User:Olaf Davis/Coaching

I spend a reasonable proportion of my time here looking through WP:DELT and commenting on entries where a) I have an opinion and b) it looks like I might make a difference. I also sometimes check Category:Candidates for speedy deletion for improperly tagged articles, since I believe they have the potential to do a lot of harm. After a number of months I reckon I have a reasonable understanding of deletion policy, so I thought I'd have a go at training for adminship so I can help out more in those areas.

Starting off
Welcome! Before we get started with the coaching program, I'd like you to answer a few questions:


 * Why do you want adminship?
 * Among the various aspects of Wikipedia I've dabbled in, the deletion process is one I've found interesting and believe I have a reasonable understanding of. I feel like it would be interesting and useful to the project to be able to work on the actual deletion itself. Olaf Davis (talk) 12:51, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * If promoted to administrator, what work do you intend to do?
 * Primarily deletion work, mainly AfD but probably some CSD and PROD too. I'd also consider volunteering for the Volunteer response team after a while, though that's not something I'd be doing directly 'with the tools' as it were. Olaf Davis (talk) 12:51, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * One other thing: I used to be very active at DYK. Although I haven't edited there in months, I may return at some point at work my way back up to a level of familiarity necessary to contribute to the admin side of the project. I'm not certain about that, though. Olaf Davis (talk) 12:57, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * What do you want to achieve with the admin coaching process over the next few months?
 * Several things. First, an assessment of my work in admin-y areas. No-one's told me my deletion work is terrible but it'd be nice to check I'm not making any glaring errors. I could just jump into an RfA but it seems prudent to get one person's opinion before asking the whole community to invest its time ploughing through my work. Second, to get some training in the actual 'admin' side of the process, since no amount of !voting at AfDs is quite the same as knowing how to close one. And third, although I'm not currently planning to work much in areas like blocking or page protection a successful RfA would give me the ability to do so, and it seems reasonable that I should learn a little of the basics before asking to be given that ability. Olaf Davis (talk) 12:51, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Cheers, – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 17:55, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

A bit more!
Good! Now, answer the following and we'll be good to go (I just want to get an idea of your experience so I know what to focus on during this coaching program).

Have you ever: – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 21:49, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * !voted in an RFA?
 * Yep.
 * requested a page to be protected at WP:RfPP?
 * No.
 * had an editor review?
 * No.
 * used automated tools/.js tools such as Twinkle, AWB, or Huggle?
 * Just Twinkle - and only for CSD, XfD and PRODding as far as I can recall.
 * contributed to an XFD?
 * Yes.
 * answered a question at the help desk?
 * Yes.
 * uploaded an image?
 * Yes - one here and two or three on Commons.
 * mediated or otherwise acted as a neutral party in a dispute?
 * I think I've replied to a WP:3O request at some point, but not many. I seem to recall that one of the parties lost interest and it ended up as just me disagreeing with the other.
 * participated in discussion in WP:AN or WP:ANI?
 * No.
 * taken a look at meta philosophies? I'm interested in knowing what philosophies you believe you adhere to.
 * I've read at least some of it before - I'll have another look and see how I'd classify myself.
 * helped out on the Account Creation Toolserver Interface?
 * No.
 * requested and received/been denied for Rollback?
 * No.
 * had a previous RFA?
 * No.
 * Written a good article?
 * No, though I unsuccessfully nominated an article I wrote.
 * Created any featured content?
 * No.
 * Written a DYK?
 * Yes, as well as doing other bits of work at that project.

Philosophies
I suppose I'm a mild Eventualist (though I agree with "Articles should be in as good condition as possible when they are live" - who wouldn't? - and disagree with "Edits should only be reverted if they are unsalvageable or at least hard to salvage"), I'm a moderate Statusquoist, and a WikiPacifist as defined here. On most of the others I'm somewhere in the middle, though that no doubt partly rests on the wording chosen in each case - for example, it's hard to disagree with many of the 'Communityism' statements, even for the most vehemently anti-MySpace editor.

On that last point: I'm inclined to suspect that thoughtless treatment of inexperienced new editors is one of the biggest problems facing Wikipedia, so I suppose I'm a Double-Plus-Strong-Anti-BITEist or whatever you want to call that. Olaf Davis (talk) 19:48, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Deletion
Alright, thanks. Now we'll go into the area of deletion, which is usually where you spend most of your time as an admin. First, we'll review WP:AFDs, then I'll post some PROD, CSD, and IAR-deletion exercises:

AfDs
AfD is an important part of Wikipedia's maintenance, and is critical for keeping out non-notable and problematic pages. As an admin, you'll likely end up closing some AfDs here and there. A crucial part of closing discussions properly is being able to correctly evaluate a debate and interpret consensus. However, as you probably know, not all "votes" should be taken with the same amount of consideration. Here are a few examples of hypothetical posts, and I want you to identify the weaknesses and strengths of each argument. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 20:02, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete: If we deleted my article, this should go too! --JealousEditor (talk) 20:02, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Classic WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS here. Arguing from precedent can be reasonable if it takes the line of "the community has demonstrated with these previous AfDs that articles like this are not considered notable", but that takes much more thought than just saying "we deleted X so we should delete Y".


 * Delete: I haven't looked for sources, but many others say that the subject is not notable. Hence I vote, "delete". --BandwagonVoter (talk) 20:02, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * AfD is not a direct vote. Assuming (s)he means many others in this AfD, this comment is basically useless: the closing admin can see what the others said and judge whether it's reasonable without BandwagonVoter's "me too". And AfD is not an argument from authority: no matter who says it's non-notable, the only real test is whether sources are forthcoming. Even if Jimbo states confidently that he can't find sources there's a chance he missed something - so why not take a minute to check yourself if you're going to comment at all?


 * Keep: I checked Google and there's lots of reliable sources. --GoogleFanatic (talk) 20:02, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Although the dreaded Google test is not a great measure of notability, the editor's saying they found reliable sources there which is good. But why not link to them in the AfD? Other editors will want to see the sources to be convinced of their reliability, and that they provide significant coverage. Glancing down a list of Google hits and seeing several NYT articles isn't good enough if they only mention the subject in passing, and from GoogleFanatic's comment we can't tell whether they did that or actually read the sources.


 * Keep per reliable sources that I incorporated into this article. --Sofixit (talk) 20:02, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * One of the good outcomes of AfDs is that editors searching for sources can add them to the article as it progresses, so on the face of it this is great. However, Sofixit hasn't said what sources. Is the coverage significant? And just how reliable are they? It would take a look at the article to see whether they stand up to scrutiny. Also, there are situations in which an article can be deleted despite a prevalence of sources - WP:BLP1E, for example.


 * Delete - Violates WP:BLP, should be deleted. --RandomBLPguy 20:02, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Bonus points for citing a specific policy rather than a vague 'common sense' argument. But WP:BLP is a big policy - what part does it violate? And why? A more helpful comment would have been to give specific aspects of the article which violate a particular part of the policy, and maybe an explanation of why the problem can't be solved simply by removing the offending paragraphs. The latter is especially true given the number of articles sent to AfD on what're essentially clean-up problems, and often BLP issues are exactly that.

Closing discussions
Perfect! Really good answers. Now, here are a few hypothetical AfDs that are hypothetically expired. Explain how you would go about closing these:


 * 1) User:Olaf Davis/Coaching/AfD1
 * This is a tough one. Neither side has really engaged with the other at all: if RogueInclusionist had said "keep, he's got significant coverage in this newspaper and so is notable" it would be a solid refutation, but 'mentioned'? Then on the other hand, none of the deleters have commented either way on the link's usefulness as a source, or even on the prospect of any sources at all: all three are essentially WP:JNN to some degree. With that in mind I'd go for a relist or no consensus close.
 * 1) User:Olaf Davis/Coaching/AfD2
 * 'Potentially libelous content' makes one more inclined to err towards deletion, but no-one has explained why the whole page needs to be deleted instead of relevant sections being blanked or trimmed. First of all I'd have a look at the page and see if it would meet CSD as an attack page: if not I'd probably go for a relist at first. If that didn't produce any more useful discussion then my instinct would lean to deletion - however, if I'm hypothetically a newly-promoted admin I'd probably check with someone more experienced first. Olaf Davis (talk) 19:36, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) User:Olaf Davis/Coaching/AfD3
 * We have a neutral, a LIKEr, a POINT-maker, all of which carry no weight whatsoever. 'Notable' on its own isn't much of an argument either, and carries next to no weight. So the delete !vote is the only really sensible one - but a single comment near the end of the discussion could hardly be called a consensus. I'd relist the debate in the hope that someone either concurs with the delete !vote or disputes it with sources. If no more helpful comments are forthcoming after relisting I'd probably close as no consensus.
 * 1) User:Olaf Davis/Coaching/AfD4
 * No comments besides the nominator's in four weeks seems a clear case of no consensus to me. In fact WP:RELIST advises against relisting more than twice so this 'Juliancolton' chap clearly needs immediate de-sysopping with as much drama as possible.

– Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 01:33, 22 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Hmm, some of these are tricky. Might take me a while to answer them. Olaf Davis (talk) 14:35, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Here's an answer for all four: since none of them have an obvious strong consensus either way, my first reaction would probably be to approach the AfD as a !voter instead of a closing admin. If I turned up any sources, or convinced myself that there weren't any, I'd pitch in with my !vote and hope I'd made the job easier for the next admin to come by. (I'd be especially tempted to this on no. 1, which really has no solid arguments at present.) Alternatively I might watchlist them and wait for someone more experienced to come along, then maybe discuss their close with them afterwards to get an idea of what they were thinking.
 * But since you want to see my thinking in closing debates, I'll also give a shot at deciding on each one. Olaf Davis (talk) 19:40, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * All very reasonable outcomes, thanks! – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 21:40, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

CSD
I nicked the following off of Malinaccier's coaching system.

Please explain how you would handle the following pages listed at CAT:CSD: – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 21:40, 26 October 2009 (UTC)


 * User:Malinaccier/CSD/Law High School broadcasting
 * Declined: "won the national high school news anchor competition" is a claim of importance. I'd do a little formatting before checking the source (and any other which I can find) to see whether coverage is significant enough to grant notability; if not I might AfD it.
 * User:Malinaccier/CSD/Sam's Soda Shoppe
 * "Best soda emporium" in a local paper isn't much of a claim of importance so the A7's probably justified; still, I'd delete it under G11 instead since that's indisputably applicable.
 * User:Malinaccier/CSD/Steve Q. Smith
 * The refs constitute a claim of importance, so I'd decline the A7. I'd then have a closer look at them: is this person independently notable or more suitable to merger into Foundation for Wellness and Recuperation? Is "after that, the foundation went bankrupt" causally related to his actions, or an attempt to smear by association? And can I find a proper source for the 12 million dollars claim?
 * User:Malinaccier/CSD/Jon Starks
 * Declined per the reference. Unless it (or another I can find) is specifically about him and not his companies though, I'd then look into AfD, redirect or merger as appropriate. And either way I'd remove the 'epic journey' stuff and do some formatting, of course.
 * User:Malinaccier/CSD/Getting Away With It
 * Unlikely as it seems that a chart-topping group would appear on Wikipedia with an article so well designed to push a new page patroller's buttons, the ref makes the claim reasonable so it's not A7-worthy. Cleanup time!
 * User:Malinaccier/CSD/Marketingandbusinessonline.com
 * A review in the NYT saves it from A7, I reckon. From the current article and refs my feeling is that this will turn out to be non-notable, but I'd have to check. Tips and Trivia would have to go, of course.

PRODs
Cool. Now we'll look into PRODs, which are fairly straightforward. Somebody proposes an article for deletion, and if it goes uncontested for seven days, it may be summarily nuked (unless of course the rationale is complete nonsense, at which point you're free to excercise discretion). I'm not sure if there's really much we need to do regarding PRODs, but let me know if you need anything cleared up. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 16:00, 6 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Probably not, no. Further up and further in! Olaf Davis (talk) 20:55, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

IAR deletions
Alright then. Now, in what situation would you delete an article out-of-process? Is it acceptable to do so? – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 01:14, 12 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I can't think of any situation in which I'd do so, or advise another admin to do so. All the obvious cases where there'd be no time for risk of causing harm - attack pages, copyright violations and so on - are covered by CSD. Although there are articles which are clearly unsuitable for the encyclopaedia and have no chance in hell of surviving AfD but which don't meet any CSD guideline, I think in the case of deletion it's always best to stick to the bright line of policy. The harm of having a silly article kept for a week is much less than the potential harm of BITING and drama-filled DRVs which out-of-process deletion could breed. Olaf Davis (talk) 22:43, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

WP:NEWT
I participated in WP:NEWT relatively early on in its lifetime. Since it's now generated a fair amount of controversy - and opposes at at least one RfA I've seen - I thought it would be a good idea to let you know. If you have any thoughts on it (for example, would you have second thoughts about supporting an RfA of a NEWT participant?) I'd be glad to hear them. Olaf Davis (talk) 19:19, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I participated briefly in that project because I thought it would be a good idea to give it a shot. However, I have noticed the objections to the project, and tend to agree with them. I don't think it's a big deal, though; it was started in good-faith and any subsequent activity was also made with good intentions, so it's worth opposing over. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 01:49, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's fairly similar to my thoughts. Thought it wouldn't be a deal-breaker but it's best to be as open as possible up front.
 * So, when's the next lesson? :) Olaf Davis (talk) 11:39, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Page protection
Alrighty then. My favorite part of the sysop tools happens to be the protection function. Page protection requires quite a bit of judgment, as it's among the only areas where you have to excercise your own discretion unguided by strict policies or consensus. When I examine an WP:RFPP request, I look for a couple things: the level of vandalism, the level of recent vandalism, the level of vandalism in relation to the level of good-faith edits, and the speed at which vandals are being reverted. As I said, page protection doesn't have a lot of relevant policies to go by, so if you deem it appropriate to apply protection, you have to determine 1) whether "full protection" or "semi protection" is needed, and 2) how long to set the duration at. With that said, here's a set of examples. Explain how you would respond to these (hypothetical) requests at RFPP:

Ok, here goes. In all cases of course I'd look at the general situation - for example, I might set the bar slightly lower on BLP articles, and in deciding whether to apply semi-protection I'd take into account whether any IP users have been making lots of constructive edits to the article recently. Olaf Davis (talk) 12:43, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Page has been vandalized 4–5 times a day for the last few weeks.
 * Blocking rather than protection is probably the answer, unless these are all from different IPs/new accounts attracted to the article by recent media coverage in which case a temporary semi-protect would be in order.
 * 1) Edit war, ongoing for the last 10 days.
 * If it's just a couple of users I'd probably warn/block them and try to persuade them to sit down and discuss their dispute instead. If it's a larger group then temporary full protection long enough to get them onto the talk page might be justified.
 * 1) Edit war on and off again for the last few weeks; no warring in the last 2 days.
 * No point in protecting when there's a lull in the warring.
 * Good, although I'd suggest taking some sort of action towards resoling the more broad dispute so warring doesn't resume. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 02:33, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Page has been vandalized 15 times in the last 2 days; no major vandalism activity in previous few days.
 * I'd look more closely at the vandalism for a pattern. Is this one or two users who it'd be better to block? If it's a load of different IPs which seem to be hitting the page due to recent media attention or the like then a short period of semi-protection might be justified. I don't think seven edits a day would justify full protection though.
 * 1) Page has been fully protected for 1 month; discussion is ongoing, but someone requests page unprotection.
 * Assuming it was protected over an edit war I'd look over the discussion since then and see whether it's moved towards constructive argument rather than squabbling; if so I'd probably unprotect and keep an eye on the page to see if it descends to warring again. I might also ask the original protecting admin for their thoughts.
 * 1) User talk of banned user, keeps abusing unblock template.
 * Appropriate response is to instead disable the user from editing their talk page. Protection would be called for only if the abuse was being done through socks.
 * 1) User talk of temporarily blocked user; abuses unblock template.
 * As above, making sure to set the expiry to coincide with the block expiry. That's assuming that they've abused it multiple times; the first time a warning would suffice.
 * 1) Page has been repeatedly recreated, despite consensus to delete from recent AfD.
 * If it's a single editor doing the recreations then warning them would be the first step, followed if necessary with a block; otherwise salt the page.
 * 1) A user from a dynamic IP keeps vandalizing a page, multiple times a day for the last week.
 * I imagine semi-protection could be justified here, as preferable to rangeblocking (especially if the IP is varying over a wide range) - I'm not 100% sure though.
 * Indeed. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 02:33, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Socks of a banned user keep coming to an article to push POV. They have edited at least 20 times in the last 2 weeks.
 * I'd imagine it would be best to block each new sock as it arrives and hope that the user gives up. If that doesn't help then semi-protection might be appropriate.
 * 1) Dozens of vandalism edits by 3–4 accounts for the last 2 weeks. None are currently blocked.
 * Only 3-4 accounts isn't worth protecting over, so warn/block the accounts as appropriate.
 * Yep. It would be worth adding that page to your watchlist, though, to watch for any continued disruptive editing. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 02:33, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
 * And done. A lot of these I'm unsure about, so I'd appreciate your thoughts where my answers are wrong or even just debatable. Olaf Davis (talk) 21:39, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Mostly excellent. I've added a couple notes to the above responses, but otherwise your answers are fine. Anything in particular you would like to work on next? – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 02:33, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow, I expected to get at least something wrong there! Thanks for your comments, they both make good sense. As for the next step: looking through the list of admin powers the only remaining one I think I'm at all likely to use is the block tool, so I should probably get at least a rudimentary introduction to that. Olaf Davis (talk) 09:51, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Blocking
Blocks are usually the most divisive and contentious actions an administrator will make, and for very good reason. A block should only be applied to directly prevent disruption to the encyclopedia, and should ideally be avoided whenever possible. With that aside, here are a few various practices. You know the drill! – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 14:09, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Practices
I'll post more later if you get bored :) – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 14:09, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) A new account creates an attack page and commits another disruptive edit, though has received only a level-2 warning.
 * Assuming these are the only edits and the second edit is unambiguously deliberate disruption, this looks like a single-purpose disruptive account which can be blocked without warning. If there's any reasonable doubt about the second edit though I'd err on the side of caution and go with an escalated warning.
 * 1) A shared IP address from a school vandalizes sporadically every couple days for the past month. However, there are multiple constructive contribs as well.
 * Although this doesn't explicitly say how much vandalism from a school IP is necessary to outweigh the negative consequences of such a block, my feeling is that this falls significantly below the line: 'every couple of days' is not a big deal. Also tag with SharedIPEDU if it's not already present.
 * 1) An IP has received multiple warnings for vandalism, yet there's doubt as to whether the edits are truly bad-faith.
 * Vandalism must be unambiguous pretty much by definition, and blocking is intended as a last resort. I'd instead look into the edits more deeply, perhaps discussing them with the user and suggesting ways to avoid being viewed as a vandal if they are acting in good faith. Additionally, assuming this is a static IP clearly belonging to a single user then the fact that it's an IP and not a username would make no difference to my decision.
 * 1) An established admin goes off attacking another editor and is reported to WQA noticeboard.
 * This depends a lot on the situation. If the attack was sufficiently out of character that I strongly suspected a compromised account I might block it as a precaution, then bring it up at ANI and on the user's talk (and set some fish aside in case I'm wrong). But if it's not that drastic, entering discussion and attempting to calm the user down would be more appropriate. Although I'm not really familiar with WQA, it seems to be designed more for that than for serious infractions requiring blocks, which I'd probably forward to ANI for extra pairs of eyes before deciding that a block on an 'established' admin was necessary.
 * 1) A new user is reported to UAA for having the name "AlabamaOil", yet has not made any promotional-type changes.
 * The username policy forbids company names regardless of editing habits, so a block would be appropriate (assuming this is in fact a company name and not just a couple of words strung together). I'd also drop the user a message with the block template explaining COI, how to get a username change, and that their contributions would be welcome as long as they can avoid promotional editing.
 * Actually, it's generally considered better to wait until the user edits before making a call. While "AlabamaOil" is indeed likely a promotional username, AGF is particularly important when dealing with new contributors. I'd probably mark such a name with at UAA. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 17:32, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah, ok. That was actually something which I thought was a weakness of the policy, so it's nice to discover I was wrong! Olaf Davis (talk) 18:14, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. Olaf Davis (talk) 11:50, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Everything else is terrific. Nice work! Now... – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 17:32, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

For something different
Your work so far has been excellent, so I'll take a break from boring deletions and blocks for now to focus on something completely different. For the next few practices, I'll ask some random wiki-related questions that don't really have a right or wrong answer, but will hopefully help to initiate discussions on various wiki-philosophies. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 17:32, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Is this Wikipedia?

 * What does this image symbolize? Do you agree with it?  Why or why not?

It's intended to symbolise - well, Wikipedia; specifically some of its many weaknesses. Rather than directly saying whether I agree with it or not I'll talk a little about each element, which hopefully will give a fuller answer.

Olaf Davis (talk) 19:53, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Bush is teh gay lol is obviously about vandalism, which is one of Wikipedia's most famous problems if not necessarily its most drastic. It's a popular view that clicking on any Wikipedia article will give you even chances of a serious piece or a childish bit of vandalism, my experience is quite different: discounting stuff I spot in my watchlist or similar I almost never randomly stumble across vandalism, which is a testament to the many anti-vandalism patrollers. The pieces of vandalism famously inspired by Stephen Fucking Colbert are a subset of the above, but also remind us that Wikipedia doesn't exist in a vacuum and its huge visibility can contribute to problems in itself.
 * Disinformation inserted by the CIA is probably a reference to the USA Congressional staff edits to Wikipedia and other similar occurrences. Again, this is the sort of thing which shows up very visibly in the news - and of course is a serious concern when it does happen - but as a proportion of Wikipedia's content it's minuscule.
 * Urban legends, unfunny memes, Pokemon, ...in popular culture and the ever-present MySpace bands are all essentially about the phenomenon of overly detailed coverage of 'trival' topics which the open nature of Wikipedia (and its presence on the internet) attracts. There's something of a spectrum here: to some extent it's just that we have thousands of people writing articles on Pokemon which previous 'serious' reference works wouldn't, and that's fine. The Five Pillars describe Wikipedia as including 'elements of general and specialized encyclopedias', so having material from a 'video-game encyclopedia' isn't a bad thing. The problem arises when this crosses the often-fuzzy border into covering things which no serious reference work 'ought' to cover - we used to have individual articles on each of hundreds of Pokemon, for instance, which was taking things rather too far when there's nothing of real-world significance to say about them. Unfortunately these borderline subjects ave a habit of raising unpleasant squabbles, and the number of man-hours spent keeping everyone and his brother's MySpace band off the site doesn't really bear thinking about.
 * Lording it over Britannica is a bit odd - although there's stuff like this and this I've never seen this presented as a major criticism of Wikipedia.
 * Libel refers to one of the most serious problems in Wikipedia articles: violation of our BLP policy (and it's particularly topical given that this week's Signpost covers a BLP vandal being sued on behalf of one of their victims). With most other problems in Wikipedia content, the worst that can happen is that a free website is slightly less useful than it could have been otherwise - is that really a big deal? In this case though we can do actual, 'real life' damage to innocent people. So, how bad a problem is it? Although I have little experience with BLP issues, that which I do leads me to think that on the whole we're doing a reasonable job of squashing attempts to include outright libelous material. Vague or unsourced statements in BLPs which aren't obvious and direct libel, though, are depressingly common.
 * Bitter political infighting is different from many of the others in that it's a problem mainly invisible to Wikipedia's readership (although news articles about editors being scared off by it are coming out). One doesn't need to spend long as an editor, though, to get a glimpse of some pretty savage and pointless arguments. When it goes on between established editors it's harmful and a shame, but when it spills over into alienating new members I feel that its potential to cut off our 'life-blood' of new contributors makes it one of the most serious problems facing us.
 * Some village in the U.S. is partly about borderline notability again, but also references the systemic bias which Wikipedia cannot help but fall prey to. It's something which serves to hurt our credibility - particularly among the very demographics which we'd need to recruit to solve the problem! However, for the most part it's a 'lack of benefit' rather than something which actively does harm.
 * Finally, useful stuff is a clear violation of WP:USEFUL and should therefore be disregarded completely.

The RfA
I've seen no issues so far after several months of work, and I think you're more than ready to wield the mop now. I think we've covered most of the major aspects of adminship as well. So, do you have any plans for an RfA? – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 20:41, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, there's a part of me that feels convinced I'm not yet ready - but then again I'm not sure that part will ever be completely satisfied. It does mean a lot to have the vote of confidence from an editor whose opinion I respect as much as yours. So if you do think I'm ready (and in particular if you don't think my lack of Good/Featured content will be too great a sticking point - I'm sure you're far more up-to-date on the community's standards than I) then yes, I suppose I'll throw my hat into the ring. Olaf Davis (talk) 22:12, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * More than ready I think! Requests for adminship/Olaf Davis, best of luck. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 00:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)