Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/CyborgTosser

CyborgTosser
(24/5/4) ending 07:11, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This user self nominated himself six weeks ago. He failed on the basis that he was too new with too few edits. Well time has passed, edit count has increased and CyborgTosser continues to make good solid contributions. He has asked me to renominate him, which I am very happy to do. His earlier request can be seen here

[Nominated by Theresa Knott]

User has 994 edits as of 07:23, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I accept the nomination. [[User:CyborgTosser|CyborgTosser (Only half the battle)]] 22:13, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Support
 * 1) Theresa Knott (The torn steak) 07:12, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 2) Support. Good user, and I must protest the inevitable coming of the marauding edit count warriors. Ambi 07:30, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 3) Last time I said "he has done good work, and is more active than most in discussing matters in article talk pages. Good admin material, imho," and that seems even more true now. &mdash;Stormie 07:51, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)
 * 4) Support. Opposing based strictly on edit count seems pefectly silly to me. Sarge Baldy 07:53, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)
 * 5)  &mdash; Kate Turner | Talk 08:22, 2004 Oct 16 (UTC)
 * 6) Support. Overdue.  "Too new" - he's been here since Sep '02! Very Verily  12:38, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 7) * I would like to point out that he is credited with but a handful of contributions before spring 2004, and these were anonymous contributions later re-attributed to him. Perhaps the Tosser himself can clarify for us whether all these early edits were indeed his. uc 20:26, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 8) **Interesting. Yes, I'd like an answer to that myself; it's possible some edits not by him were scooped up in this reassignment.  CT? Very Verily  00:12, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 9) ***All of the articles that were reattributed to me were actually written by me. [[User:CyborgTosser|CyborgTosser (Only half the battle)]] 18:20, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 10) ****Great, thanks. Very Verily 23:57, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 11) Has plenty of experience in time, if not edits. Kim Bruning 13:44, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 12) Happy to support now (did I last time? can't remember). -- Grunt 🇪🇺 14:34, 2004 Oct 16 (UTC)
 * 13) Sure.   – Andre ( talk )  17:00, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)
 * 14) Good nomination. Support. --Lst27 15:53, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 15) I don't generally support cruelty to cyborgs, but.... ;-) func(talk) 16:03, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 16) ffirehorse 21:43, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 17) Antandrus 21:52, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)  Looking through his contribs, I see he is a very fine editor indeed.  For dyed-in-the-wool edit-counters, consider that his length of "service" here and the substantial nature of his edits offsets a seemingly low number.
 * 18) I supported last time too, and see no reason to change that. --Michael Snow 01:19, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 19) Wile E. Heresiarch 03:33, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 20) A low number of edits but they are good. {&Alpha;&nu;&#940;&rho;&iota;&omicron;&nu;} 07:41, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 21) Fire Star 20:59, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 22) Would prefer more edits, but can hardly oppose in the above respectful company. JFW |  T@lk  23:58, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 23) I agree with Jfdwolff. --  &#8475; yan! |  Talk  16:42, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)
 * Yo, Cy...you got yourself some REAL heavy hitters in your camp. Good enough for me.  Support. - Lucky 6.9 23:23, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 1) I opposed his self-nomination, but that was mainly because I'm inherently skeptical of self-nominations. Strongly support. --Slowking Man 06:06, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)
 * 2) I don't believe that those who do non-controversial editing on non-controversial topics are any less deserving of adminship. &#8212;No-One Jones (m) 19:41, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 3) 172 -- you forget the first... I dunno, twenty admins, who most definitely had less than 1000 edits... ugen64 00:28, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)
 * 4) Johnleemk | Talk 10:17, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC) See comments below.

Oppose
 * 1) Oppose.  User has less than 1000 edits.  Over 150 of those edits are on his own user page - User:CyborgTosser.  Also those edits often break down to many edits on one page (looking recently 14 for Symbolic combinatorics, 8 for Semi-empirical mass formula).  This user has mostly editted pages on music he likes, science fiction and electrical engineering.  He has not been involved at all in pages like this one (requests for adminship), votes for deletion or any other page which shows him having much interaction with other Wikipedia users.  This is something Johnleemk brought up during his previous self-nomination, and I concur with him.  We have no idea how he would act as an admin, since his interaction has been limited, and admin privileges are all about how he deal with interaction.  He edits pages in his fields of interest, occasionally posts on a discussion page, and once in a blue moon has a discussion on a discussion page.  Due to his limited number of edits, which are on his user page or the same pages multiple times in a small number of fields, and his lack of interaction with other users which is what admin power is all about, I oppose this nomination. Ruy Lopez 18:46, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose, for the reasons listed above. I've seen nothing that suggests that this person is cut out to be an administrator. The mostly non-substantive comments in support of this nomination have done nothing to persuade me to vote in favour. I have to wonder what qualifies a person for a position of authority who has not even interacted with the community in any significant way. The standard should be higher than that. Shorne 19:13, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 3) Too few edits, and with only two days left has not accepted the nomination nor answered the candidate questions.  Lack of participation on this nomination page makes me very unimpressed. -- Netoholic @ 20:38, 2004 Oct 21 (UTC)
 * 4) Oppose. Too few edits. Kevin Baas | talk 21:34, 2004 Oct 21 (UTC)
 * 5) While I agree with the arguments above and as under "Neutral", I do not really understand the reasons why people then say they are neutral to the candidacy. :-> /Tuomas 23:47, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Neutral
 * 1) uc 14:48, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC).  I previously supported, but I believe User:Ruy Lopez raises valid objections.  A careful review shows that many of CyborgTosser's contributions are indeed to pop culture articles and other ephemera, and I wasn't able to find much that really impressed me.  Therefore I am undecided for the time being.  uc
 * 2) Why do you want to become an admin? Get-back-world-respect 20:33, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 3) Support -- a good contributor.  172, I don't know what you're talking about -- many admins were promoted with less than 1,000 edits (I think a significant minority or a majority of promotions from 7/2003 - 1/2004 were in that category), and I was promoted with less than 500 edits.  Jwrosenzweig 20:35, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC) Sorry, moved my vote because I think I should look into Ruy's comments more carefully.  I do still feel, however, that the 1000 and 2000 personal edit requirements aren't being reasonable, in light of past successful promotions.
 * I said that I did not recall a circumstance in which someone has been promoted with less than 1,000 edits, not that it never happened. It is still nevertheless rare. 172 22:56, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose. [Changing my vote to neutral in light of info provided to me by Jwrosenzweig ] 172 02:17, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC) User has less than 1000 edits... I don't recall a circumstance in which someone has been promoted with less than 1,000 edits... I don't see a compelling reason for breaking an established precedent and waiting a bit longer for adminship, as I did with User:AndyL, User:Snowspinner, and User:Neutrality (who were here for less than three months when I nominated each of them, albeit on those occasions unsuccessfully) out of consideration of the huge scope of their contributions in a short time span. 172 20:30, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * 2) *Changing my vote to neutral. 172 02:17, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

A few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:
 * 1. What sysop chores, if any, would you anticipate helping with? (Please read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.)
 * Mostly request for assistance and VFD. I revert vandalism when I see it, but I don't spend a lot of time looking at recent changes.
 * 2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
 * System analysis, Theory of criminal justice, Symbolic combinatorics. I believe these articles to be well organized and informative.  Theory of criminal justice was intended to some extent as a starting point for other users to insert their own knowledge of the subject, but I feel that I did a significant amount of work in organizing and providing interesting examples for a subject that had previously hardly been mentioned in the encyclopedia.
 * 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 will deal with it in the future?
 * I have been in disagreement with other users on a couple occasions (best example Talk:Causes of sexual orientation) but I don't let it become an edit war. If I make a comment on a talk page and other users disagree, I usually step back and let someone else (hopefully someone more impartial) make the necessary edits to the article.

[[User:CyborgTosser|CyborgTosser (Only half the battle)]] 00:09, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Comments

I am surprised to see such a sudden turn of events in the voting, but hopefully it is not too late to address some of your concerns.

To address Netoholic's concerns, first, I didn't bother explicitly accepting accepting because I thought it was clear from the nomination that this was something I asked for. Ok, that was a mistake, but I have now accepted, so I hope this will no longer be a concern. Second, the Questions for the candidate section was added recently, not when the nomination was first posted. My "lateness" in answering them should not be taken as a lack of initiative on my part, and if you were interested in my answers to these questions, you could have looked at my old request. But I will answer the questions again and hopefully that will no longer be a concern either.

Now, to answer Ruy Lopez, yes, recently my edits have often broken down into several edits on a single page. But if you examine my earlier edit history, you will see that I never did that before my self-nomination failed on the basis of too few edits. I have noticed that many users work like this, especially when writing a long page, and decided that perhaps my previous habit of writing a long page in a single go was giving a skewed picture of the significance of my contributions. Apparently, this has created the opposite problem, where people look at pages where I made 10 consecutive edits and assume "Oh, he must have only worked on 1000 / 10 = 100 pages". If edit count is important to you, please look at more than the first page of my edit history before jumping to conclusions.

I still maintain that the contributions I have made are significant, even if the edit count is low. And I don't understand the concerns about the areas where the majority of my edits have been made. It is entirely inaccurate to say that my edits have been in a few limited areas. That aside, perhaps you won't find much on electrical engineering, computer science, music, or movies in a normal encyclopedia. But this isn't a normal encyclopedia.

Finally, to answer Get-back-world-respect's question, I want to be an admin because admins are who other users come to when they need help resolving for example a POV dispute, want help with an article, or just want a more experienced user's opinion on what is good or bad for the encyclopedia. I feel I am qualified to do these things, and I would like the chance. Probably the biggest reason I have had little involvement in sensitive discussions is that, as a non-admin, no one has asked me to help. [[User:CyborgTosser|CyborgTosser (Only half the battle)]] 00:01, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I've watched a lot of admin votes and often people comment something like "so-and-so waded into such-and-such page where there was an argument about some contentious thing (Israel/Palestine, Bush/Kerry or whatnot) and came to a resolution". I'm not saying that performing a feat like that is necessary to becoming an admin, that's like coming to plate and hitting a home run, but before becoming admins, people have been involved in resolving POV disputes, given advice on what is needed and the other things you mentioned.  You're a bit short on edits (though you will get there), but you've been mostly editting pages.  I don't think filling in complete articles on aspects of electrical engineering is a bad thing, they're needed.  I'm just curious how you would handle the types of responsibilities that an admin has.  Lots of admin nominees have been involved in resolving disputes, have given advice on what is needed and so forth before becoming admins, which I think is a good thing as we can see what kind of admins they will be.  A look at Requests_for_adminship/Rhobite shows user comments that make me see a good admin, and looking over his edits, he does seem to be "a model of NPOV and consensus building".  To me he is very qualified...Lucky 6.9 spends more time on cleanup than this sort of thing, but he's dealing with admin type stuff anyway, and I haven't looked over his history but if he's doing a good job of it I think he is admin-worthy as well (although some no's said he might be a bit too quick-tempered). Ruy Lopez 01:17, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I was originally planning to abstain, but Ruy Lopez urged me to vote, and so I have. I'm giving CyborgTosser the benefit of the doubt, as I find his case to be very similar to mine when I nominated myself for adminship. I myself was and still am quite quiet on dealing with matters most associate with adminship (practically all the articles I'm known for today were written after I became an admin; I never had a single dispute with another user until after I became an admin). However, I see nothing wrong with supporting a decent user &mdash; this should be no big deal. I hope this will urge CyborgTosser to be more active in participating on Talk pages; if you haven't run into trouble yet, you will, so you should prepare now. A good admin doesn't need to use his powers; I haven't deleted an article for weeks, nor even blocked anyone yet, nor protected a page...I've made very sparing use of my admin powers. Adminship is a sign that this user is a good one; the responsibilities assigned to admins are just additional privileges, and not mandatory to be used. All this is just my opinion, but I see no good reason to oppose for now. Johnleemk | Talk 10:17, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I still see no reason to give admin powers to someone who has had no interaction to speak of with the community. Who would ever make a "request for assistance" to this person? No one even knows him! And why is someone who doesn't interact with others so eager to assume leadership? Shorne 11:26, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Question for Ruy Lopez

Johnleenk's comment above made me wonder a little. Why did you urge him to vote on this issue? I checked you contributions and saw that you write this on several user pages:

Hi,I'm not sure if you've ever visited the Request for adminship page, but users can vote on which users get to be admins.

''':One vote going on now is Requests for adminship/CyborgTosser. I opposed his adminship because he doesn't have as many edits as most people need before getting to be admin (and much of them are things like 150+ edits of his own user page). But more importantly, I haven't seen him interacting much, and certainly have not seen him try to resolve something contentious like a Israel/Palestine page or something like that. Anyhow, if you're interested, give it a look. Ruy Lopez 19:27, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)'''

You appear to be asking people who do not frequent this page to vote on this matter? Why? As far as i know people do not usually go around canvassing votes for or against candidates on this page. Why are you doing it? You have also updated the vote tally several times on this page. Why? You seem overly interested in the out come of this vote for a disinterested party. Also one last question - I've just seen this edit to Xed's talk page and cant help but wonder if you opposition to CyborgTosser has anything to do with the fact that I nominated him? Of course you have every right to be interested in the outcome of a particular vote and you have every right to oppose the nomination of anyone you please but canvassing for votes is not how we normally do things here. Theresa Knott (Not the skater) 19:58, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Is this germane to the discussion of the nomination? Mentioning to a few people that a very questionable candidate has been nominated (by himself more than by you, incidentally) to become an administrator falls far short of canvassing for votes. I don't see anything wrong with what Ruy Lopez did. For the record, he did not post that message to my user page; I voted no because I feel that there is no evidence that the candidate would make a good administrator. As for "how we normally do things here", I have a number of complaints about that, but this is not the place to present them. Shorne 21:11, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * A very questionable candidate? (Come back Lir, plato and the rest of the red faction. At least when you lot were nominating each other we knew what very questionable was;-))Obviously i feel that it is appropriate to put it here because the vote isn't over yet, and the beviuor i was asking about is directly related to this page. It looks to me that Ruy appears very keen on the outcome of this vote and just wanted to know if he has other reasons to oppose the vote apart from the ones he stated.I did not mean to imply in any way that you or anyone else who oppose the nomination have been told to do so by Ruy. I would not insult you like that. You oppose this nomination - did you post a note on anyone's talk page stating that and asking them to come vote too? (I already know the answer is no) if there is nothing wrong in doing that why didn't you do it? Theresa Knott (Not the skater) 00:38, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, I did ask Theresa Knott to nominate me, but only because she expressed willingness to nominate me when I felt the time was right. In a number of nominations, I see comments like "this user is not already an admin?" and this leads me to believe that unfortunately a lot of good contributors go unnoticed for a long time even after they have exceeded everyone's expectations.  I suppose it is human nature for some users to be skeptical of self-nominations, but going so far as to be skeptical just because I am the one who originally took the initiative seems more than a little ridiculous.  IMO, all that means (for my nomination or any other under similar circumstances) is that before my nomination I had little interaction with those few users who choose to be very active on this page. [[User:CyborgTosser|CyborgTosser (Only half the battle)]] 23:54, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree with Shorne that this is probably not the best place for this discussion. I am of course sympathetic toward Theresa Knott's position in this matter because IMO she has the better attitude toward adminship, but unfortunately it appears my nomination has become entangled with a more sensitive issue regarding what is proper behavior in RFA.  I don't like being caught in the middle of this. [[User:CyborgTosser|CyborgTosser (Only half the battle)]] 23:54, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)