Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Gutza


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

Gutza
Final (42/0/1); Closed as successful by WjBscribe at 00:12, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

- self-nomination @ 21:09, 29 January 2008 (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 admin work do you intend to take part in?
 * A: I'm not very much involved with the English Wikipedia itself -- the reason I'm asking for admin status is that I encounter difficulty testing my tools when I have to compare their behavior on en.wiki with their behavior on other Wikipedias.
 * Follow up question: How and why exactly will you be using the tools? What effects and differences will you be testing? Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 21:27, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Please see the answer to my next question -- I'm working on tools which serve the community at large. Regarding the differences, please see the conversation here for just one sample: User Talk:SQL. --Gutza T T+ 22:18, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * 2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
 * A: I'm an admin/bureaucrat/checkuser on the Romanian Wikipedia; I've been a member of the first arbitration committee here on en.wiki (although not an active one at that); I had a few cosmetic contributions in the MediaWiki codebase; I developed a tool for fighting vandalism which is being actively tested on the Romanian Wikipedia, hope it will go public soon; I'm currently involved in a rewrite of SxWiki (this is actually the main reason for this request for adminship).


 * 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, a lot of times -- mostly at the Romanian Wikipedia, but at least once on en.wiki as well. I've always tried to be civil; I can only remember a single situation when I went over the top (on the Romanian Wikipedia). I always try to keep my cool, although I find that sometimes it's really difficult.


 * Question from EJF


 * 4. What is the difference between a ban and a block?
 * A: I have no intention of answering such questions, because I believe this would be contrary to everything this process stands for. Thank you for the support tho. :-) --Gutza T T+ 22:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That's OK, I thought it would be a nice easy question for you :) EJF (talk) 22:23, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Question from  Maxim (talk) 


 * 5 Are a MediaWiki developper? Associated with the Wikimedia Foundation to a work-type basis (see Requests for adminship/Mikegodwin? If this request is "work"-related, not "volunteer"-related, wouldn't it make sense to contact a steward?
 * A: Yes it would -- but it's not. I'm not a MediaWiki developer as in having a contract, I'm a volunteer. Funny you raised that though, because I had recently proposed opening a Romanian chapter of the WMF with a side-purpose of hiring programmers (the proposal was misinterpreted as me wanting to rip off Wikipedia, so I never went through to WMF because I didn't want to embarrass anyone). --Gutza T T+ 00:11, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Questions from User:Lawrence Cohen
 * Tough questions yours are, Lawrence! --Gutza T T+ 09:24, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 6. If an admin adds themselves as available for administrator recall, should this be binding on them? What if they stated during their RFA that they would join the category?
 * A: The second question is easy: of course an honorable person would have to if they volunteered that they would during RFA. I wouldn't consider that promise as binding for eternity (things do change, I'll come to that), but they certainly should for at least a reasonable period of time.
 * The first question is a tough one though. Any honorable person would have to be bound by their words. As such, it would appear that an honest admin would necessarily have to be bound by her choice to make herself subject to recall. However, I happen to know first hand how things can degenerate so dramatically that the context one ends up in is nothing like the assumptions they made when they "designed" their own rules (their own rules for recall in this case). In my opinion it would be unwise to consider such rules binding in a rigid manner, because you open the door for gaming the system, and risk losing valuable admins on account of their idealism when they designed their own recall rules. --Gutza T T+ 09:24, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * 7. Do you feel that one admin should be able to reverse any one action by another admin once, if he believes in good faith that the reversal is the right decision to improve Wikipedia? If so, why? If not, why?
 * A: Not only that I believe it should be appropriate to do so, but I already did that on the Romanian Wikipedia. Once. And I don't mean once per action, I mean once, ever. Because next thing I know, all Hell broke loose ("you're undermining my authority", etc). I ceased doing it, although I had ample opportunity to do so, in order to avoid hurting the feelings of other admins -- but I still believe it would be appropriate in an abstract sense. If the counter-action is done in good faith, then it's nothing more than a revert -- true, not on the text of an article, but what's the difference, really? But regardless of everything I said above, when you find yourself asking such questions in real situations the underlying question is whether the actions and counter-actions have really been done in good faith -- and I mean pristinely good faith. And that is rarely the case, given that we're all human and have friends, not-so friends, POVs and so on. So what you really have to look at when making such decisions is the big picture: does my doing (or undoing) this improve or hurt the project? As I said, I ceased reverting administrative actions because I was hurting other administrators' feelings, which created tension, which was bad for the project -- I chose to discuss the issue instead, when I noticed disputable actions being taken by other admins. (A full answer would be even longer and more intricate than this, because such decisions have ample ramifications, but I don't want to turn this into an essay.) --Gutza T T+ 09:24, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Question from Doczilla


 * 8. The candidate was asked What is the difference between a ban and a block? and the candidate's reply was I have no intention of answering such questions, because I believe this would be contrary to everything this process stands for. I'm sorry, but I don't see why answering a simple Wikipedia knowledge question would be contrary to everything this process stands for. Please explain why.
 * A: I needed no prior knowledge to answer that question -- I could've just as easily looked it up upon being asked the question. Therefore no information could be gained about me, had I answered it. But answering it would have created a precedent which could have led to two types of reactions, both contrary to the sense of this process: one one hand I could've been bombarded with such questions (a useless, time-wasting exercise), and on the other hand a candidate's "prowess" could have been attempted to be "proven" by asking him such questions. So, no positive outcome even in the short term, but possible negative outcomes in the future. --Gutza T T+ 10:03, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Question from Dustihowe


 * 9. Why exactly are you requesting the mop and the bucket? I haven't seemed to be able to figure that out.  D u s t i talk 17:50, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * A: Because there are differences between various MediaWiki installations, and a non-trivial number of tools/features designed and tested on the English Wikipedia do not work on other local Wikipedias. As it is, I have to compare notes with local administrators on en.wiki whenever I encounter such a situation, which is a tedious, time-consuming process.


 * Regardless of that, I'd like to remind you that once I become an administrator (if I become one) it will be hard to enforce limiting my usage of the admin rights to whatever reasons I happened to state here. As such, you should vote depending on whether you believe I'm trustworthy enough overall, and not based on such technicalities as the one clarified by this answer. Don't get me wrong, if you are curious about the more technical aspects I'd be happy to explain in more detail, I just wanted to remind you that's not really important in the larger scheme of things. --Gutza T T+ 18:27, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

General comments

 * See Gutza's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool. For the edit count, see the talk page.


 * Links for Gutza:

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

Discussion

 * Sounds fine to me. --Iamunknown 22:31, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Trivia: I was asked questions by five people, and none of them voted based on the answers I provided to their own questions. One of them supported my candidacy before I got a chance to answer (and didn't change his vote despite my point blank refusal to answer), another voted neutral pending an answer (and never changed their vote despite my providing it), and the other three never voted at all. My answers however seemed to have helped some of the actual voters to form an opinion. --Gutza T T+ 22:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Support

 * 1) Support - former ArbCom member here. I cannot find any evidence to suggest candidate will misuse tools, even if he does not use them very often. He is clearly trusted on Romanian Wikipedia with being CheckUser, sysop, and bureaucrat . Has plenty of edits in various namespaces . Not quite so many on en-wiki, but thats no big deal. EJF (talk) 22:10, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 2) Support I see no indication that there might be abuse. Made sufficiently clear what he will be doing with the tools. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 22:21, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 3) Support This is, of course, a rather unusual RfA (one supposes that it is essentially a request for limited adminship), but inasmuch as it appears that Gutza intends to use the tools only in areas with the policy and practice of which he is conversant (at the very least, he so avers, and there is nothing, it seems, to suggest that he will not act consistent with his profession), such that he will not inadvertently misuse the mop and bucket by acting whereof he does not know, and to use the tools toward some propitious end (viz., the development/improvement of various tools that will prove useful to, for one, the en.wiki community), I feel quite confident concluding that the net effect on the project of the candidate's being sysop(p)ed should be positive. Joe 22:26, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 4) Support - Former ArbCom member apparently already has the trust of many. Reasons for seeking adminship seem to be good ones. No reason to have reservations. John Carter (talk) 23:11, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 5) &mdash; DarkFalls  talk 23:43, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 6) Has been trusted here before, and trusted on other projects. Nothing here makes me think he's likely to abuse the tools.  Ryan Postlethwaite ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥  00:04, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ryan, The Signature. Nasty. :) Pedro : Chat  08:21, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I actually like Ryan's fancy signature, it looks nice, but it can concern other users. That signature made me smile. But I know that Ryan changed his signature back to the one that he usually uses. NHRHS  2010 NHRHS2010 19:05, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * This could be a joke if Ryan didn't forgot to come back and remove it. Personally, I think it's very disruptive (please note that I was really tempted to add  to that, but I did not) ∴ AlexSm 15:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) Support per assume good faith and adminship is not a big deal. - Triona (talk) 01:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 2) Support. No red flags.  Good luck, Malinaccier Public (talk) 01:06, 30 January 2008 (UTC).
 * 3) Support. He might not use the tools too much, but I see no reason to believe that he'll abuse them. It's pointless to make someone who'll never use the tools an admin, but Gutza has made it clear what he'll do with them. Also a good admin/bureaucrat/checkuser on the Romanian Wikipedia. He may not use the tools as often as some admins, but his being sysopped will improve Wikipedia. Bart133 (t) (c) 01:15, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 4) Support Sure, don't break anything. Avruch talk 02:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 5) Support - Why on Earth would we oppose? Gromlakh (talk) 03:58, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 6) Support Per Gromlakh. Unusual circumstances, but it'd be foolish to oppose this request, given the purposes for which the tools are being requested (to help improve the wiki itself). --JayHenry (talk) 05:18, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 7) Procedural support. Pedro : Chat  08:21, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 8) (warning, my Romanian spelling is horrible, although my slang is surprisingly good!). Da, bei :) Dihydrogen Monoxide (party) 09:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 9) Support He should help when it comes to other wikis. Spencer  T♦C 11:40, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 10) Support, and ban Ryan P for that hideous sig ;). Mackensen (talk) 12:07, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 11) Support A good editor. -- S iva1979 Talk to me 14:20, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 12) Support Dureo (talk) 14:22, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 13) Support because the line of 7 bright pink hearts above is calling out to me...begs me to support... Would someone hit RP with a WP:TROUT please?  As for Gutza, yeah - seems fine and perfectly capable.  Excellent answers to the above questions, by the way.   Keeper   |   76  15:55, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 14) Support - yes, of course. Neıl ☎  16:45, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 15)  Th e Tr ans hu man ist   18:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 16) Almost missed this one! :) I've been working with Gutza this week, he collaborates well, is civil, and, overall, I think he'd make a great admin! SQL Query me!  20:41, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 17) Support with pleasure. SlimVirgin  (talk) (contribs) 21:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 18) Tiptoety  talk 00:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 19) Me too, per answer to Question 8, and general all around cluefulness. --barneca (talk) 01:49, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 20)  Instert random comment here  (actually this obviously needs no explanation) Spartaz Humbug! 19:22, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 21) Support I don't know how I missed this one yesterday. Tim  meh  !  17:26, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * 22) Support - looks fine. -- Beloved Freak  19:27, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * 23) Support. Obvious case. --Hans Adler (talk) 23:52, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * 24) Support. good 'pedia building. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:51, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * 25) Support per above. NHRHS  2010 NHRHS2010 19:05, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * 26) Support. Someone will need to update User:NoSeptember/Functionaries with the date of promotion. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:11, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * 27) Support. Fine, per above. --Bhadani (talk) 16:51, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * 28) Support per above and damn good question answers  Pump me  up  05:26, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * 29) Support Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 22:32, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * 30) Support, perfectly good reason for the tools NoSeptember  14:30, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * 31) Support, no harm in giving the tools to a responsible person, and I'm not against not very active admins ∴ AlexSm 15:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * 32) Support Definitely won't abuse the tools.  нмŵוτн τ  15:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * 33) Support of course. - Philippe &#124; Talk 16:19, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * 34) Support as already trusted admin. Bearian (talk) 17:14, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * 35) Support. Obviously trusted; he'll definitely benefit the Romanian Wiki, and anything he does here will be a bonus. Xymmax (talk) 21:52, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * 36) Support - Great editor! Is Trusted! -  Milk's   Favorite   Cookie  23:56, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Neutral

 * 1) Neutral Pending answer to question above.  D u s t i talk 17:50, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * They have answered. Tiptoety  talk 00:05, 2 February 2008 (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.