Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Elonka

Username	Elonka Total edits	17623 Distinct pages edited	12192 Average edits/page	1.445 First edit	22:01, 16 September 2005 (main)	13760 Talk	1375 User	393 User talk	663 Image	96 Image talk	1 Template	135 Template talk	36 Category	279 Category talk	45 Wikipedia	439 Wikipedia talk	329 Portal	26 Portal talk	46 Elonka's editcount summary stats as of 21:30 October 17 2006, using Interiot's tool. (aeropagitica) 21:30, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Self promotion
In the light of my changed vote I reviewed the discussion at Articles for deletion/Elonka Dunin (2nd nomination) and I think it shows poor judgement in late July as well as editing contrary to WP:AUTO last December. At the same time I am deeply sorry to have to oppose for this one thing and, rather than discuss on the project page I thought I would open a thread here on it. Elonka, do you think it would have been wise to mention this in your answer to question 3 and/or mend fences with Danny? --Guinnog 01:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the question. I've posted a reply at User_talk:Guinnog. --Elonka 11:10, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the answers. I am still a little concerned at where, on 23 July, you argued in favour of keeping the article on yourself in its AfD (although to be fair you did make it clear that you were the subject of the article). As you say in your answer to Q5 that "My last edit to the Elonka Dunin bio was over five months ago, in May, and I have no intention to further edit it", I question whether you would participate in another AfD were one to occur on another of your family's articles. You also edited Stanley Dunin in June and July. Can you see that a conflict of interest might be perceived to occur in this type of edit?


 * Also, why did you answer the questions I raised on my talk page rather than here, when this seems like a more appropriate place for such discussions? I am trying hard to see evidence that you have truly learned from these mistakes you made in the past, but I am (so far) not really convinced that you have. Sorry, but I remain opposed to your adminship for the moment. --Guinnog 09:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I am quite suprised by the number of objects based on WP:AUTO; not only I don't think that (potential) vanity has nothing to do with being an admin and getting the 'mop'n'bucket', but I think that the entire policy of 'don't edit articles about yourself' is simply wrong and misinterpreted, see my recent comments at WP:AUTO. The policy does not forbid such edits, it only advocates caution in them, plus I am afraid it may offend/scare many notable would-be contributors who are accused of bad faith, in effect being one of the reasons experts (who are often notable) shun Wikipedia (as they come, contribute to few articles among them the one themselves, are accused of vanity, get offended and leave). Perhaps you'd like to contribute to that debate (it seems more ppl are interested in using it as a bashing stick at RfA than to discuss its pros and cons at it's talk page).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 16:59, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that. I'm sorry if it comes across as my using a "bashing stick"! It isn't meant to. WP:AUTO is a guideline I know, but I am less concerned by her occasional lapses in the past than by the way Elonka has responded to it in the present. Although it is only a guideline, it seems like a common sense one in ethical terms. I am trying to extrapolate from this whether she would be a good administrator; as I said, I am trying hard to see something positive from it but at the moment I cannot. I'm not sure I would have much to contribute to the policy talk page as I think the policy is fine as it is at them moment, but I'll think about that too. --Guinnog 19:16, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Hello Guinnog, can you a supply a diff to any edit of the Elonka Dunin article which you feel was a clear violation of WP:AUTO? Thanks. Englishrose 21:52, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * would cover it, as I think Gwernol said already.
 * I am also a little perturbed by the dissonance between "Accordingly, to avoid even the appearance of partiality, I no longer participate in the editing of articles about me or my immediate family. My last edit to the Elonka Dunin bio was over five months ago, in May, and I have no intention to further edit" and the edits to her father's article in June and July (for example ). While I'm not suggesting this edit was a bad one, I'm not getting good vibes from this candidate's seeming economy with the truth.


 * I am also interested in her reasons for creating User:Elonka/CoS which, as Sarah said, seems disquieting. Stating specifically that "WP:NPA does not apply here" seems like an odd thing to do. NPA is a good policy.


 * I hope that makes the reasons for my continuing opposition clearer. --Guinnog 23:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * You’re entitled to your opposition and I respect you for explaining your position. However, in my opinion with the WP:Auto thing, the first example is almost a year ago and we all do silly things (I did a lot of them when I started out and I’m sure others have too). As for the edit on Stanley Dunin as you said it only minor and if you saw something a tad incorrect would u break and WP:Auto even permits it, ”Similarly, you should feel free to correct mistaken or out-of-date facts about yourself, such as marital status, current employer, place of birth, and so on". But as I said your entitled to your opinion but I just think many could have done a lot worse.


 * As for the User:Elonka/CoS, I think that was just an experiment of hers and she later admitted that she should have done it ouside of wikipedia, which to me is fair enough and would go down as one of those silly mistakes that we all do from time to time. I’m sure many a current admin has done worse, but there you go. Anyhow, thanks for replying. Englishrose 23:30, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Hey Englishrose, thanks for your comments. If Elonka thought it was an error to create CoS, she should have db-authored it a long time before now. She knows how to use db-author and was using it at least as recently as yesterday, so I'm really not sure why she would let a page like that hang around. I personally don't begrudge her a little latitude in violating auto but it needs to be acknowledged that she has written extensively on her relatives. Just look at the articles listed on her user page under "Famous relatives" and you'll see she was a significant author of most of those articles. Indeed, she started most of them. And all that I looked at, including those not very closely related, contained a mention of Elonka, a link to her article and a link to her website. In fact, we are currently hosting 17 outbound links to Elonka's family tree, 2 to her Genealogy pages and 104 in total to various pages on her domain. Again, I personally don't begrudge her some latitude and I'm not trying to suggest that Auto should apply to distant relatives, but Wikipedia isn't My Space For Elonka's Relatives and though she says the right words, I'm really not sure she gets it.  Sarah Ewart (Talk) 01:04, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

(deindent) I note that the candidate has now indicated her intention to delete the offending page, which is definitely a step in the right direction. --Guinnog 21:08, 20 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Partly for that and partly on a further review of her mainly excellent contributions, I'm changing to neutral. --Guinnog 23:50, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

As a point of information, as User:Elonka/CoS is now gone and there is no description of what it used to say, anyone who saw it want to summarize its contents? And do we know when it was created, as that could have a bearing on future RfAs? DreamGuy 00:06, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I could tell you, but then they'd have to kill us. &mdash; Matt Crypto 01:32, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Malbers Qs
I belive (as per Splash) that his questions are irrelvant to an RfA. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 13:12, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * You would. &mdash;User:Malber (talk • contribs) 13:27, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Malber has been inserting these optional questions into RfA's for quite some time, so please bring this up at WT:RFA, so a larger group will be able to weigh in on this.  Personally, I think just about any question a participant can think of is beneficial to the RfA, as it gives the candidate another venue to voice his/her aims, goals, or opinions, and it also gives the participants more information with which to get a better sense of the candidate   hoopydink  Conas tá tú? 13:31, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you Hoopydink. To expand, I feel my questions serve the purpose of revealing a nominee's temperment. An administrator must have the utmost of patience when dealing with difficult and tendentious editors. Having a sense of humor is paramount to keeping a cool head. I also think it is important that administrators not take themselves too seriously, as adminship is supposed to be no big deal. &mdash;User:Malber (talk • contribs) 13:39, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * My impression is that Malber has been bringing the first two questions up for quite some time, and may be gradually adding more. I think the last one is definitely tangential, and I have doubts that the fourth one does a good job of getting the information he's looking for. -- nae'blis 14:31, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree questions should be more directly related to determining a candidate's trustworthiness. Asking what their favorite joke is is just disruptive at worst and not helpful at best. - Taxman Talk 14:16, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Okay, I can remove that one. But I still feel that asking a nominee their opinion on the importance of having a sense of humor should stay. Do you agree? &mdash;User:Malber (talk • contribs) 14:20, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Keeping 9 seems reasonable to me. --A. B. 14:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I've had to fix the numbering due to an error in my template Q9 is now Q10. Q11 was the favorite joke question. &mdash;User:Malber (talk • contribs) 14:38, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Since you presumably have 10 fingers, I'd have thought you could better manage these numbers .... --A. B. 14:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not a big deal, is it? If a candidate feels that a question is not worth answering, he can easily choose to do so, by not commenting. After all, its the credibility of the questioning user which is at stake. Wikipedians are not fools. &mdash; Nearly Headless Nick  {L} 16:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Most divisive RfA ever?
I thought mine was bad. Could this one be the worst ever? &mdash;User:Malber (talk • contribs) 21:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)


 * You obviously haven't been at RfA for long. Perhaps the most divisive one of all time is Requests for adminship/Carnildo 3. Requests for adminship/Sean Black 2 is another relatively recent one that deserves honorable mention. Grand  master  ka  21:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)


 * One could note that they were both successful :)  S   e   rgeantBolt  (t,c) 22:39, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, but I see that both were cases of adminship restoration, not just any ole RfA. Rubbing people the wrong way and gathering some enemies will be inevitable even if you used admin tools with perfect wisdom and objectivity. Therefore, a different standard should apply for restoration. (Whether stricter or lighter would depend on things like one's reasons for vacating prior admin status.) Wryspy 07:48, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Both finished at less than 75% consensus to promote, as well. I can't think of any particularly bad first-time RfAs... Grand  master  ka  08:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, Carnildo's was more emotional. &mdash;User:Malber (talk • contribs) 13:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * You might be interested in the list at WP:100, which shows the RfAs that had the most participation. You can also get some numbers at Unsuccessful adminship candidacies. --Elonka 17:56, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

From my relativly limited experience, Requests for adminship/Halibutt was pretty bad, too. In this fails, I'd offer Elonka the same advice I gave Halibutt: avoid controvsial actions for half a year, and try again.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 19:15, 25 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Piotrus, "avoid controvsial actions for half a year, and try again" is good advice. I would certainly strongly support Elonka then. Frequently a 2-month interval between RfA's is sufficient, but I'd suggest 6 months in this case, given the strong feelings that arose. Sadly, some of the harsher comments pro and con appeared to be motivated by more longstanding tensions between some of the RfA's participants than anything Elonka did. --A. B. 19:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)