User:W Nowicki/coaching

Start me up
OK, here is our subpage as you suggest.

As for GA, I am essentially doing a breadth-first approach. From the GA reviews in which I was involved, it seems the backlog is so long it takes weeks to get anything through, and often there is a lot of brownian motion as various editors suggest their own preferences. So I am working mostly on DYKs and maintaining linkages. There still seem to be many red-links and interesting people and places I ran across working on the other articles. I was hoping to fill in all the cabinet ministers of the Kingdom of Hawaii, for example, but need to limit myself to only major ones. William Lowthian Green is pending DYK right now so I need to concentrate on that for the next couple days. W Nowicki (talk) 17:48, 5 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Excellent, and thanks for doing the edit count opt-in -- I'll analyse your edits and give you some review thoughts shortly.


 * I usually prefer the breadth approach, too -- better 50 C class articles than 1 GA, and despite all the "Wikipedia is nearly complete" discussions, there are many thousands of red links waiting for someone to create them. However, I've had a couple of very positive experiences with GA reviewers (it depends very much who you get, of course), and dealing with review comments can be very good at developing communication skills -- which is something that's very necessary for an admin.


 * When you have a respite from your flurry of DYK work, three things you might like to start with...
 * (1) Most admins tend to divide very broadly into different types:
 * The content defenders, who focus on eg protecting vandalism-prone pages, blocking disruptive editors and speedy deleting obviously hopeless content etc
 * The content developers, who focus on eg reviewing deletions of borderline content (prods, AfDs etc), looking at copyright infringements, intervening in content disputes, editing the main page (DYK, ITN, mainpage errors) etc


 * I'm assuming, given your current profile, that you would be aiming to focus on (some of) the second type of activities? You should take a look at the various possibilities (see links above) and note down a few (perhaps two or three to start with) that you think you might be interested in -- essentially have a first stab at answering "What administrative work do you intend to take part in?"


 * (2) You mentioned in your application for coaching that some of the pages in your WikiProject are subject to vandalism. I've just assigned you the rollbank function, which should help out there. Take a look at Rollback feature & New admin school/Rollback, and be sure to note that it's strictly only for crystal-clear vandalism.


 * (3) If you've not started commenting regularly at RfAs yet, then it might be interesting for you to have a look at some of the recent successes and failures, and try to build your own set of criteria. You can then track over time how your profile compares with your own criteria, to get more of a sense of when you feel ready to apply for adminship.


 * That's all for now -- will get back with the review of your edits soon. Good luck! Espresso Addict (talk) 22:14, 5 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Random side note: Hello, I just wanted to say that I think Nowick would do very well as a DYK admin :) Res Mar 22:37, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the rollback, although so far have only used it once. There seems a lull in the valdalism. Perhaps kids are all on vacation? Just got done with Green and could not help myself: started more who I thought would be minor politicians. Samuel Mills Damon turns out to be an enormous land holder while William Owen Smith helped depose a Queen but then was her lawyer. I expanded Henry Ernest Cooper, Sr. quite a bit, but alas, since adding citations, quotes, and infoboxes does not count, its not DYK eligible, sigh.

So far I am busy in some localized areas, and so will let others work on general issues like the main pages. I am a fan of conventions and reasonable consistency, so have worked on manuals of style. Most of this does not require adminship I guess? But there are cases where editors refuse to follow the conventions in the MOS, perhaps not taking the time to help develop a consensus. Not sure what to do about those. So far just working on other articles, like biographies that seem less contentious. Some of these are in the period that many people have strong feelings about, but somewhat quiet now, giving me time to develope the articles. W Nowicki (talk) 17:54, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Here is one
Espresso Addict, Could I get you to please take a look at Mauna Kea and its talk page to get some advice on a possible course of action (or not)? Thanks. W Nowicki (talk) 18:41, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
 * If you have a problem with the editor's actions, it's generally better to confront them on it and work out a solution. In this instance, the editor in question was very much agape at the stupendously mashed up section. Had you talked to him you would have realized that he was working it out. In the old version, sentances were choppy, spaced into short spliced paras, and half the refs weren't even point to the right material. Res Mar 02:39, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

This was meant to be a private discussion between me and the coach. We did discuss and even contributed some changes. It was only after you backed those out and drove us away that I asked for some kind advice. Everyone is welcome to their opinion, but Wikipedia was meant to be a cooperative effort, not based on "confrontation". W Nowicki (talk) 20:26, 1 September 2010 (UTC)