Wikipedia:Editor review/Bobak

User:Bobak
Hello! I've been an editor on Wikipedia for a little over a year now, I tried a bit of everything until I began to really get comfortable about 6 months ago. I'm interested in getting feedback --I've been mulling an RfA for a while now. A while back I started organizing my userpage and its subpages into a format that would be easy for someone to review, so I hope that will make this process easier. I think I've improved as a Wikipedian over time, especially with my work on articles. Any feedback would be welcome. Bobak 05:52, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

 Reviews 


 * Hello Bobak. Well, you appear to be a great contributor and your image upload record is most commendable, but I don't recommend an RfA for the moment. I anticipate many users opposing for "lack of need for the tools" (including myself, I must honestly confess). The tasks that you perform on Wikipedia don't seem to require administrative tools, what would you reply to RfA's question "What sysop chores do you anticipate helping with"? In your recent contributions I see no participation in countervandalism or WP:XFD, typical areas of administrative intervention. Perhaps you should start acquiring experience in those areas before attempting an RfA, I could even suggest WP:IFD since you are involved with the image space. Your Wikipedia space count is rather low, usually it's preferable to have at least some 400-500 edits in that space. Your edit summary usage count is also a con, try to bring it to at least 95% for both major and minor edits (actually, you should try to bring it to 100% to be the most satisfactory). I hope this helped. Keep up the good work! :-) Regards.-- Hús  ö  nd  20:36, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
 * That's what I feared. Honestly, my mistake has been working too much on the "new articles" patrol.  I'm too good at speedy/prod than I should've been because it erased all proof of my work in that area. I guess I just want to have an easier time protecting the 600+ articles on my watchlist.  --Bobak 20:59, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Hello Bobak. I think that you could pass, as I nominated a few people recently who are not massive AfD junkies yet passed almost unopposed. As such, a lot of people just engage in massive pile-ons at AfD without really contributing any more effective info. Also, as to your speedy and prod work, some will get deprodded, so you can start the AfD. I don't think that Edit summary is close to the red zone although it can defnintely be improved - that article work is excellent, and more admin hands at DYK can always be used. You seem to have a good understanding of images and copyright violation, so it may help you to go to CAT:NT and help there as we lack admins who are confident with images. You can get the vandal effort up simply by going to WP:MVP and packing them into your watchlist and installing popups to speed you up. Apart from that Portal:Azerbaijan maybe a useful project that you may be interested in. It seems as though from Husond's comments that you don't have an "aura" and will thus attract unusual levels of scrutiny, so perhaps waiting it out for another 2 months maybe useful. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 01:27, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the extra feedback. I definitely need to improve my edit summaries --I admit I didn't realize they were as necessary for minor changes.  That's no problem and I'll work on that in the coming months. --Bobak 01:43, 29 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think you're far from a successful RfA. I'd review AfD some more as article deletion is a significant part of admin duties, IfD and helping with CAT:NT are great suggestions.  Frankly I think you'd have no trouble passing RfA even if you applied now.  Cheers -- Samir धर्म  04:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Look good to me. Courteous, diligent and articulate. Hiding Talk 20:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
 * This editor has been doing some great work uploading historic images to articles related to Southern California. He was very reasonable and understanding when I pointed out what I thought was a problem with one of the images that he uploaded. He has the qualities and level-headedness that I want to see in an administrator candidate and I would have no problem with recommending him or approving his AFD. I know, however, that many of the voters at AFD, if they don't know someone, apply very arbitrary measurements against an editor's contributions, rather than looking at their contributions as a whole. Unfortunately, I think at the moment, User:Bobak may have trouble gaining consesnsus at AFD for that reason. One thing that would probably help is to get involved in one of the WikiProjects such as WikiProject Fair Use, where his legal knowledge would be valuable. Blank Verse 05:29, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Judging from your contributions within WikiProject Azeri, of which I’m also a member, you are a great and prolific contributor and a real asset for Wikipedia. I think you would make a perfect admin, as you have always been very courteous in your communications with other users and accurate and impartial with presentation of information in the articles you edited or created. So I wish you the best of luck and keep up the good work. Grandmaster 06:12, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

 Comments 


 * View this user's edit count using Interiot's 'Wannabe Kate' Tool.

 Questions


 * 1) Of your contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
 * I think I've been most happy with my photo contributions. I think photos are worth a 1000 words, and I realized that Wikipedia was the perfect place for all the photos I'd taken of various landmarks and scenery that only I was enjoying (and were being seen by virtually no one).  I don't plan to make any money off of them, so why not share them (with attribution ;-) )?  I've actually uploaded many, many more photos than listed on my talk page.  While new photos take time for me to get (trips don't plan themselves...), I've uploaded literally hundreds of properly cited college logos, corporate logos and a plethora of historic-PD photos.  I view them all as Wikipedia's dessert.
 * Follow-up answer: A reviewer has asked for a more specific example. For this answer let me try a three specific articles spanning some variations of my work:
 * (1) I feel a good example of a pure-prose article is the Glasnost Bowl, which I created.
 * (2) I feel a good example of a mix of prose and PD photos is Fort Moore, which I created.
 * (3) I feel a good example of mostly photos (of the historic-PD variety) is History of Santa Monica, California.
 * I hope that is an acceptable start. If not, let me know or please review the subpage of articles I've created and added to. --Bobak 20:57, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * 1) Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?
 * Conflict is inevitable: the issue is how to deal with it. I've been in a number of conflicts over edits, but I feel all have been resolved either (1) amicably between users or (2) properly through process (and I've been on the losing end of a few of those, but c'est la vie).  About the only conflicts that annoy me are anon-generated blatant vandalism: my watchlist is currently at 632 articles/talkpages, and a few of those pages (usually involving college football) attract anonymous, blatant vandals a lot (particularly in season).  It would be nice to be able to semi-protect some of these articles on occasion.  If I can answer anymore, please let me know.
 * Follow-up answer: I've been asked to cite more specific conflicts that I have been in. I admit I don't keep track of them, but that's what contribution histories are for (these are in reverse chronological order):
 * (1) most recently I got into a dispute over content in Capella University, basically I monitor it on my watchlist and regularly revert deletions of anything (remotely) negative and delete comments like "Capella Sucks" (this is common problem to almost all for-profit university articles). In this instance there were anons adding a harshly written criticism section without sources, I deleted and wrote in the edit history that it needed sourcing.  A new registered user came in and added a similar section but with cites, however also deleted a piece of information from another section that I felt should not have been deleted.  I restored that sentence, the new user reverted, I checked the user contributions of the new user and noticed it all involved Capella, so my suspicion-level went up.  We had a minor seesaw over the sentence, with some mildly heated edit summaries, then I realized things were going nowhere so I tried user-to-user contact via the talk pages.  From that discussion we came to an agreement: the new user understood what I was looking for and why I was reverting and took time to answer my concerns and problem was resolved.
 * (2) While this clearly placed me in the minority, I wanted to see the article on Brian Peppers stay, and I took time to write it in a way that violated no part of WP:Bio. However, it was outvoted, the article was put on a one year no-edit moratorium and that is that.  I did advocate strongly for my position (since advocacy in my profession), however I did it within the bounds of civility.
 * (3) I have been warned about toeing the line of incivility once: . I took the lesson and the warning: don't get involved in disputes over what makes a person their ethnicity.  Too many people have some incredibly passionate opinions in anything involving the actual existance of (and this list is by no means comprehensive): Persians, Azeris, Turks, Armenians, Kurds, etc. (coincidently, these are all geographic neighbors).  I actually ended up in the middle of these because I did a lot work on Azeri articles (trying to learn more about my g/f homeland) but I myself am of Persian descent and the two groups argue with each other a lot.  My response to that was simple: there are over a million articles, I enjoy working on those that have far less complicated issues --like sports :-) (and there is a level of irony intended)
 * (4) Early on in my time on Wikipedia I was surprised to see a AfD on the Video Game Museum (outside of Wikipedia I've been an admin on a video game forum for 6 years and know something about which sites are considered notable). This was my first time getting into a more heated dispute, and I learned that it's best to just advocate strongly for your position --especially when the other party, in response to my strong disagreement, started AfDs on the other websites I'd used as examples of why VGM should stay.  In the end, all of the websites were kept, and now that I've checked for this question, the user who was opposing me at every step (in fairly heated manner) has actually left/"retired from" Wikipedia...
 * (5) Early on I got into a number of minor disputes with people over what is and is not video game piracy (particularly on the use of ROM images, at the time I joined that article was presenting the myth of "abandonware" as through it were legal truth), of course in those instances the fact that I am a lawyer helped clear it up real quick. There are certain areas where there isn't such thing as "consensus", and that's law (on certain issues) --with that said, as a lawyer I also understand that there's such thing as interpretation, and I understand and respect (although personally disagree) with the copyright-paranoia of some Wikipedians regarding images.  Again, I defer to the "protect Wikipedia from a lawsuit" even though my personal legal opinion is different. (In other words: When I start paying the legal bills, then it's my problem.  That's not happening so I follow the party line).
 * So those are five instances/examples of conflict and how they ended as well as some of my own personal opinion on conflict, I hope that will allow for a better review --if you have further questions or concerns, let me know. --Bobak 20:57, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
 * So those are five instances/examples of conflict and how they ended as well as some of my own personal opinion on conflict, I hope that will allow for a better review --if you have further questions or concerns, let me know. --Bobak 20:57, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * 1) Question from Gnangarra You have uploaded 188 photographs, I'll assume that you have a fair understanding in the use and storage of images. If a new User asked you Should I upload my photograph to Commons or do I just upload them here?  what would you recommend and why?
 * I would recommend Commons to make it easier for everyone in all the Wikipedia sisters. The Commons were designed to make it easier for everyone in the Wikipedia project, and all it requires is a separate account.  So what's my story then?  I've actually uploaded over 300 images, but most are fair-use (proper tag, of course) and thus I only upload them here.  I uploaded my first 50 personal photos before I even knew what the Commons were (since it involved a separate log-in I was wary for a while).  Now I add personal photos as they happen and immediately grant any request to move one of my photos to the commons.  I admit my work on photos outside of uploading them has been trying to fix problematic tags on other photos and sometimes helping other users understand what combination of tags/information will help keep their images from being deleted.  So as a personal answer beyond the question, I should start uploading my new photos directly to the commons.  --Bobak 21:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I would recommend Commons to make it easier for everyone in all the Wikipedia sisters. The Commons were designed to make it easier for everyone in the Wikipedia project, and all it requires is a separate account.  So what's my story then?  I've actually uploaded over 300 images, but most are fair-use (proper tag, of course) and thus I only upload them here.  I uploaded my first 50 personal photos before I even knew what the Commons were (since it involved a separate log-in I was wary for a while).  Now I add personal photos as they happen and immediately grant any request to move one of my photos to the commons.  I admit my work on photos outside of uploading them has been trying to fix problematic tags on other photos and sometimes helping other users understand what combination of tags/information will help keep their images from being deleted.  So as a personal answer beyond the question, I should start uploading my new photos directly to the commons.  --Bobak 21:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * 1) Question from Hiding' Why do you want to be an admin and what use would the toolset be to you? Hiding Talk 20:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I decided I wanted to start moving forward on becoming an admin because my daily time on Wikipedia has been shifting away from simply adding material to patrolling the changes made to any variety of the 683 pages on my watchlist. I find that some of them are regularly vandalized by anon user, and sometimes I find myself trying to keep things together but wishing I had the ability to at least semi-protect or issue a stronger warning that the standard "please stop doing that ...again" template.  With that said, I don't plan to take the toolset and run around Wikipedia like Judge Dredd.  While I'm going to learn all the new abilities, I plan to be rather conservative with the tools, especially since I feel its easy to abuse admin powers (in just about any online context) --I feel admin powers are less about "controlling" Wikipedia so much as keeping the project moving and stepping in when those powers are needed.  --Bobak 23:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I decided I wanted to start moving forward on becoming an admin because my daily time on Wikipedia has been shifting away from simply adding material to patrolling the changes made to any variety of the 683 pages on my watchlist. I find that some of them are regularly vandalized by anon user, and sometimes I find myself trying to keep things together but wishing I had the ability to at least semi-protect or issue a stronger warning that the standard "please stop doing that ...again" template.  With that said, I don't plan to take the toolset and run around Wikipedia like Judge Dredd.  While I'm going to learn all the new abilities, I plan to be rather conservative with the tools, especially since I feel its easy to abuse admin powers (in just about any online context) --I feel admin powers are less about "controlling" Wikipedia so much as keeping the project moving and stepping in when those powers are needed.  --Bobak 23:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)