off, a better perspective and maybe some discussion. Even if the edit is a bad one, sometimes it's better to let it stand, and use it as a means of generating a discussion that (hopefully) will result in a consensus of editors which then will provide the direction and ultimate resolution of the conflict.
 * Pick you battles, and in doing so, ask oneself, "Am I doing this because I want it my way, or is this something that genuinely is going to contribute to WP being a better encyclopedia?"
 * Law of the third alternative - sometimes when two people are arguing, they so focus on their own position that they lose mental flexability, and don't realize that there may be a third alternative that works out better than the two in question. Akradecki 04:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Good answers especially that last point! Follow up... as an admin you will sometimes find situations where someone is gaming the system a bit... doing 3 reverts, waiting 24 hours, then doing 3 more, over and over and over. When pushed they will claim they are not breaking the letter of the rule. Do you let it be? Counsel? Block? Why or why not? Discuss. (and I'll tell you what I've done and why it has been controversial and not uniformly well received) ++Lar: t/c 09:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * User:CatherineMunro
 * Excellent essay. For me, what makes it excellant is that it touches on an aspect of the project that doesn't get discussed much amongst editors, but something that is always in the back of my mind as I work here: despite it being free, Wikipedia has customers. In the quality assurance world, a "customer" is defined as anyone who receives a service, regardlss of whether they pay for it or not. The whole point of wikipedia is to provide information to those who are looking for it. It's not a social club nor a writers' guild. Too often editors here get caught up in the tasks of the moment and forget this as a focus. I once came across a quote, don't remember where, but it went something like this: "I sought for information on a subject in a lot of places, finally found it on Wikipedia, only to find that what I had looked for so hard was up for deletion." We have customers, most of whom are not registered users...and we need to remember that whatever we do, as editors and/or admins, whether fixing a minor typo, adding a reference or removing unref'd POV material, we're doing it to make the encyclopedia a better place to find the information that the world is looking for. Akradecki 20:08, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
 * YES! Spot on. See also User:Anthere/Values "For any article you vote to delete, vote one to keep, or improve one which is on the border of being thrown in the bin." She wrote that well before becoming chair of the WMF. You will find, if you become an admin, that your article production may decline, unless you are willing to devote more time... remember that the project needs more than just article production, but also remember that we are all here to write an encyclopedia, everything we do must further that goal. ++Lar: t/c 01:25, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I've been having a bit of a shift in thought, where article production isn't as important to me as it once was...article qualtiy is becoming more of an emphasis. I think it hit home when one of my articles was promoted to GA status, and I got involved in helping to take another to GA status. Not that this directly has admin implications, other than I've come to understand how important quality is to an encyclopedia project that wants to be as professional as possible. It's that pursuit of quality that is becoming a driving force, and that does, in my estimation, have direct impact in so many things an admin does. If you have that as a goal, and determine that all your decisions will be made with that goal in mind, I think the results will speak for themselves. Akradecki 14:51, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I was referring more to the difference between working in articlespace and working in other spaces (project, wikipedia, portal, user talk, etc) than between new and improved articles, but yes... however can you elaborate on the pursuit of quality as it relates to admin actions? We can never be perfect admins. And in fact, some administrative actions may not be "fair" or "just" or even... sometimes not even correct. Can you handle being wrong sometimes? can you do what is needful to make things right? can you act in the best interests of the wiki even if it means that someone's feelings will be hurt? These are hard questions with no right answers... how do they relate to quality? ++Lar: t/c 01:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Can I be wrong? I can, and have! Hopefully I can recover with a decent amount of grace and dignity. I once screwed up and violated 3RR...my solution was to self report, revert and apologize. Dang if I didn't get a barnstar out of it...I never expected that from screwing up. My work now, and if I become an admin, is completely open to input and criticism, and I have no problem admitting I've made a mistake. Can I hurt someone's feelings? As a last resort, I can put WP's needs first, but hopefully I can do it diplomatically enough to try to avoid people's feelings getting hurt. And how does all the admin stuff relate to quality? Quality as a philosophy (expressed, for instance, in the Total Quality Management or TQM approach) is something that works best when undergirds the personal approaches of people who participate in projects like this. Quality is the foundation for decision making. When you're involved in conflict resolution, and you try to take the focus off egos and put it back on how to build the best possible encyclopedia, that's Quality. When you put customer service (in our case, making the information needed by our readers most easily accessible to them) first, that's Quality. As Admins hold a position of trust within the community, Quality is especially important because it should embody how they meet those higher levels of responsibility that this trust entails. I've come across a couple of different admins, in different situations, that I was horrified with how they handled things. One was clearly edit warring, and had the termidity to lecture me on WP:Consensus when he was acting blantantly contrary to that guidline...only afterwards did I realize that he was an admin, and so was quite apalled that he flaunted the guidelines like that. His actions were a great lesson to me that someone in that position is looked to to provide quality service to the community. Yes, we all make mistakes, newbies as well as old timers. Making mistakes is different than blatantly putting ego above the good of the project. The real test isn't whether someone makes mistakes, it's what they do after the mistake has been made. In real life, I've been closely connected for a number of years to the flight test world. There, mistakes aren't covered up, they aren't explained away, they are studied and learned from. The concept of "Lessons Learned" is the heart of flight test, and has direct implications in personal life, and in projects like this. Anyway, enough rambling. As you can see, I'm somewhat passionate about how the philosophies of TQM and associated quality management systems can have a direct and beneficial result in everything we do. Akradecki 23:38, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Thought provoking questions

 * What do you think of the statement "Civility blocks never work"? True? False? Sometimes? Why or why not? ++Lar: t/c 15:49, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
 * If you mean that blocks will never cause someone to suddenly become civil, that's probably true in most cases, because a block isn't gonna change a person's personality, but I'd hesitate to say all cases. There are people in this world who sometimes need a 2x4 upside the head in order to "get it". I believe it's a tool that needs to be used very carefully, but it's a tool that is there and which should be used if actually needed. From theory to practicality, the next question you might ask would be would I use such a tool? Initially, on my own, no. I'm well aware that there's a learning curve for all new admins, and were I faced with an editor who persistently was uncivil, and (and this is crucial) that incivility was genuinely becoming disruptive to the project, and that editor had been approached repeatedly on the problem without resolution, my first step would be to consult with another admin or two to ensure my judgement was valid.


 * There's also another angle to be considered in the statment you proposed...such blocks might not work to change a person's ways, but they could very well work for the overall benefit of the project in that removing someone who has genuinely become disruptive with incivility takes the focus off the person and their disruptions and allows everyone to get back to doing the real work of the project. Again, though, at this point in life, this isn't something I'd act alone on.


 * I'm quite aware of one high-profile RfC regarding a rather senior editor who's been accused of incivility, and the fallout that it's caused. I have to admit that I am concerned with what appears to be a double standard around here, where newbies are warned and sometimes sanctioned for incivility, but more senior folks who do the same thing are simply tolerated by the project. That being said, though, there is some toleration that has to take place. There's a particular editor that I come across quite frequently, and have even warned, who is generally uncivil to everyone around, but this hasn't risen to the level of disruption. I guess this partly goes back to one of my earlier statments: pick your battles carefully. Akradecki 18:46, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Exercises
A start at some...

You know.. coaching goes different ways for different people. Some people I want to see if they have the mechanics down. Exercises are good for that. But sometimes, in fact most of the time, I want to peer into the head of the person considering adminship, and decide for myself (or maybe help them decide for themselves)... do they want to do this thing? The exercises maybe check the mechanics, but cannot reveal the heart. So they don't always have a lot of value. I'm starting to conclude here already, based on a gut feeling, that you're going to fly through these exercises with no trouble, and that they aren't necessarily going to tell you or us much you or we don't already know. But let's do one and see... ++Lar: t/c 01:53, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

CSD exercises
These are cribbed from exercises used previously, so no fair looking in contribution history to find what the previous answers given were... (grin.. not that you would!) Pick any one you like and follow the instructions. I put them all in so you can choose any of them. Just try one, and if they are not adding value, that would be enough. The point is more to discuss why you feel how you feel about them then to get to the "right answer"... ++Lar: t/c 01:53, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

--- start cribbed part ---

Here are some articles that were really up for deletion. Take a look at them and say if you would have deleted them and why. A word of warning, if you are doing a google search, the 'answers' appear- so be careful if you want to do this properly :) Exercise created by EWS23 for admin coaching purposes. Petros471 20:17, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

''Okay, this is a test to make sure you understand the policies of speedy deletion. The following are actual cases that I have come across while clearing out CAT:CSD. Assume that the title of the page is everything following User:EWS23/CSD/. You are allowed to use any technique that you might usually use to assert notability (e.g.- Google), but you are not allowed to use Wikipedia in any way (you cannot see if the page still exists on Wikipedia, go through my deletion log to see if I deleted it, and any Google searches you do should use "Subject -Wikipedia" which is a good tool anyway to help eliminate Wikipedia mirrors).''

''Assume for this exercise that you are an administrator. View the page, but do not edit it (I plan on using these for multiple coachees). Then, return here and comment below the entry in question. Write whether you would delete the page or not. If you would, cite the specific criteria at WP:CSD that you would use to delete it. If you would not delete it, state why, and state what you would do to the page (simply remove the tag, redirect it somewhere else, keep it but remove certain information from it, etc.). Good luck! EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 20:59, 3 August 2006 (UTC)''

''P.S.- In real cases, you should ALWAYS check the page history before making a decision. Sometimes the page is a legitimate article that got vandalized, or page moved, etc. In this case, the page history won't tell you anything (I'm the only contributor), but remember that in real cases the page history is important. EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 21:05, 3 August 2006 (UTC)''

Halo 3 trailier

 * My first observation is that the title contains a mispelled word, followed by the fact that the text of the article is poorly constructed. However, there's a nugget of valid information present, but this isn't the place for it. I'd check Halo 3 to see if the article contained anything similar, merge if it didn't reformat to ref the MS spokesman, probably add a fact tag because this isn't really a proper ref, then delete the original because the title, since it includes a misspelling which is not likely to be included in a search. Akradecki 18:53, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Exactly so. This was, IIRC, almost exactly what was done with the real article. ++Lar: t/c 20:32, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Union Millwright

 * While there's no content here, there are 3 links, so first thing I did was to check them. All 3 are different pages on the same website. There's already a WP article Millwright, and that article already has an EL from the same website, so there's nothing of value to copy over. The term "Union Millright", however, does seem to be a valid search phrase, so instead of deleting, I'd convert this to a redirect to Millwright. I'd then follow up with the person who placed the CSD tag and let them know that this was the action taken, and that they could have done it themselves rather than CSDing it. Further, I'd provide a friendly bit about how, if things were a little different and redirecting wasn't appropirate, since this was a collection of links, empty would probably have been a better tag than nocontext. Akradecki 22:53, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Webs

 * Again, wrong tag, bio would probably have been better, as this is essentially about a person. That being said, there is no real assertion of notability here, and this borders on spam, so I'd have no problem just deleting it. Akradecki 22:56, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Neil Haverton Smith

 * Again, wrong CSD tag, but oh well. No genuine assertion of notability, clearly a kid messing around, I'd delete. Akradecki 22:57, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Fall Out Boy

 * Keep. This never should have been tagged for CSD. The article clearly meets notability requirements, ie, multiple albums, multiple awards, and the band members also have notability established by their own articles. Remove CSD tag and notify tagger politely that he might want to familiarize himself with our music notability standards. Akradecki 23:00, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Nathaniel Bar-Jonah

 * This one also is tagged incorrectly. Although the article, as it sits, barely asserts notability and is certainly unencyclopedic, a simple google search shows that this is indeed a notorious criminal, and there's plenty of verifiable sources. So, besides removing the CSD tag and dropping a note over at the tagger's talk page, if I had time, I'd replace the content with at least a stub's amount and a ref or two from my google search. It may not be my job to expand every article, but I can at least get it into the form of a legit stub that can later be expanded. Akradecki 23:06, 4 May 2007 (UTC)