Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Abu badali


 * The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a request for adminship that did not succeed. Please do not modify it. 

Abu badali
Final (26/25/7) Ended 19:18, 2006-08-14 (UTC)

– I would like to nominate Abu badali for adminship. He is from Brazil and has been with us since April, 2004 where he has over 3,000 edits. He is an strong fighter against copyvios and spam and knows alot about fair use. He also fights vandalism and warns the vandals. I think that Abu badali would make an excellent admin. Jaranda wat's sup 19:18, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept. --Abu Badali 20:20, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia in this capacity. Please take the time to answer a few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:
 * Questions for the candidate
 * 1. What sysop chores, if any, would you anticipate helping with? Please check out Category:Wikipedia backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.
 * A: I believe removing improper content improves Wikipedia almost as much as adding good content. For improper content I consider spam links, defamation, unecessary unfree images, excessive "fancruft" and others. I already try to do my best as an user to combat this things, like reporting abuses, educating users and discussing controversial issues. As an adminstrator, I plan to do more admistrative works on WP:AFD, WP:IFD and CAT:CSD. I also plan to follow WP:AIV for spam. --Abu Badali 00:40, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * 2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
 * A: Due to my interest on "fair use" issues on Wikipedia, my attention was once led to a dispute on Carmen Electra about the use of images (threads: #2, #4, #5, #6, #7 and #8 on Talk:Carmen Electra). That was a "classical" case where, because a free mugshot image was available, the article couldn't use an unfree image of Ms. Electra without violating #1 on Fair use ("No free equivalent is available..."). Some editors were unhappy to see the article using an image of such a bad moment of Ms. Electra's life.


 * One of the editor even came inquired me direclty about the issue, for what I took the opportunity to explain him my views. And during the time frame for this conversation with him, I contacted a Flickr user about an image of Ms Electra he had. The image was not released under a free licensing, but, after explaing him about Wikipedia, free licensing, attribuion and the like, we was more than pleased to release the image under a free license.


 * The article Carmen Electra now has a new free image. It's not the best picture in the world, I agree. But the real contribution in this case was to demonstrate that we can produce free images of celebrities like this Woman. I belive this case shows us what's the greater evil of indiscriminately use of Promotional images. These "prmotional" images hind our hability to gather and produce free content. Would someone had uploaded a Promotional image of Ms Electra, or would our policies allow the use of magazine covers on such cases, this image would never be released under a free license.


 * With this incident, I learned the power of contacting Flick users about re-licensing their images. People usualy like the idea behind Creative Commons Attribution licensing. Most of them really just want to have their name cited whenever their images are used. After that, I have photographers to relicense images for top models like Gisele Bündchen, Michelle Alves, Kate Moss, Ana Claudia Michels and others. Shakira also has a free image now. Tango has a great image and Sandboarding was imageless before I contacted another great flickr user.


 * A list of all these free image contributions, my be found on my Commons user page. One may ask why there's so many Brazilian celebrities... Well, maybe this is because our Wikipedia do not accepts "promotional" images, and we use more guts to illustrate our articles.


 * Before this incident, my contributions to Wikipedia were mainly removing unfree images. Now I alo contribute a lot by adding free ones :) . And the best thing is to turn unfree images into free ones. :) Best regards, --Abu Badali 21:30, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


 * 3. 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?
 * A: As I mainly work in checking image use policy, more than often, users come to my talk page to inquire about "image removals". and I always try to educate them on WP:IUP. I feel greatly rewarded when I get positive results (e.g.: threads #17, #18 (also here), #50 (also here) and #54 on my talk page or here, here and here).). Some few of these editors are not exaclty civil, but of ocurse I always try to keep civil even in such cases ( as here.).


 * As of "conflicts", I try to step out and ask for a third part intervention whenever it reaches the poing of disruption or attacks. So far, this has happenned only twice: With User:AllTalking and with User:Megawattbulbman.


 * The firs case, may be found here and then here.


 * In the second case, I did my best to pretend the user wasn't being rude to me, what proved worthless in this case. The important thing is that I did not changed the way I deal with other Wikipedians after this incident, as I belive this specific user was specially problematic (see his last message on his user page).


 * I believe in the future I will still deal with conflicts and disputs the best way I know: avoiding them. --Abu Badali 00:40, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Dear candidate, you already have my vote of support. The following questions are optional. You are not obligated to answer them. If you choose, you should feel free to provide partial answers or to answer related questions instead. More particularly, I firmly encourage you to argue both sides if you like. --Yamla 03:36, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * More questions
 * 4. Wikipedia has serious problems with a great many copyrighted images being used in violation of its own copyright and fair-use guidelines. What do you think about the possibility of refusing all copyrighted images not licensed under a free license?  My understanding is that at least the German Wikipedia took this stand.


 * A: I'm completely against that. I believe thar fair use is an essential part of copyright law and without that (or some equivallent), the allowed level information control would be unbearable. I see "fair use" as a necessary tool for the building of any Encyclopedia. Even a non-free one or one with lots of money to spend.


 * There are so many article's I believe would become highly damaged without an (specific) image. And I think the German version of these article are injured by the lack of those images. But at the moment, I don't think it's a good idea for a free-images-only Wikipedia to start accepting Fair use images. I believe it's a better strategy to wait for a solution to the problem of Fair Use abuse in the English Wikipedia before such move. And I say that because I do belive in a solution. --Abu Badali 07:02, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * 5. Inevitably, many new users will commit copyright or fair-use violations with the first few images they upload. This despite the fact that the guidelines are listed on the upload page.  What changes do you think Wikipedia could make to encourage these users to continue editing while preventing further copyright violations?


 * A: I surely do not know the perfect solution for this problem, but, I do have some draft proposal, mostly based on other proposals I have seen. Take these as crude ideas yet to be polished by discussion.


 * It would probably involve changes to MediaWiki. The software should allow for a given user to be temporarily deprived from the privillege to upload files. An upload-block, if you want. An upload-blocked user would be able to edit articles normally, but not to upload files. And when should we upload-block an user? I believe users with more than N pending cases of unsourced, untagged or otherwise disputed images should be temporarily upload-blocked, so that they get to resolve their ongoing issues before rushing to upload new files.


 * This is the basic idea. There are some points of concern that still need to be addressed. And, of course, we should still determine the value of N.--Abu Badali 07:02, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * 6. Do you have any examples of a particularly good use of a copyrighted image which has an accurate source, license, and detailed fair-use rationale? You do not need to have uploaded this image.


 * A: The best example of I can think of is the use of Image:Famousphotoche.jpg in Che Guevara (photo). Others are Image:An_ewok.jpg (a screenshot) in Ewok, Image:Fred_flintstone.jpg in Fred Flintstone, Image:Lenna.png in Lenna, and the famous cases, like Image:OJ_Simpson_Newsweek_TIME.png and Image:As03-martha_updat.jpg in Photo manipulation.


 * There are many cases we're I believe we could claim fair use but it not used! For instance, Image:Talibomar.jpg is such an unique image, of Mohammed Omar, that I can't understand why it's not tagged as so (It's tagged as PD, but the source is unknow. The way it is today, it may get deleted). Image:ZidaneHeadbutt.gif is a animated gif for an unique event that could hardly be described by any amount of text (it is hard to grasp even when you see it). But it's current tagging is far from good. Image:R2d2-photo1.jpg just needs a source to be perfect (in R2-D2). Also, it's simply wrong that we don't get to know the look of E.T. by reading E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, while there are so many screnshot abuse out there.


 * There's also whole classes of "ok's" like all Album covers used in their's Album's articles, or all magazine covers used in the correspondent Magazine article, and so on.


 * 7. Several users here have voiced concern that you seem to be confrontational. For the sake of this question, please assume these users are correct.  I'm not saying they are, just asking you to assume it for the moment.  What do you think you could do differently, given this assumption? --Abu Badali 07:02, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * A: I could try to understand why I acted that way and, more importantly, why I didn't notice I was acting that way. I could think of what would be a better attitude in each case I have been confrotational. Then, I would try to be vigilant on my own behavior and avoid following the same unwanted path again. --Abu Badali 07:02, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Comments


 * See Abu badali's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool.

Username Abu_badali Total edits 3101 Distinct pages edited 1530 Average edits/page 2.027 First edit 02:23, 31 March 2004 (main) 1736 Talk 144 User 30 User talk 606 Image 258 Image talk 14 Template 12 Template talk 14 Help 1 Category 23 Wikipedia 192 Wikipedia talk 69 Portal 1 Portal talk 1
 * Abu badali's editcount with Interiot's tool.
 * Added at 01:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC) by Andeh.


 * Support
 * 1) Support as nominator Jaranda wat's sup 19:19, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Support. -- ADNghiem501 21:58, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Support I don't see any incivility in a quick check of his edits. Eluchil404 01:21, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Support his work on fair use is quite good -- Samir  धर्म 01:26, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) Strong Support I've had great interations with this editor and I learned a great deal about fair use and copyrights from him. He is extremly valuable to the project and I know he could help with CAT:CSD, seeing that it is a never ending backlog. I've seen images on CSD been up there for days, alot of people (read:me) are unsure of what to do. I know that if Abu was granted admin status, Wikipedia could flow better. He is an example of an editor contributing to the ultimate goal behind the scenes. Yank  sox  01:30, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) Support dealing with image copyrights can be a mess and this user does it well. Opabinia regalis 01:47, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) Support no evidence to suggest he wouldn't act responsibly. ed g2s &bull; talk 04:24, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 8) Support - Highly experienced editor, knowledgable in fair use, and is willing to go the extra mile JUST to get pictures. This user will prove to be an excellent administrator. —   05:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 9) Support. I know I don;t want to deal with image copyrights. RyanG e rbil10 (The people rejoice!) 07:33, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 10) Support per RyanG. Ugh. RandyWang ( chat me up/fix me up ) 09:20, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 11) Support Has been here for over two years and has not shown signs of incivility. Unlikely to abuse admin tools as well. -- S iva1979 Talk to me  09:57, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 12) Support as someone who also works (albeit in a much lower level way) on the various image use pages, I was struck by the fact that Abu has always been willing to deal with uploaders (many of whom can get downright confrontational over the suggestion that "their" images might be deleted) with civility and good humour which is vital in such situations. I understand concerns that he's only really well versed in one area, but I do think there's scope for admins who are masters of one field as well as admins who are jacks of all trades on here, especially in areas like copyright patrol which need more admin attention. -- Daduzi  talk  11:59, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 13) Support per Messedrocker. -- JHunterJ 14:42, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 14) Support. We need more admins willing to do image cleanup work.  I don't see any indication from opposing editors that there is a danger of admin tool abuse.  It would be a shame to turn down someone offering to do difficult, repetitive and often frustrating cleanup work, who has an established record of taking it on, because of a "lack of diversity" in their edit count.  Why aren't we seeing diffs if there is evidence of a WP:CIVIL problem?  Jkelly 18:41, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I have found him to always be civil, but I have also found him to be totally inflexible. He seems to have a single point of view on something that there is a great deal of division over, even among administrators. Even the templates ask for further reasoning to support fair use, I would like to see an administrator help one to do that unless there is no rationale at all. Do we want to empower this mindset where some good faith editors may give up altogether? Doc &#9836; talk 21:08, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Weak Support based on expertise on copyrights and time with Wikipeida. I do not see User:Abu badali as overly confrontational.If anything, he seems to comport himself with dignity and constraint. Unless better examples are presented, I will give him the benefit of the doubt. (There seems to be an ongoing dispute over fair use in wikipedia. I'm not sure if there is concensus on who is right.) Edit count, however, is worrisomely low for for a vandal fighter. Greater participation at AfD is always helpful. Typo's on an RfA don't look good either. Good luck. :) Dlohcierekim 20:39, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Support as my criteria met and this is supposed to be no big deal. I see allegations of confrontive behavior but no specific examples. This editor has no incivility issues therefore I see no reason to oppose. Ifnord 21:21, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Support Has numerous edits, no civility issues and makes an honest effort. I like  Æon  Insane Ward 23:26, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Support He does important work concerning copyright, admin tools would help him a lot in that work. Garion96 (talk) 00:28, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) Support, excellent "fair use" fighter. User:Angr 05:58, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) Apoio (support in Portuguese)-- Kungfu Adam ( talk ) 14:19, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) Weak Support - support per nom, but worried about lack of diversity in edits --T-rex 14:56, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 8) Support. DarthVad e r 22:48, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 9) Support. Fighting Wikipedia copyright and fair-use violations is a horrendous thankless task sure to earn you the emnity of many users.  That someone cites this as their primary contribution earns them my vote.  If you are considering voting against this user just because of the lack of generality, I urge you to reconsider.  Abu badali, if this nomination fails, please do not take it personally.  Consider the votes of opposition to be constructive criticism.  --Yamla 03:25, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 10) Support He has done a lot of positive work for Wikipedia. Tackles tedious tasks. DrL 23:30, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 11) Strong support We need more image copyright-policing admins. Kimchi.sg 11:31, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 12) Weak support. Abu badali doesn't have the broadest experience with the project, but his work enforcing our policies on unfree content shows me quite a lot. This is difficult work that brings a lot of criticism — very much as admin actions do — and through it, he's shown patience, civility, and a willingness to educate inexperienced users. Also, have not been able to find any examples of the confrontational behavior alleged in many of the opposes. ×Meegs 02:37, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose
 * 1) Oppose - much as though he does exceptional and volumous work on verifying images for use on Wikipedia, the written style used is often verging on confrontational. Secondly, from history edit notes - that's all he does: verify images. An Admin should have a wider perspective/background of input than just one aspect to the bulk of their Wiki contributions; and Admin's often need to make quick reasoned decisions which take human factors on board/create resolution/avoid confrontation. I suggest this nomination is reviewed in 6months+, where a wider contribution could be shown. Rgds, - Trident13 15:04, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
 * We need more of those acually with images as wikipedia grows and copyright becomes an more major concern here. There are large backlogs at time here with copyrighted images. He won't abuse the tools, and would clearly help wikipedia in the long run. Jaranda wat's sup 18:24, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Tridend13, I'm interest in what you call "verging on confrontational". I hope I haven't being like that in our last interaction :) . I feel really sorry if I did. And thanks for voicing your opinion here. Best regards, --Abu Badali 01:24, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose - I have been contributing numerous articles on wikipedia dealing with the 1920's and early 1930's. This person has literally driven me away from wikipedia because he refuses to let me place a public domain image on the 1930s article that illustrates how fashion became more conservative in that decade and how long skirts became in 1930 whereas the year (1929) before they had been worn above the knee. This person (Abu badali) has me banned and I will no longer be contributing to wikipedia. I had hoped to complete the articles on all of the early Technicolor films produced in 1929-1933 as well as numerous articles on the early talkies. Unfortunately, due to his confrontational attitude and unwillingless to help me correctly tag the image I am no longer going to contribute to wikipedia. I think it will be a mistake if you make this person an administrator as he will only drive away people who are only trying to improve wikipedia and contribute articles to it. AllTalking 20:04, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
 * This user had an dispute with Abu badali which caused AllTalking to be blocked for disruption for refusing to follow copyright while Abu badali tried to talk to him in AllTalking talk page but refuses to listen. Jaranda wat's sup 20:12, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose I'm afraid I don't see a broad enough array of diversity in this user's work and the edit count is a bit low for the time on here. Michael 01:34, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * You don't need an broad diversity to become an admin Jaranda wat's sup 01:47, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * You certainly should have experience in a wide array of topics and across different areas of Wikipedia, however. Michael 03:09, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) While I appreciate your dedication and depth of knowledge, since we cannot grant admin powers piecemeal, I must oppose until such time as you become a lot more experienced in other areas of Wikipedia. - CrazyRussian talk/email 02:52, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose. Not enough main talk edits (communication) and Wikipedia edits (process), fails my criteria. Themindset 05:31, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Weak Oppose Per above. --Masssiveego 06:44, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Oppose Per above.--Bonafide.hustla 06:46, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) Per above, perhaps later. - Mailer Diablo 10:24, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) Oppose Balance, as above, and while I understand the importance of vigilance on fair use, I do feel that he is unreasonable when it comes to supporting a fair use image. He has stated that he feels that it is inappropriate to discuss a magazine cover in an article after the fair use issue has come up. On the contrary, I believe that we should have the best images possible on Wikipedia. If sufficient reason can be given to support fair use, editors should be encouraged to do so. Many of the flicker images that he supports are of inferior quality and IMO the article would be better without an image. While I do understand the importance of good source and support of the fair use claim, when the rationale can be given, the better, professional image is important both to the encyclopaedia's image and to better covey the subject of the article. Doc &#9836; talk 13:30, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's fair to quote me saying that "it is inappropriate to discuss a magazine cover in an article after the fair use issue has come up". You may be generalizing from this specific incident, if it's so, I'd like to state, for the record, that I still think that it's harmfull to change an article's text to augment the real-world importance of a specif magazine issue whose cover image happened to be previously (and for no special reason) on the article. You are otherwise a good editor, though, and I feel disapointed in not being capable of explaining you the gravity of this attitude. --Abu Badali 16:38, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * While civil it is exactly this one track mindedness that would concern me when given admin powers. I believe that we should work together whenever possible to meet the requirements of fair use to have the best encyclopaedia possible. When there is an image which equally serves the purpose that is pubic domain that is one thing, but to just substitute an image of inferior quality is often worse than none. I also have serious concern over a person who's overwhelming time investment is to ride vigilante over editors who in good faith are trying to follow the guidelines. Doc &#9836; talk 20:53, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Here is a discussion where he I believe clearly states his opinion that it is better to delete an image than to improve the discussion of the image for its inclusion. Doc &#9836; talk 22:42, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Doc, I very strongly disagree with your opinion of fair use, here in wikipedia we try to avoid fair use because of copyright problems. If an free image can be found we use it, and fair-use is mostly invalid in that case. Jaranda wat's sup 23:34, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * If there is a quality free image, I am in complete agreement, but if the quality is not there, no photograph might well be better. I am only in good faith trying to understand and follow the expected standards. There is still, however, a significant lack of consensus on the standards.
 * I've re-read my participation on that discussion and I'd like to state that I still stand by the opinions I have stated there. Quotting myself, I do still believe that we should "discourage editors from changing the article to fit the image". Aslo, I still "don't consider adding (or sometimes creating) a line of text information just to prettend some given random picture is important is "improving" an article". I invite everyone to take a look at the disucussion and see these quotes contextualized. And also, of course, I invite everyone to take part on that discussion. --Abu Badali 02:38, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I would agree with discouraging to "pretend" that some "random" picture, is important, (I think he misses the point here) but on the other hand where the quality of an image is central to defining a look in a field such as fashion I question his perception of the importance a professional photograph. Flickr pictures do not cut it for the look of a high fashion model. The more he writes here the more I question his suitability as an administrator. 1. Why would he be so concerned to answer every question here to take on this thankless task? He seem too anxious to have these powers in my opinion. 2. The Neutral votes at the bottom, at least the first four give the strongest reasons of all to oppose this nomination in my opinion. 3. Lastly, there may be concern from reading more that he has written, and his own user page, that the nuance and full meaning of some things may be missed in his understanding of the English language. Doc &#9836; talk 13:59, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * "Flickr pictures do not cut it for the look of a high fashion model"... the main pictures in Fashion model and Supermodel are from Flickr. I belive it's prejudice to state that only professional photographs may properly depict the look of a fashion model. 1. Why would he be so concerned to answer every question here to take on this thankless task?" Sorry but I don't get it. Should I not answer? Is it not supposed to be a discussion?. "He seem too anxious to have these powers in my opinion" I'm not "anxious", I prefer "responsive". I don't see Admin tasks as "powers", but as "responsibilities". As far as I know, admins are bound to the same conduct policies as normal editors. "2. The Neutral votes at the bottom..." I respect that opinions. If you, or anyone else, believe that my low edit count may compromise my hability to help Wikipedia as an Administrator, you should really not support me. I see nothing wrong with that. I also don't see anything specially wrong in the oppose votes I had replied to. "3. Lastly, there may be concern from..." English is not my first language. If anyone have concerns over this, feel free to oppose. --Abu Badali 14:38, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The only reason that "... the main pictures in Fashion model and Supermodel are from Flickr" is because of your actions and most in my opinion do not contribute to the article. A no images Wikipedia would be preferable to much of the poor Flickr content, particularly on fashion images. Certainly there are exceptions, but they are few and far between. Doc &#9836; talk 15:00, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * "...is because of your actions..." Thanks! :) "...and most in my opinion do not contribute to the article.", at this point, I invite anyone to check those free images on those articles and judge the power of Flickr users as a source of free quality images. --Abu Badali 15:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose While I am continually troubled by the anti-fair use attitude among many admins and editors, Abu badali appears to combine this attitude with a confrontational view toward editors who disagree with him on the issue. This is not the type of mix I want to see in an admin.--Alabamaboy 13:52, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm really interested in getting more details on that. If you could point to instances of my "confrontational view toward editors who disagree with me ", I would be greatful. Please, I'm not doubting you. I'm just interested in specific examples so I could get to avoid such misbehaviours in the future. Also, do you think that I am always like this, or just in some cases? (The best being "never", of course :)  ). Best regards, --Abu Badali 16:38, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose per CrazyRussian - please reapply when you have more breadth of experience. -- Aguerriero  ( talk ) 14:50, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose per Alabamaboy. --Shizane 15:18, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Shizane, if you could point me to such events (where I have acted with a "confrontational view toward editors who disagree with me"), I would greatly appreciate and use it as a lesson for the future. And how often do I misbehave like this? This is surelly information that this AfD's voters are interested in. Best wishes, --Abu Badali 16:38, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose (with regrets) due to overspecialization; would like to see more well-rounded experience and knowledge. "Won't abuse the tools" isn't sufficient grounds for adminship in my book.  Also not happy about the AllTalking incident which appears to have driven away a contributor who was uploading pictures that most likely are in the public domain, with no apparent considered discussion of the issue (see rfa talk page for some specifics).  Maybe there's good grounds for rejecting such pictures on the off-chance that they might be copyrighted, but an admin working in that area still needs to understand pre-1977 US copyright law enough to discuss the issues intelligently with contributors instead of just slamming policy.  See also avoid copyright paranoia.  I agree that AllTalking's side of that exchange wasn't so great either, but AllTalking was a newbie and not an admin candidate (WP:BITE).  On the plus side, I'm very happy with Abu badali's getting so many free images for the encyclopedia, and I like the flickr pictures themselves just fine.  For the biographical articles they're featured in, they're better suited than the typical supermodel publicity shots that basically turn the articles into productcruft. Phr (talk) 23:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Phr, do you believe I am to blame for AllTalking's stated decision to leave the project? I prefer to think I am not, but I may be being too optimistic. If you follow the threads on my talk page, you will see that the last thing I'd like to do would be bite someone. Anyway, I belive it's a oversimplyfication of the case to state that my attitude "have driven away a contributor who was uploading pictures that most likely are in the public domain". The case was about just one picture that the uploader (AllTalking) has successively tagged as Magazinecover, fairuse, fair use in, PD, PD-because, Unknown, Newspapercover, PD-ineligible, PD-Art and PD-self. After that, he was blocked for disruptive edit summaries, to what he reacted by declaring he was leaving Wikipedia. I had left a message to him encouraging him not to do so, and I still expect he will be back among us soon, hopefully. --Abu Badali 02:38, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I went mostly by the discussion on AllTalking's talk page. I'll look at yours later.  My suggestion would have been to enter a more detailed discussion of how to tell whether a given image is copyrighted or not, if possible; but I haven't yet checked out your talk page, so maybe you already did that.  The main thing is to understand that AllTalking was trying to solve a problem that should really be solvable, so he should be dealt with sympathetically, even if no solution turns out to be possible (in which case I'd express it as: we'd like to use those images but we're unfortunately hosed by bad decisions of the US government; as opposed to: stop breaking our policies).  I acknowledge that your hands are somewhat tied by WP:IUP which in my opinion is a little too conservative, but that's a separate topic.  Phr (talk) 03:20, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose Just seems too intent to spend his time here removing as many images from articles as possible - carrying the fair use policy to its extreme - and why? For the most part, it worsens the articles and brings us to the point where the only imagtes we can have for the many actor articles here are free images, which would make up about 1% of all actor articles we have right now. It's not helpful. Mad Jack 06:34, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * "Why?". Because I believe it's possible to build a free encyclopedia, and unfree images of living persons on biographical articles hurt that goal, as explained in the "real contribution" part of answer to question #2 above. --Abu Badali 11:47, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * MadJack, it seems a bit backwards to take Abu to task for carrying the fair use policy to its conclusion (not to its extreme). Wikipedia has a policy, and you appear to be opposing adminship on the grounds that the candidate would enforce that policy "too much".  If the result is that we can only use free images, it's the "fault" of fair use law and Wikipedia policy, not of Abu. -- JHunterJ 13:50, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, but my point is not that he is carrying it to its conclusion, my point is that he is carrying it to the absolute extreme and beyond, stretching it as far as possible to remove as many images as possible, as well as that doing that seems to be a rather large part of all he does here. The policy is vague enough on some of the screenshot issues that text like the one accompanying the header picture here definitely fits under the "discussion of film" clause, yet he removed even that (the GA article, about a fairly major actress, now has no header picture, making it look fairly bare). Mad Jack 16:18, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose per lack of WP space edits. Viridae Talk 13:21, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose. By the looks of it, Abu badali seems to be a very civilized user who is certainly trying his best by changing Wikipedia for the better. He definetely deserves the two barnstars that have been awarded to him. However, people who do a lot of work on the Fair Use images are usually applauded by me..though not Abu badali. With due respect, he seems to have sold his soul to copyright paranoia, by taking this fair use issues way too far. Take a look at for example. I don't think anyone would have cared about that image being there; it was definetely not necessary. I may be willing to support in the future if Abu shows that he's a little more laidback about hese images. —♦♦  SʘʘTHING  (Я)  15:36, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The image has "Photo by Arnould Tuner/WireImage.com" at the bottom. --Abu Badali 15:49, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Image:Chingy 5.jpg was the image and almost anyone can tell that the image is an obvious copyvio. Jaranda wat's sup 03:45, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Would make a good commons admin, perhaps. But 0 FA. -- Миборо в ский 22:46, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose Focus too narrow. ~ trialsanderrors 03:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Oppose. Would prefer broader experience. Jayjg (talk) 19:48, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Oppose per above (focus and confrontational style). --kingboyk 21:13, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 5)  Oran e  ( talk  &bull;  cont. ) 17:53, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) Oppose seems to suffer from copyright paranoia.  Grue   19:05, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) Oppose for above mentioned copyright paranoia. Crumbsucker 06:38, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 8) Perhaps later. --Nearly Headless Nick 15:37, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 9) Oppose for aforementioned copyright paranoia. CFIF (talk to me) 20:10, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 10) Strong Oppose First of all, I checked the user who claims to be driven away's contributions. He is a perfectly lagitamate editor and good contributor.  It's a loss to wikipedia that he has been driven away.  Secondly, A lot of editors put alot of time and hard work into iliustrating and beautifuying wikipedia.  This user seems to want to destory their work, by being ultra-anti-fair-use and ultra-copyright-paranoid.  Most imageless pages are ugly and this user seems to want to make more of them.  Thirdly, you said that most of your time would be spent detelting things that you felt didn't belong.  Personaly, I'm tired of running across editors and admins who have such a narrow view of what a encyolpedia is that they delete lots of things that should be deleted.  Our goal is to encompas humankinds knowlage, not to delete things that aren't common knowlage.  (I'm especialy tired of people who delete claiming things are "fancruft"  Fancfut isn't even a policy, it's an essay, and one that shouldn't exist.)  I strongly disagree that deleting non-notable stuff is just as important as adding good stuff, since obsucre stuff is perfectly lagitamate to me.  This users 2 main activities seem to be deleting images and removing content, both of which I think are desturctive.  Tobyk777 05:40, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Tobyk777, do you believe I am to blame for AllTalking's stated decision to leave the project? I'm interested in your opinion. Also, I'd like to say I believe you're being unfair when you say "Most imageless pages are ugly and this user seems to want to make more of them.". For instance, as I already mentioned in my answer to question 2 above, I have for many times contacted Flickr users to release their images under a free licensing, so that they can be used on Wikipedia. You may want to check my Commons uploads. Thanks for leaving your opinion. Best regards, --Abu Badali 15:23, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * So keeping copyright-violating images in articles is constructive to Wikipedia? Kimchi.sg 15:39, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think that is what Tobyk777 is saying at all. It is the aggressiveness with which Abu Badali removes images that are not clear cut and will argue one to death, without budging an inch on issues that are not clear-cut. There are a great many fairuse images that meet the criteria as defined to date that are so clearly superior to the typical Flickr image. There are exceptions, I agree and when there is a superior free image, by all means that should be the first used. AllTalking is not the only one to "give up" and I do think that Wikipedia is the loser. If we must have an image free encyclopaedia, so be it, but in today's world which is so image focused, that would be a shame. On the other hand an image free encyclopaedia would be better, IMO, that a lot of sloppy amateurish photographs that article would be better off without. Doc &#9836; talk 17:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Neutral
 * 1) Sadly I cannot support as the user has been here for over 2 years and has only managed just over 3,000 edits. WP edits is quite low too (which should be high for admins). I would support if the user got more involved with the project more often. Best suited as a fine editor, for now.-- Andeh 01:13, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Neutral. Lack of experience with Wikipedia namespace (400-500 edits) normally earns an automatic oppose from me as it indicates a poor knowledge of process and policy, but this user's good image contributions and support push it to a neutral. Stifle (talk) 22:54, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Neutral Free images are tough to find, so that's a plus, but other issues have made me worried here. Attic Owl 00:54, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Neutral per low article talk and Wikipedia contribs within a long time period. --Slgr @ ndson (page - messages - contribs) 03:21, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) Neutral I feel that the user lacks some of the necessary experience needed to become an administrator ((as evidenced by a low WP-space involvement), however I feel he's unlikely to abuse the tools. I'm on the fence, so to speak.  On one hand, I'm leery of supporting a candidate who I feel might not be as well-versed in policies as I'd like, but on the other hand, I'd be remiss to oppose a user that I feel wouldn't misuse the tools on purpose.   hoopydink  Conas tá tú? 19:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) Neutral I can't decide. I like someone who is willing to tackle the images, but I'm worried about his confrontational style. Baseball,Baby!   balls  •  strikes  22:56, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) Neutral. On the one hand, he's done good work in dealing with problem images, and he's good at engaging other users.  On the other hand, he hasn't interacted with the community at large much: most of the edits to the project namespace have been listing things on IFD or Copyright Problems. --Carnildo 06:55, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The above adminship discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.