Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Stevey7788


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

Stevey7788
final (10/11/2) ending 21:13 24 July 2005 (UTC)

This user does much good work with RC patrol, welcoming newbies, reverting vandalism, and would make great use of the admin tools. User is very helpful and patient with newbies, and also quick to compliment others on their work. While I consider this to be only a secondary consideration for an admin, this user has also done some great work for articles (just take a quick look through the contributions). Y0u (Y0ur talk page) (Y0ur contributions) 21:48, July 17, 2005 (UTC)


 * Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here:

Support
 * 1) Strong support of course, as nominator! Y0u (Y0ur talk page) (Y0ur contributions) 21:14, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Strong support a friend of Y0u is a friend of mine :) Redwolf24 22:19, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) Support. Friendly users on RC patrol are great to have as admins. Regarding Splash's concern in the oppose section... I once thought the same way (Requests for adminship/Khaosworks), but I have come to appreciate that good-faith contributors will be cautious about using their powers in areas they have little experience. Limited experience on VFD might even be a sign of sanity... Sjakkalle (Check!)  08:02, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * True, but since the RfA he's been diving into places like TfD and getting things a bit wrong e.g. he put a TfD tag on the template page of a textual template which is disruptive to the articles it appears in. I'd already put it on the talk page and notified the author etc. This is minor (and the template is barely used) and it's all good to dive in, but it does bely unfamiliarity with things and shows he didn't read around things properly first (which would be essential if he were to acquire a new set of unfamiliar tools). -Splash 13:18, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Support. I've reviewed some of Stevey7788's recent edits and he seems to be careful and focused, qualities which I'd like to see in an administrator. Wile E. Heresiarch 02:27, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Careful support - user is a good editor but needs to relax as far as how SPUI points out. I don't like cuss words either, but it's impossible to remove them from an all-inclusive project.  -- M e r o v i n g i a n  (t) (c) 11:12, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) Support. Seems to make lots of valuable edits.  I don't believe that any lack of familiarity really matters at the end of the day, so long as the user is acting in good-faith.  Also, the fact that he gets offended by offensive user pages is probably a good sign.  Stewart Adcock 22:13, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 4) Support. Based on Stevey7788's responses here, I am moving my vote from neutral to support. His polite responses, willingness to admit mistakes, and ability to modify his actions are all important qualities for an administrator. I hope he now understands the importance of discussion, and of seeking feedback, for controversial actions. &mdash; Knowledge Seeker &#2470; 04:30, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 5) Support I think the opposers' concerns are totally off the mark.  Grue  09:04, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 6) Support. Demonstrated good commitment to the Wikipedia project, and has made good article content contributions. I would like to see more deletion related activity (e.g. VfD/TfD), however, when this user receives administrative privileges, and I would also like the user to bear in mind the issue over objectionable user page content in the future. However, I am confident that this user would use administrative privileges well, and seems like an affable and reasonable individual; I thus have no qualms about offering my support. --NicholasTurnbull 03:10, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 7) Support.  Stevey's right, gratuitous offensive material is unnecessary.  His method of addressing the situation was misguided, but he has apologized, which is good enough for me. --Spangineer  (háblame)  19:05, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

Oppose
 * 1) Oppose, too little experience of admin-related things. In amongst a healthy edit-count and good article work, there is next to no participation in VfD/TfD/CfD etc (though appeared on VfD a little while ago today) and I see only a little evidence of RC/NP patrol in the last 1000 edits (judged from edit summaries). The bulk of the Wikipedia: space edits are either to the sandbox or to things related to the sandbox. The talk page edits are a mixture of template welcomes and interaction: the interaction appears to be uniformly pleasant, which is good. I think that, given the user's slight reluctance and current inexperience in the spikier areas of WP, a month or two trying out some new things would be healthy. -Splash 05:29, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose, removes "offensive content" consisting of text from user pages and the word "fuck" from messages when not used as a personal attack. --SPUI (talk) 14:06, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) Oppose for the reasons above. --Silversmith Hewwo 01:20, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 4) Oppose, per SPUI. The Wikipedia doesn't need pseudo-moralists, thank you very much I do not agree with the user's line of thought. --Sn0wflake 05:17, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 5) Neutralitytalk 14:26, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * 6) Oppose users should edit for a lot longer before applying for administratorship. A simple editcount is not a good evaluation of a user's sincerity towards the Wikimedia...users should be "time-tested". freestylefrappe 00:50, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
 * 7) --Boothy443 | comhrÚ 07:29, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 8) Oppose, to short a time, not enough involvement. Unenthused by the accusations of attempted censorship.--nixie 08:20, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 9) Oppose, reluctantly. Wikipedia is not censored. &middot; Katefan0(scribble) 17:58, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
 * 10) As per above. Maybe next time. Andre ( talk ) 22:51, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
 * 11) Oppose, death to censorship. Dmn / &#1332;&#1396;&#1398; 19:42, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I do apologize. Although this is what Wikiquette says: Be careful of the words you choose — what you intended might not be what others think, I fully understand that I do not have the right to modify other's comments and what Profanity says. I promise that I will try not to ever let myself "censor" other's comments in the future as I had done to SPUI's. This won't ever happen again. &mdash; Stevey7788 (talk) 21:42, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Neutral Neutral. I don't like the repeated censoring. But to be fair, Stevey stopped after I asked him to. It's still too recent and I'd like to see administrators discussing their actions more instead of just repeatedly pushing them, so I'm staying with neutral for now. &mdash; Knowledge Seeker &#2470; 20:19, 19 July 2005 (UTC) Moved to support. &mdash; Knowledge Seeker &#2470; 04:30, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Neutral. Contribute for four more months and then you'd get my vote of support. Denelson83  06:04, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Neutral. Seems like a good user, but contribution list doesn't show much breadth of experience.  Would be willing to support at a later time.  PedanticallySpeaking 17:13, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Comments
 * You may also want to check out my contribution list or user page if you want to know more about me. (Also, according to Kate's tool, I have over 3300 edits ) Although I first refused Y0u's offer to nominate me, I carefully thought about it and finally decided that I might need some admin tools to help me better serve the Wikipedia community. I thank all of you for participating in this nomination, regardless of whether you support or oppose my nomination. Thank you all again. &mdash; Stevey7788 (talk) 21:30, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I haven't been doing a lot of RC patrol work recently, but I am very familiar with it and have mainly done vandalism reverting and vandal warnings in the past. Now, I'm more into doing the wikilinks and article cleanups. &mdash; Stevey7788 (talk) 16:54, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * In reply to User:SPUI's objections: The user only removed the content from SPUI's user page once, and when it was restored, he did not attempt to remove it again, so while maybe he should not have removed it, I have no doubt that it was done in good faith. The user is well within his rights to say that he would like to see it removed from User:SPUI's userpage, however you look at it. Y0u (Y0ur talk page) (Y0ur contributions) 14:28, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately not. WP:NOT censored for anyone. It's pretty well established that a user can put pretty much what they like on their user page, as long it's not a personal attack of otherwise illegal content. That's not policy, of course, but, like I said, it's pretty well established. (Actually, he can say he wants he wants it removed, but he shouldn't actually remove it.) -Splash 15:22, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * While I agree that he should not have removed it, it was at worst ONE error made in good faith from which the user quickly backed down, and I'd like to say that I really don't feel like it should be that big of a deal. Making the user an admin will not make them more able to make such changes (since rollback reverts to the last version, and if only offensive content is removed in such a revert, it is almost certainly vandalism.)  If it had happened repeatedly (I am referring to user pages themselves,) either to user pages in general or to SPUI's userpage, I would consider this a much stronger objection.  Also, I can find no indication that WP:NOT applies to userspace, only that offensive content can be used in articles when it adds content to the article.  WP:NOT states "While obviously inappropriate content (such as inappropriate links to shock sites) is usually removed immediately, except from an article directly concerning the content...." and SPUI's user page is not an article concerning any of the removed content.  Y0u (Y0ur talk page) (Y0ur contributions) 15:31, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree that this is a pretty minor issue (the second example is a replacement of a single word: while the decision to do so was wrong (and more wrong than the first example, imo), it too is minor). However, if WP:NOT doesn't apply to userspace, then there certainly isn't a place that says "it's ok to remove content you don't like from other users' userpages". Anyway, it wasn't the substance of my personal oppose vote, so it's not especially important to me. It is a point Stevey7788 might want to consider in future though. -Splash 15:40, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Y0u said "The user only removed the content from SPUI's user page once, and when it was restored, he did not attempt to remove it again". I count two removals. One would have been fine, a mistake but harmless, but again removing it again without any attempt at discussion is not behavior appropriate for an administrator, in my opinion. &mdash; Knowledge Seeker &#2470; 20:19, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, putting "GAY SEX, ANAL, ALL NIGHT!" was somewhat shocking, and it looked almost like vandalism. When I removed it, SPUI reverted it immediately. I realize that many people have been editing SPUI's user page because of the GAY SEX message on the top. I invite you to visit my talk page and SPUI's talk page for the full story. Now, I will always be careful around user pages and remember to carefully discuss matters with them &mdash; I will take care to see that I will never do this again. SPUI is not a really bad person either, I have noticed that he has often been very helpful here, writing and improving articles on the U.S. transportation network, which is one interest we have in common. Thank you all for you concerns. &mdash; Stevey7788 (talk) 20:27, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I apologize, it was indeed removed twice. I was in error.  However, I still stand by my opinion that it was at worst a misjudgment made in good faith.  Y0u (Y0ur talk page) (Y0ur contributions) 20:33, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * What you are failing to grasp is that those changes he made are not being directly opposed, but rather, his line of thought is being opposed. I do not feel comfortable with the idea of supporting the adminship of an editor with such a conservative mindset, and I think the same is valid for most of those who are currently in opposition. --Sn0wflake 20:56, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I fully agree that it was two edits - but I was not at all willing to do it the third time because I knew what I had done was facing some opposition and that the 3RR must be respected. You may want to see my message to Knowledge Seeker, my talk page, and SPUI's talk page. Also, I was never aware of any policy which says that removing offensive words is not something to be done on Wikipedia. I really thought that I was doing something helpful to Wikipedia. But if some people oppose my actions and on removal of vulgar words, I will be very careful not to remove them to avoid POV and conflict. Addendum: about my "line of thought" - although I do not fully consider myself a convervatist, I am somewhat farther awy from leftist and radical thoughts, but I always take care not to create a POV situation, which I have never encountered really before. I have now read Profanity and understand why my actions are not acceptable. Besides, I will now always take full care to carefully discuss everything and to do things slowly when it comes to other user's pages and comments  &mdash; Stevey7788 (talk) 22:23, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Regarding Sn0wflake's comments: at least for me, my concern is the actions, not the thoughts. It is fine to be conservative&mdash;I am rather conservative myself, and personally feel that profanity should be used rarely if ever in comments. However, the important thing is to recognize that my personal standards don't necessarily apply to others. To Stevey: there is no policy forbidding removal of offensive words, and in fact this would be encouraged for the most part on articles. But there are policies on editing others' user pages and on editing others' comments. Nevertheless, I am impressed enough by Stevey's comments here that I am switching my vote to "support". Stevey, you don't have to carefully discuss everything either&mdash;it's all right to be bold too&mdash;but just make sure you are familiar with the relevant policies before doing so. For whatever reason, user pages on WIkipedia are considered to be somewhat sacrosanct, especially for productive editors. It would take a lot for me to edit someone's page without asking them about it first&mdash;and if the user reverted, and was a productive contributor, I would certainly ask for feedback before doing it again. &mdash; Knowledge Seeker &#2470; 04:30, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * My not so civil vote might have left you under the impression that I do not respect your POV, but plase do not understand it as such. I simply am strongly against any manner of censorship when it comes to everyday things such as cursewords. While I am not very willing to change my vote, I will at least reword my vote. --Sn0wflake 22:55, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry. Although this is what Wikiquette says: Be careful of the words you choose — what you intended might not be what others think, I fully understand that I do not have the right to modify other's comments. I promise that I will try my best not to ever let myself "censor" other's comments in the future as I had done to SPUI's. Besides that, I do think that the Comments section is getting cluttered up over the discussion of one issue. &mdash; Stevey7788 (talk) 01:13, 21 July 2005 (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.)
 * A. Usually, Wikipedia chores are my normal everyday tasks. I do a lot of wikifying, new page patroling, RC patroling, new user welcoming, page cleanups, sandbox raking and other work that Wikipedia is in need of. I will try my best to serve Wikipedia as an administrator and do what the community needs me to do.
 * 2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
 * A. I am interested in a wide range of topics. One of the topics I am interested in are the different ethnic groups and cities of the United States. Other interest are biological species and history. I rarely sit quitely and read an article like a rock in front of the computer moniter &mdash; instead, I like to correct mistakes and add more information to the article. A lot of good articles also exist here on Wikipedia. I always like the "monster articles" (such as San Gabriel Valley or History of the Yosemite area) that one or two people work very hard on and write exclusively for Wikipedia.
 * 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. Not really. There were a few small hassles like when Buckshot defaced my and other users' pages. Overall, however, Wikipedia is full of great people like Zscout370, Hadal, Everyking, and many other Wikipedians which I really admire. In my opinion, Wikipedia is an excellent community where people can get together to share and write about the many interesting things we meet in the world.