User:Ryan Norton/RFASomeday

Not running for RFA anytime soon, still have a lot of learning to do, just creating this and such since I have to somehow recount my 6 years of history here.

Nomination
–Self-Nom. I've been a wikipedian for nearly 6 years; if you were around at the time you'd know me by the username RN (I always wanted to use a realname per oldschool wiki style, but it wasn't very feasible back then due to my, at the time, massive edit count). I am a former meta and en administrator from nearly 5 years ago (first/last RFA), and came over from the Meatball and C2 wikis originally. After over a year of being an en administrator I resigned as I had some real-life issues that needed attending. Technically, I could have just stayed an administrator, but I didn't want someone randomly picking me and seeking help, only to find I was not there. Indeed, I ended up being relatively inactive (on the editing and administrative side, anyway) for over 4 years. Now, most people who I knew at the time are gone, and the community has changed quite drastically (there used to tons of projects related to just connecting with people, but they were eventually killed in the interest of focusing on the encyclopedia).

As mentioned, being a former administrator, technically I could just ask a bureaucrat for my bit to be restored, as it were. Indeed, I did do just that, but subtle things such as determining consensus changed quite a bit; I resigned again, deciding waiting a good period of time to learn once again how to determine consensus, and as per my statement to the bureaucrats I would go through the formal RFA process again. Neither resignation was under a "cloud" or any real controversy, and I certainly don't mean to waste anyone's time.

So, I'd like to be an administrator and help out where needed, once again. I have roughly 12,000 edits with decent "distribution", not much to brag about really. I'm a bold content editor first and foremost, not so much on article creation but rather I tend to make substantial edits to existing articles while also focusing on a particular article or two for featured or good status as well as commenting on FACs and such. While I tend to primarily edit computing topics, I've edited pretty much everything. When I was an administrator I never engaged in a wheel war, was the subject of arbcom/RFC/related, and took all complaints and administrative requests on my talk page very seriously. My outlook on things on my talk page is basically if someone took the time to complain about it, they are probably right unless I can prove otherwise.

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: Occasional administrative work, requests on my talkpage, and clearing any backlogs I'm familiar with. Previously, I pretty much did it all... at the time CSDs, AFDs, and RFM (request for moves/merges) were the real backlogs, especially the latter. Fun fact: the RFM page used to specify moves were determined by a majority vote (as opposed to consensus) and there was a rather determined editor who would revert until the end of time to keep it that way, so we had to try to close those debates while somehow keeping the current wording of the RFM page in mind; wasn't fun but someone had to do it. Glad that is over with now.


 * Then there is of course the usual administrator stuff like dealing with vandals and whatnot. If you check my history, you'll notice I'm not very block-heavy nor focused primarily on vandals unless there is a backlog in that area. I handle them just fine in my opinion, I just stuck mostly to backlogs, occasional CSDs, and content editing for the most part. Also, I often prefer more personalized messages in the case of vandals instead of templates, as my own personal goal is simply to get the person to talk; once that goal is reached, I believe you're 80% (made up statistic) of the way to making a real editor out of someone. I know the age-old 4 warning system, don't indef block ips without great consultation, and using common sense on whether 4 warnings are actually needed.


 * 2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
 * A: I've contributed to various featured and good articles, but I'll name 3 contrasts here:
 * Microsoft is the article I've worked the most on, and it's been quite the task keeping it featured with the increasing standards due to the subject. I probably could have wrote 20 good articles in the time I've spent on this.
 * DirectShow was a stub when I started on it and basically dumped everything I knew about it on there as per my routine cleanup of computed-related articles which I do periodically. The difference with this one is somehow it attracted a bunch of people, likely including the original designer of DirectShow, to turn it into one of the best resources for the obscure subject while still looking like an encyclopedia article.
 * Avigdor Miller was probably the strangest one, and it only took 3 edits. Was doing "undeletion patrol" (I.E. checking the deletion log for bad ones or good ones that simply needed a rewrite) one day and came across this one. Was a two sentence memorial, got deleted; then I did a quick sanity check, turned out the guy taped over a thousand torah-related stuff and even wrote some books and was influential in his area during his life. So, I wrote a short stub mentioning his books and such with a couple references and the rest is history (it was a Orthodox Rabbinical Biography Collaboration of the Week, even spawning an edit war or two).
 * As a former administrator, my biggest contributions were CSD patrolling (which is nothing like it is now, the backlog used to constant and massive) and nearly solely maintaining RFM for quite some time. When I came back, I helped out a lot at WP:RPP (page protection requests) and occasionally WP:AIV (vandals that usually are warned and need blocking). I don't think I ever got a complaint about my work on RFM, although a WP:INVOLVED admin once reversed one of my decisions and somehow worked things out anyway.
 * 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: Well, I've been around for almost six years as a registered user, and I tend to work on controversial articles, so conflicts happen. Back when I was working on some scientific articles such as Autism I had some clashes with an organized group of sorts and getting a compromise was... difficult to say the least. They wanted it written from a lifestyle perspective rather then a scientific perspective (today it is written ENTIRELY from a scientific perspective), and I definately skirted 3RR early on a bit before I learned to distance myself more from articles. Maybe add in the great "criticism section debate" and a misunderstanding of sorts with an admin (my first block, which was overturned and explained in length in my last RFA in Q3) really early on, but editing-wise that's really all I can think of.


 * As an administrator I had a relatively clean track record, except for a couple incidents. The first was a run-in with Jimbo. Yes, the real Jimbo, one I deeply regret and still think about. Wikipedia was very different in some respects 5 years ago, and this is one of them. This would be my second block, even though technically blocks are for prevention and not punishment, in some respects it is nice to have it there as a frank reminder of a really bad error in judgement I made. If one is REALLY interested in what happened (it is complicated and relies on knowing the en-wiki culture at the time), here's the abridged version of the story as I recounted to someone when I came back from my wikibreak:


 * They certainly didn't teach THAT at the newbie admin academy. After that I promptly went back to my usual administrative tasks and that was that. For those who where there, they might agree with the statement that the BLP incidents (in general, not related to my action) marked a huge turning point in the community, for better or worse.


 * The other "incident" wasn't really much of an incident but rather more of a rough hazing. After my wikibreak and editing and studying the new guidelines a bit, I felt I was ready and asked for my bit back. Needless to say I went from having a mostly clean record to making some mistakes, and since I felt I had not lived up to previous standards of adminship asked for my bit to revoked after a couple weeks. It wasn't the new tools that tripped me up the most though as everyone seem to have been worried about, it was the subtle process of determining consensus, especially on AFD. Basically, peoples' interpretation and the way discussions were closed changed dramatically; administrators have to use much more personal judgement. This was the way it was supposed to work 5 years ago, but in practice it was simply a vote count with very little interpretation involved. Also, users of deleted pages can now see and are encouraged to complai-err contact the deleting administrator. An interesting change I wasn't prepared for. I suppose it might be acceptable to people to simply ignore most requests as routine but I have pretty high standards and really don't want to ignore anyone unless it is just someone trying to mess with me, which is pretty rare.


 * I learned a lot in those two weeks though:
 * In the case of clear CSD A7s where someone is trying to work on an article and a couple hours have passed (about the time an article seems to get before another administrator would kill it), I found "speedily userfying" such articles a pretty nice solution. It isn't perfect, and new users find it confusing, but it is a far better introduction then a simple delete and forget so to speak.
 * G11 is quite nice. I wrote countless comments concerning the catch-22 nature of promotional/biographical articles and the press making them notable by Wikipedia standards simply because they appear on Wikipedia, thus making Wikipedia a rather effective advertising vehicle 5 years ago. Back in the day there was a huge backlog of promotional articles (all we had was A7) that were obvious deletes but had to sit through the 7-day process for the full duration, as people rarely WP:SNOWed debates then, so during that period the press would often report on it and then boom it had to stay. Also, debates would be confused with people who didn't know how to trace sites back to wikipedia so often these "articles" had to be listed multiple times over and over again until people finally realized the catch-22 was the problem.
 * Back when I was first an administrator, I had a lot of help and mentorship from people who were very kind at the time. I won't name names here, but several of them turned very rogue, and often mean to myself and eventually (after I came back from my wikibreak) part of contentous arbcom and related debates concerning the issues with troublesome administrators in general. A phenomenon of sorts that I myself noticed a bit at times when I got a bit too involved in wikipedia policy, I learned to back away and sometimes even take a break.
 * Once I resigned the second time I got a surprising (to me) amount of support on my talk page urging me to come back. I think since then I've learned that due to the changes somewhat of an error rate is to be expected now; previously things were pretty clearcut on nearly every issue, not so much anymore. Contentious AFDs and related are almost always sent straight to AN/I or DRV, which previously only happened in very rare cases. AN/I in particular used to be much more formal and less frequented. Summing this up I think my expectations of myself were simply too high for the current environment, and perhaps I shouldn't have resigned the second time.