Wikipedia:Requests for bureaucratship/Geni


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

Candidate withdrew.

Geni
'''Final (13/16/4) Ended 09:21, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

– I've been a wikipedian for over 2 years and an admin for more than one and a half. During that time I've done pretty much everything except directly edit the main page. As an admin I've been pretty active with over 220 actions a month. I admit I'm not the greatest editor ever but I've expanded our coverage of UK canals and uploaded rather a strange selection of images and some public domain maps

In terms of bureaucrat tasks I have been following RFA for just under 2 years (although for a number of reasons I don't often vote). I have some experience with renaming issues (although mostly on accounts so new they just starting a new account was a simplest option) and I have an understanding of the issues around bots (although for the most part I have only dealt with them after they have gone wrong). I know how the tools work from experience on other projects using mediawiki Geni 23:50, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate A few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:
 * 1. Have you read the discussions on when to promote and not promote? What do you understand the criteria for promotion to be?
 * A. Historically this has moved around a bit but currently 80+ = promote 75%- = fail and between those two it depends. This covers the overwhelming majority of cases.


 * 2. How would you deal with contentious nominations where a decision to promote or not promote might be criticized?
 * A. Through communication. My experience is that this calms most things down (well that and a good night's sleep).
 * 3. Wikipedians expect Bureaucrats to adhere to high standards of fairness, knowledge of policy and the ability to engage others in the community. Why do you feel you meet those standards?
 * A. Well I know how to be impartial from my days of enforcing the 3RR rule. My knowledge of policy is pretty good due to the shear variety of the stuff I've done. my experience is that contacting people on their talk page is generally enough to engage them.
 * 4. If you become a bureaucrat, will you pledge not to discuss promotion or non-promotion of potential admins on any other forum during the course of nominations and especially when making a decision? And to discuss issues of promotion or non-promotion only with other bureaucrats, in their talk, where such discussion would be transparent?
 * A.Of course.
 * 5. Do you have the time and do you have the desire to visit WP:RFA on a regular basis to see to the promotion or delisting of candidates in a timely manner?
 * A.:Certianly.

Optional questions
 * 6. You say about your participation in RfA: "although for a number of reasons I don't often vote". Could you tell us what these reasons are? Do you believe that participation in RfA is important for a bureaucrat or not? Gwernol 00:15, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * AThe reason is that I dislike voting on a candidate I don't already know. Participation in RFA is a useful background bureaucrat and I have that through some voting, a fair bit of commenting without voting and involvement in various discussions on the talk page over the years.


 * 7. Do you pledge, whenever taking a b'crat action, to serve the expressed consensus of the community? If not, will you obey Jimbo and the Board? If not, do you answer to any authority? Or do you consider b'crats autonomous guardians of the project? John Reid 00:25, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * A.:My belife is that the community should decide wherever possible. The primary duty of bureaucrats is the serve the will of the community. However if an RFA has 90% support and it is discovered with one minute to go that the person is the sockpupet of a banned user I would hope that people would not blame me for not promoting. As for the board when dealing with them we have the option of obeying or leaving. Which I would do would depend on the situation.


 * 8. Carnildo's RFA was handled in an unusual manner that caused considerable distress among some in the community. If a similar situation were to happen in the future, how do you imagine you would approach the consideration of whether or not to promote?  Assuming you would support such a promotion, and given lessons learned from Carnildo's, would you have handled anything differently with respect to the community to help to minimize the conflict and upset that highly unusual promotions can cause?  Dragons flight 01:48, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * A:well in the Carnildo case it could be argued that I had a conflict of interest so I would have been unlikely to get involved. In the more general case I would be very unlikely to promote at that level of support.Geni 02:05, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * 9. Bureaucratship is a highly respected and regarded servants of the community, and its members are expected to defend this tradition and honour. (Hypothetical) Say, in an unlikely event that you have made an error in your RfA judgement in the course of your bureaucratship. Would you prefer to resign and take personal responsbility, or would you rather to have the bureaucratship and yourself bear the consquences together? - Mailer Diablo 06:23, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * A:I would take personal responsibility for any actions. I would resign if I believed that would work towards solving the situation.Geni 10:42, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * 10. How many RfAs have you taken part in from the last three months? -- Alex |  talk  /  review me  | 12:58, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * AI've read a lot (I like to know which admins I can expect to see around in future and been involved in a lot of debates about what adminship involves. I don't "!vote" often because as I said I like to know the person before I comment.


 * General comments
 * I wonder if it might be a good idea to postpone this request until the ongoing Giano ArbCom case relating to the events surrounding Carnildo's promotion is resolved - there may be issues which, as a result of the case, will impact on bureaucratship and I would prefer to assess the candidate when the findings are known rather than now. --Mcginnly | Natter 13:46, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Discussion (for expressing views without numbering)


 * Well, I'm not registered, but geni is not helpful. His or her opinions (especially on the mailing list) leave me wanting more. For someone who would become a larger "face of Wikipedia", it would be nice to have someone more pensive and trustworthy. I know I don't back up any of my claims, and my opinion doesn't matter since I'm not a registered user, but I just figured I'd speak my brain and let you all know how I feel about geni. Soz. --198.185.18.207 14:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I've been asking him to write more than one liners, he's been doing so of late and the answers have been very clueful IMO. I disagree with him on lots but he can always explain reasons for his views sensibly when asked to - David Gerard 15:19, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't see a reason presented for why we need more crats, or any sign of motivation or the complete experience the task tends to require (not just time here). Voice -of- All  01:20, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * beaucrats keep Wikipeda from sliding into choas and darkness. Geni knows his stuff and i support him. 205.157.110.11 03:15, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Support
 * 1) Someone said on the last one of these (I think it was RyanGerbil10) that there's no such thing has having too many clerks in the checkout line and I'm inclined to agree here, as I was then.  Geni is a dedicated Wikipedian who has put forth many hours volunteering on this project, so his trustworthiness has certainly been proved to me many times over.  I think he possesses a levelheaded demeanor and the ability and willingness to accept and use his newfound abilities for the greater benefit of Wikipedia and the Wikipedians that build the project   hoopydink  Conas tá tú? 00:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Couldn't hurt. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Support (Liberatore, 2006). 06:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Support. Geni is one of the administrators who always respects consensus. He will speak up when he feels that something is wrong, and has a record of doing so in a civil manner. Fair minded and unbiased people are good for the bureaucrat roster. Sjakkalle (Check!)  07:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) Support - I like the answers and his respect for consensus abakharev 10:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) Support, I have confidence he will do a good job. - Mailer Diablo 11:06, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) Support - Geni is a trustworthy and admirable user, but I do think it would behoove him to make his answers to the above questions just a little bit longer.  Srose  (talk)  11:33, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 8) Support - Absolutely top notch admin and Wikipedian. Haukur 12:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 9) Support per the others. Mango juice talk 12:41, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 10) Weak Support per Diablo. I feel uneasy with making new Bureaucrats with the vagueness with determining consensus, but he is knowledgeable and has been around this for awhile. P eople Powered 14:31, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 11) Support and I encourage others to also - David Gerard 15:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 12) Support, I usually find myself disagreeing with much of what I see Geni say (though I don't have occasion to interact much with him), but he always has a clear rationale, speaks his mind, shows valuable insight, and most importantly for this job, appears to respect consensus. -- M P er el ( talk 15:49, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 13) Strong support -- per A7. I also like A9. Whatever else, this candidate believes he works for us. Fine writing does not an impartial b'crat make; I want my b'crats to read. This candidate's A8 is complete and correct: community consensus did not support that promotion, period. John Reid 07:45, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Oppose
 * 1) Oppose sorry, but I'm not satisified with the answers you have given above. First, you seem to have consistent trouble with clarity of expression. It took me 7 or 8 attempts to parse your answer to question 6. Excellent communication skills are critically important to this role. More importantly, I don't like the notion of only voting on RfA's of people you know. That gives the appearance of not wanting to do the research and make the hard, impartial choices that bureaucrat have to make. I'd like to see you get experience in this before becoming a bureaucrat. Your answer to question 8 seems to dodge the issue: the Carnildo case was much more complex than judging the level of support and I'd hoped for an answer that reflects that complexity. Whether we like it or not, the role of bureaucrat has been made harder by the Carnildo case and RfB candidates have to address this, not hedge. I have similar concerns about your answer to question 7; you say: "As for the board when dealing with them we have the option of obeying or leaving. Which I would do would depend on the situation." That's the crux of the question: when would you obey to board, and when would you leave? If you can't give a specific, detailed answer to this, I can't support your candidacy. Gwernol 10:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Research will only get you so far. If I haven't interacted with someone I tend to be sceptical about how well I know them. I used to be the main enforcer of the 3RR. That involves a lot of hard impartial choices (and a surprising amount of research). The Carnildo case falls into the classic hard cases make bad law situation and I have no wish to reopen the issue and cause further problems. As to when I would obey the board when I disagreed is would depend on the importance of the issue how much I disagreed and the level of community support for various options. The reason I cannot give exact answers is the reason we have people rather than bots make discussions.Geni 12:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the detailed reply. I very much agree with you that "hard cases make bad laws". As you say, bureaucrats are people not bots and long may that remain the case. As a result its important to know about candidates' approaches to judging hard cases; its exactly the hard cases that we need you for. I have no concerns that you'd handle to easy cases where consensus is obvious, but I still haven't heard how you'd handle more difficult cases. Its hard to do this without discussing concrete examples. Let's steer clear of the Carnildo case (I agree its incredibly divisive) and concentrate on the issue of disagreements with the board. Can you supply real or hypothetical examples of how you would judge the importance of a disagreement. You must have some idea of when you believe a disagreement would be so great that you would potentially resign your position rather than implement it? By the way, I'm quite willing to change my opinion here if you can help me understand your thinking in more detail: I have great respect for you as an admin. Best, Gwernol 12:42, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * In most cases I would be unlikely to resign more refuse to carry out the action and see if the board decided to remove me as a result. Cases such as making someone an admin who the community really didn't want or shifting someone to an insulting username would be examples although I doubt they would happen.Geni 13:29, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) I don't believe Geni is ready for the crat tools just yet. I am also slightly concerned with the issue Tony/Sean bring up. – Chacor 11:24, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose per Gwernol. I would have liked to see some participation at RfA or RfA talk to bettter understand your thinking.   Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim   14:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It's there if you go through the archives.14:22, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Weak oppose. I feel a little more experience is needed in RfAs. Other than that, seems to be a great admin, and a potential candidate if this area is addressed. -- Alex |  talk  /  review me  | 14:07, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose per Gwernol. Rama's arrow  15:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Weak Oppose per Gwernol. A bit more experience in RfAs are required here. If this user addresses these concerns, I am sure this nomination would be a success. Do not lose heart over this and re-apply again after six months. -- S iva1979 Talk to me  17:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Oppose --Dangherous 17:54, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * could you expand on that?Geni 18:15, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose per answers about Carnildo affair, they just barely scrape the surface. pschemp | talk 19:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * What do you want? I've already stated what I would do.Geni 23:30, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose per answers, just really vague and not enough for me to trust with crat tools. Yank sox  20:55, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * what area is that you wish to know more about.Geni 23:30, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Weak oppose per vague answers and less-than-excellent communication skills. --Guinnog 22:16, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose Per Guinnog, The answer to Q6 is, with all due respect, pretty garbled. Though is generally pretty good on policy, the sniping in the mailing list is awful. Does seem better recently but I would need more of that before supporting this I think. I'm not sure if he'd be able to communicate effectively in a heated debate clearly and without inflaming the conversation. Rx StrangeLove 23:43, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Oppose. Given the ever-increasing scrutiny bureaucrat decisions are placed under, I really require potential bureaucrats to provide in-depth responses to inquiries made of them. In particular, given recent events, I would expect a candidate to give a detailed reaction to the Carnildo affair (I thought the answer given was, to be perfectly frank, too political). Should the proverbial hit the fan again, responses such as those above simply would not wash. Rje 23:52, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * My experience after being involved in rather a lot of chaos of various types (remember I was involved in the original Carnildo issue) is that is exactly those type of comments that allow people to move on and get back to editing peacefully in time for the next problem. I have no wish to reopen that issue here. As for future problems well since they are impossible to predict to any reasonable degree detailed answers are impossible.Geni 00:51, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I understand your position, and I certainly wouldn't want you to dig up all of the gory details again, but I think you could have still discussed in a general manner issues relating to the decision making process and the right of bureaucrats to throw out the formbook in closing requests. Your response to this question probably would not have been such a big issue with me if your answers to #1 and #2 had been more detailed (one key issue you haven't covered, for example, is how you would decide a close call). One can never foresee what will happen, but I do not feel this is a legitimate excuse to avoid discussing where one stands on fundamental issues. Rje 01:35, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Buy looking at both sides arguments and seeing which were better.Geni 01:58, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * With that response I think it's clear you are not going to win me round, so I will bottom-line my position. We are not desperate for bureaucrats at the moment, therefore I think we can afford to only promote exceptional candidates. I feel that in the light of recent events it is important for potential bureaucrats to clearly discuss their understanding of bureaucratship, their reasons for running, and their position on relevent issues (see Redux's successful RfB for an example of what I mean). Unlike with administrative actions, every single bureaucratic decision will be closely scrutanized; for this reason I feel it is imperative that candidates are able to discuss their actions and their understanding of policy in a detailed manner. Your RfB does not come close to this very high standard. Rje 02:53, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose. Bureaucrats are generally very highly regarded members of the Wikipedia community.  One thing I consider necessary for all bureaucrats (and even administrators) is a good ability to communicate.  I feel that your lack of decent grammar and spelling would impair your ability to communicate.  Sometimes I can not figure out exactly what you're trying to say, even after reading something 4 or 5 times, such as in question 6 above. — Mets 501  (talk) 01:05, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Reluctant Oppose. Geni is actually one of my favorite admins, always certain to argue for thoroughness and consensus, and against ill-thought "quick fixes". However, trust his views though I do, I agree that calm communication is a key attribute in a bureaucrat, and I'm not sure (given both grammar and temperment issues) that he fits the bill. Xoloz 03:57, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Oppose - Too prone to arguing with the votes of people he disagrees. Scobell302 04:15, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Oppose - Per Gwernol. No offence but communication skills may not be as good as they should. Tendency to rebut oppose votes with comments like What do you want? I've already stated what I would do when a tad politer answer would do increases those worries.  Noble eagle  [TALK] [C] 05:34, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Neutral
 * 1) Tony Sidaway 00:10, 26 September 2006 (UTC) I think this would cause unacceptable conflicts with User:Danny
 * 2) * That comment is inflammatory. Please provide a context for your remark. Thank you. John Reid 00:26, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) **.--SB | T 07:31, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) * I've reviewed both citations. I would give greater weight to Tony's comment if he explained himself better and openly declared his involvement in this issue. This matter appears insignificant to me. OFFICE actions are, by definition, arbitrary and obscure; and the key feature of OFFICE actions is that they are performed in order to satisfy outsiders. John Reid 07:45, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) ***Not to worry, Danny will desysop anyone, even future board members. NoSeptember  11:34, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) * I doubt either would hold it against the other - David Gerard 15:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) ** Veering towards oppose. Good answers to some rather trying questions, but I'm not confident that he'd be willing to make good decisions, explain them, defend them and (above all) stick by them in the face of serious harassment and cries of "foul". --Tony Sidaway 05:57, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 8) Neutral. I would like to see longer answers to the questions, particularly in regard to recent contested RfAs, if you wish to make RfA a focus of your efforts as bureaucrat. Your credentials seem very good, otherwise. I will be monitoring this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Grandmasterka (talk • contribs).
 * 9) Neutral I don't think the answers provide enough depth. Michael 00:35, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * If you feel that there are points that have not been covered please ask about them.Geni 00:42, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Neutral per above. Also, I feel it is not necessary for Geni to try to argue with every vote, that doesn't help much. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:08, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The above 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 article's talk page. No further edits should be made to this page.