Wikipedia:Editor review/WilliamThweatt

WilliamThweatt
Wiki-Greetings! I have been editing here for a couple years now and have recently noticed the need for more admins. I would like to expand my contributions to the project by taking up the mop. In addition to starting many articles, uploading images, expanding stubs, and contributing in my various fields of expertise, I do a lot of WikiGnome activities, RC Patrol, VandalProof, and participate in various XfDs (mostly AfD). I have maintained Cambodia as a Featured Article, recently seeing it through an FA Review. I have contributed to other FAs and nominated and reviewed GA candidates. I don't think my editcount is quite 5k yet (I don't have editcountitis...I hear it can be fatal), largely because I tend to make edits all at once before saving, instead of saving many small edits, except rvv and RC Patrol, of course. As always, I welcome review of my contributions with a view towards my suitability for adminship. Thank you in advance for your time and candor. William Thweatt Talk | Contribs 04:14, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

 Reviews 
 * You've done great work on articles, but you don't need me to tell you that. Perhaps the most likely objection, if you were to put yourself forward as an admin candidate now, would be your relatively low number of edits to the Wikipedia space. Wouldn't bother me. Your interactions with other editors impressed me. You're not afraid to apologise, and the efforts to get other editors involved in the sex tourism controversy over at Cambodia, rather than rushing headlong in, shows the right attitude to resolving disputes. You're doing valuable work at Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. More administrators willing to concentrate on BLP issues would, of course, be a Good Thing, and this is something you should mention at WP:RFA if you are nominated, or nominate yourself. As an admin, your magic powers would run to deleting and undeleting things, and blocking editors. What you want to show is that you know how and when to do these things. Work on new pages patrolling, XfD and deletion review will show whether you can be let loose with a delete button. For blocks, some people place great weight on mechanical AIV reporting, but others (like me) are more interested in figuring out when and if you'd block in other circumstances, and how you'd resolve disputes. Your comments below match my suspicions from looking at your work: you'd make a more than competent admin now. I suspect that many RFA regulars wouldn't share this view and would, as I said, ask for more wikispace edits and other shrubbery-esque stuff. One last point. If you look at Category:Wikipedia backlog, the stuff that actually needs sysop rights to clear up is insignificant. Hope this helps and best of luck, Angus McLellan (Talk) 17:47, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I do not recommend this individual for administrator. He has been engaging in an edit war over a time concerning the Dr. James Dobson/social views page. He has not discussed his objections to the original version on the talk page and has altered the article in an obvious POV pro-christian view. His edits reveal that he is a fundamentalist Christian and has a hard time staying objective concerning his very person and strong beliefs.
 * Here is the diff which shows the edits the anonymous editor wanted (which, by the way, didn't include any references) and the version to which I reverted (which, by the way, included more than a few refernces and was established consensus at the time...and still may be...I haven't been following it). As always I am totally open to review and I'll ignore the accusations by the anonymous editor above and let the work speak for itself.--William Thweatt Talk | Contribs 15:20, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

 Comments 


 * View this user's edit count using Interiot's 'Wannabe Kate' Tool.
 * I would point out the discussion that took place between William and myself on the Sean Hannity talk page about Hannity's use of "our creator" and the  mediation afterwards. In answering the quesitons below, William makes several claims that are clearly untrue representations of his discussion of the issues on Wikipedia. He claims to "keep my head, explain my reasons and try to suggest compromise to reach consensus". In the discussion we had, no attemps at compromise where suggested by him (I had to suggest mediation to settle the issue). I am not sure if stating this "You are letting your partisan politics blind your logic." is an example of one keeping his head in an argument. I found it to be an example of assuming bad faith on my part. I havn't seen many of the other contributions that he has made, this one experience just left a bad taste in my mouth. DanielZimmerman 16:53, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

 Questions


 * 1) Of your contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
 * I am particularly pleased with many aspects of my contributions, but I feel some of my best work has been on the Cambodia article and all its many related articles such as Northern Khmer, which I created, and Khmer language, which, although it could use some more filling out, I recently nominated for GA. I am also pleased with my work on all of the Austro-Asiatic languages for which I created a stub template and category and retagged all the wrongly tagged articles (it took weeks!).  I also find fulfillment in my past work on Scotland and helping in the attempts to get it to FA status as well as my creation of the Clan MacThomas article and related history and images. Additionally I assisted User:Hintha in answering the suggestions for improving Myanmar to FA status although it hasn't made it yet.  I also feel that RC Patrol, Vandal Proof and WikiGnomish edits are worthwhile. There are more, but I won't boor you any longer.--William Thweatt Talk | Contribs 04:58, 23 February 2007 (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?
 * Yes, being a professional in the Political Science field and an academic, I have edited some controversial articles which has lead to conflicts. When having conflicts with other users, I try to keep my head, explain my reasons and try to suggest compromise to reach consensus. I try to avoid wiki-lawyering unless the other editor is in clear violation of WP:V or WP:BLP, the last of which, I have found many editors don't understand at all.  If it is a matter of policy, I refer the other editor(s) to policy page and quote the relevant sections and try to explain how it applies here and, if applicable, try to help the other editor conform his desired edits to policy, even if I don't agree with their point.  I can think of a couple of situations where this has not worked well and the user did cause me some stress.  These were cases where the editor was in violation of WP policies and was not open to discussion (with the reason that "WP policies are flawed").  After suggesting that their problem was with WP policies and pointing them to the policy's discussion pages and the Village Pump didn't work, I had to report them to an admin. Both cases resulted in temp. blocks of the other users, but also in both cases, I have left messages on their talk pages letting them know there's no hard feelings and that it wasn't personal.  I believe, for knowledgeable users who really want to make a contribution to the project, that blocks should be a last resort and prefer to exhaust all avenues of discussion and attempted mentoring (no matter how heated or stressful) before going to ANI.  As for the future, WP is a way for me to relax so I try to stay away from controversial articles unless I am drawn there for a specific purpose.  In the future, I will also ask other admins (asuming my RfA will be successful) for advice if I feel myself getting a little "heated". Additionally, I have recently discovered WP:NAM which is not only hilarious but contains some good advice. --William Thweatt Talk | Contribs 04:58, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, being a professional in the Political Science field and an academic, I have edited some controversial articles which has lead to conflicts. When having conflicts with other users, I try to keep my head, explain my reasons and try to suggest compromise to reach consensus. I try to avoid wiki-lawyering unless the other editor is in clear violation of WP:V or WP:BLP, the last of which, I have found many editors don't understand at all.  If it is a matter of policy, I refer the other editor(s) to policy page and quote the relevant sections and try to explain how it applies here and, if applicable, try to help the other editor conform his desired edits to policy, even if I don't agree with their point.  I can think of a couple of situations where this has not worked well and the user did cause me some stress.  These were cases where the editor was in violation of WP policies and was not open to discussion (with the reason that "WP policies are flawed").  After suggesting that their problem was with WP policies and pointing them to the policy's discussion pages and the Village Pump didn't work, I had to report them to an admin. Both cases resulted in temp. blocks of the other users, but also in both cases, I have left messages on their talk pages letting them know there's no hard feelings and that it wasn't personal.  I believe, for knowledgeable users who really want to make a contribution to the project, that blocks should be a last resort and prefer to exhaust all avenues of discussion and attempted mentoring (no matter how heated or stressful) before going to ANI.  As for the future, WP is a way for me to relax so I try to stay away from controversial articles unless I am drawn there for a specific purpose.  In the future, I will also ask other admins (asuming my RfA will be successful) for advice if I feel myself getting a little "heated". Additionally, I have recently discovered WP:NAM which is not only hilarious but contains some good advice. --William Thweatt Talk | Contribs 04:58, 23 February 2007 (UTC)