Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Doncram

Nomination
[ Voice your opinion] (talk page) (0/0/0); Scheduled to end 20:14, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

– Self-Nomination - doncram (talk) 20:14, 7 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I would like to request adminship status to support my ongoing wikipedia editing, and to enable me to contribute in some new ways. I've mostly worked on U.S. National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) articles, within wp:NRHP, but I have varied interests reflected in some past wp:PR peer reviewing and wp:DYK reviewing.  Also i co-founded, with ___ others, WikiProject Historic sites.  My general interest has been to participate in a congenial way, cooperatively, in developing world-wide knowledge of historic sites.  I enjoy taking photos of historic sites and developing articles, and also enjoy developing it as a hobby that many others can enjoy too.


 * In the NRHP area, i was a major participant in a "4th of July or bust" drive in 2008 that completed articles for all U.S. National Historic Landmarks (2,430 at the time), and in another drive completing a year later that completed tables covering all 83,000 or so U.S. NRHP-listed sites. In other support work on NRHPs, I created the majority of the 1,500+ disambiguation pages covering NRHP places, and I worked on infobox development.


 * According to my read of Escaladix's tool, I've edited in more than 32,000 mainspace articles, created more than 3,500 mainspace articles, and 2,750 redirects. According to gtools edit counter, i have more than 49,000 edits overall.


 * According to this counter, I have more than 20,000 edits in wikipedia mainspace articles, over 30,000 overall. In the month-by-month tallies, there is a bump up in my Talk page edits in September 2008, due to my learning to use AWB then to add wikiprojects to a couple thousand stub articles another editor had created without Talk pages, mostly within List of RHPs in MA.  In February 2009 there is a bump of mainspace article edits, reflecting my use of AWB to help implement a rollout of a new NRHP infobox.  Otherwise my edits are manual ones, although I frequently use NRHP-related tools provided by Elkman.


 * I've been happy for the most part with requesting admin help at wp:Requested Moves and elsewhere, but I have done so much editing that cumulatively the demands from all my needs adds up. I'd prefer to help meet others' admin needs and not have to ask admins for their time in dealing with non-controversial tasks.


 * Also, I'd like to be an administrator so that I could gradually move into performing other duties.
 * In outside-wikipedia life, i created one non-mediawiki that operated for just about a year, and i have interest in creating a mediawiki-based major wiki project, for which my having some administrator experience here would be a help.


 * doncram (talk) 06:21, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * doncram (talk) 20:57, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. It is recommended that you answer these optional questions to provide guidance for participants:
 * 1. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?
 * A: In the areas that I have worked in so far, I would use administrator status occasionally to implement pre-tested changes to protected NRHP-related templates, to make non-controversial page moves, and to fix article edit histories from bad moves. At one point, I was interested to use admin status to see deleted versions of articles that I was re-creating, in an area where there had been many past article deletions that I did not understand.


 * I would help out in anti-vandalism work, if the growing number of historic site articles on my watchlist attracted vandalism (which they have usually not). The only big confrontation going on in NRHP articles that I have been aware of is a running fight between several parties over articles in the New Rochelle, New York area.  I believe is perhaps the biggest case in wikipedia of both valid and mistaken sock-puppet accusations.  I think I have been helpful in reducing that conflict, achieving some peace in the NRHP and New Rochelle neighborhoods articles that used to be battlegrounds.  I would like to have administrator status to review articles in that area which have been deleted, and to support my ability to prepare a possible un-ban case for one or more of the affected editors who appear to have been treated unfairly.


 * Otherwise, I would like to have admin status to allow myself to explore other areas in wikipedia. It's likely that I would assist in Requested Moves.  Or I may find my way to other areas where administrative help is needed.


 * 2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
 * A: I'm probably most proud of my helping to develop 2,400+ articles on U.S. National Historic Landmark (NHL) sites and 50+ state list-articles that index them in tables that include photographs of most of them, gleaned from historic photo sources or taken by wp:NRHP participants. I helped manage a big drive to finish "starting well" all the individual NHL articles which pretty much met all its goals by its deadline of July 4, 2008.  Followups from many others involved were very complimentary:  one editor said this was the most fun he/she ever had in wikipedia.


 * I'm also proud of my role in developing the much larger List of RHPs which indexes 80,000 or so sites listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, work which is ongoing. Besides in NRHP lists, I also implemented big sortable tables in List of Liberty ships and List of current ships of the United States Navy,


 * I've delivered a good number of detailed peer reviews which often seemed to be well appreciated.


 * I wish I could further report that I had helped develop to Featured List status all 50 or so separate state lists indexed in List of NHLs by state, but my nomination of List of National Historic Landmarks in New York, the biggest list out of this set and the individual wikipedia article that I have edited the most, got bogged down in some apparent acrimony which has so far seemed beyond my ability to resolve. I helped in early and final development of List of NHLs in AL which, however, was shepherded successfully to FA status by its primary editor.


 * 3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?
 * A: Yes, with 4 memorable-to-me wikipedians. With persistence, focus on clear communications, with 4 tactical retreats, and resulting, i think, with some mutual understanding created.  In the future, I expect that I can mostly avoid undue stress by not accepting it, by not getting involved in conflicts that may cause stress.  I take the cost of imposing upon others seriously and I try to reduce the extent to which I might cause stress to others.  In some cases a confrontation seem unavoidable, where higher considerations for wikipedia-wide community interests trumps the wishes of a new wikipedian, as when a new wikipedian includes photos violating copyright in an article up for DYK featuring on the wikipedia front page.  As far as i can, I try to be nice in such situations.  I respond in part by participating in the development of clear guidelines to help new wikipedians avoid getting into the same type of confrontational situations.


 * In the one case, the person I was disagreeing with was an administrator who was de-sysopped abruptly by Jimmy Wales, which largely resolved our situation. The de-sysopping decision might or might not have taken into account our disagreement, which, in my view, was about bullying of other editors and abuse of the letter and spirit of DYK rules.  I am particularly sensitive to what I perceive as bullying.  In that case, the other person accused me of bullying him and a few others seemed to agree, too, but I saw it, instead, as my standing up to his bullying of me and others.  Standing up to a bully requires persistence and some stubbornness, I think, and then there is some blurring of lines for editors who don't watch the entire history.  In all 4 cases I would have been open to use of mediation or arbitration and have suggested it at times, but I believe the other parties were not ever willing.  I think i am better at avoiding/heading off less productive conflict now, and I think I have better skills to handle conflict situations more gracefully now.  In perhaps a small test of my abilities, I seemingly had success in calming down an edit war at the Drake Circus article, which i happened to notice mentioned at wp:ANI.  It seemed to help when I began to develop a neutral version of the article in a Temp space which addressed a lot of the previous criticisms.

General comments

 * Links for doncram:
 * Edit summary usage for doncram can be found here.

''Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review Special:Contributions/doncram before commenting.''