Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/KI 2

Accountability?
It seems to me that the candidate is reluctant to answer criticism. We are all accountable to the community. Administrators should feel particularly accountable. No one expects ordinary contributors to be perfect. No on expects administrators to be perfect. But I think we can expect them to own up and acknowledge when they made mistakes. If the candidate thinks they made a mistake, say so. If they don't think they made a mistake, honor challenges with a good faith explanation. In answer to my challenge the candidate told me their rename was justified by wikipedia naming policies. If they want to be an administrator they shouldn't cite policies they won't name. Seriously, if they won't acknowledge when they made an error, how do the rest of us know they won't just go on repeating the same kind of error? (moved here from the main vote page) --  Geo Swan 17:23, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
 * As I stated in response to your initial tirade, I do not care about the name change. You felt strongly about the title which is why it's back to what you wanted. I felt no need to cite policies for a position I'm not arguing. However, since you keep on requesting them: Help:Page name and Help:Moving a page. KI 18:13, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


 * "Flaming", "Tirade", "Bizzare", "Insane"? Is this the kind of language you plan on using when called on to intervene or mediate issues if you become an administrator?  This bodes ill.


 * If you don't care enough to defend your edits, maybe you should reconsider saving your editing energy for topics you care enough about that you will allow yourself to be held accountable for your work?


 * Citing Help:Page name and Help:Moving a page does not satisfy me. These are technical documents, that explain how-to to move a page.  They are not policy documents that offer guidelines on when to make controversial, unilateral changes to article names.  Citing how-to documents when you initially claimed your edit was justified in policy documents suggests a continuing lack of candor, and lack of willingness to be held accountable for mistakes.  --  Geo Swan 17:06, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Accountability and "harrassment"
On April 7th I expressed my concern that User:KI, the candidate, has fallen short of the ideal standards of accountability. I left two brief messages on their talk page. They callbed this harrassment. Well, among the suggestions the wikipedia guidelines have for when you have found yourself engaged in a dispute is to take a vacation from that dispute. When they left a complaint about me on the Administrator's noticeboard I reconsidered any attempts to defuse tension by acknowledging a couple of mistakes I made. I decided to ignore him, unless they made additional edits I found questionable, or reasonable equivalent.

Then, a few days later, he Nominated himself for the position of trust of wikipedia administrator. I thought that counted as a worthy reason to voice my concerns over the impression they had left with me that they fell short of the standards of accountability we should expect from wikipedia contribtutors. I think that there might be a point where, if a regular contributor says: "I just don't want to discuss this issue anymore", you leave them alone. But someone who nominates themselves for administrator is inviting deeper scrutiny into their past edits and their expressed editorial opinions. I don't think an administrator candidate should realize they already invited deeper scrutiny. And, so long as their questioners remain civil, they don't get to claim the questions are harrassment. If the questions on their edits, and expressed opinions, are too hard to answer they can always just withdraw their candidacy.

The candidate has described my questions as harrassment on various user's talk pages and on various administrator pages. Rather than respond to each instance where they described my questions and comments as harrassment I think I will just do so once, here.

It doesn't look like they plan to respond to the questions I put on the vote page. If they are intent enough to nominate themselves for administrator again, rather than repeat myself I will just direct voters to their incomplete, nonexistent or nonresponsive answers this time around. -- Geo Swan 16:14, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Candor?
In your answer to the question about whether other contributors have stressed the candidate out they didn't mention that just a few days earlier they escalated a brief exchange where one of their edits was questioned into harrassment, which they then reported on the Administrator's noticeboard. The candidate is asking the rest of the community to trust them. IMO it looks like this escalation to the administrator's noticeboard was a reaction, overreaction IMO, to stress. It was only a couple of days ago. How come it wasn't part of their answer to the stress question? IMO the candidate has been less than fully candid, right here, on this vote page. They were challenged on the candor issue. And their initial reaction was to ignore the challenge. IMO that is not very responsible. If they won't address a challenge now, what confidence can the rest of us have that they will fairly address challenges to their judgement when they are an administrator? (moved here from the main vote page) --  Geo Swan 17:23, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Reporting the incident to WP:AN was not an overreaction. Your first message on my talk page was an insane response to my only action on that page - moving it to a slightly different title. Your second statement on my talk page was equally bizarre. KI 18:13, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Mediation from administrators should be encouraged when there are disputes. If anything it kept the issue from escalating. KI 18:15, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Administrator's reply to KI's complaint

 * I found your complaint about me on the administrator's noticeboard] shocking. You say this kind of complaint is encouraged?  Allow me to suggest you reconsider whether the administrator who responded to your complaint was encouraging you.  They wrote:
 * "Responded on talk page. I couldn't find evidence of significant harassment."
 * ''"AFAICS from the history of your talk page, the user has only edited the page twice. That's not a case of "won't leave me alone,.."
 * Are you -sure- you want to call this encouragement? --  Geo Swan 15:41, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

My mistakes - KI's questionable choices
I think a commitment to intellectual honesty is important, both online, and in real life. I allow myself rhetorical questions. But I don't ask insincere or deceptive questions.
 * If I learn something I asserted has turned out to have been a mistake, I think I ought to own up to it.
 * If I realize I made some other kind of error, I think I ought to own up to it. An apology might to be appropriate.
 * I do my best to refrain from exagerrating to make a point.
 * It is a matter of trust. I want people to trust me.  And I want to be able to trust them.  There are certain specific choices KI made that eroded my trust.

My mistakes
Before I list the trust eroding choices KI made, let me acknowledge the mistakes I made that I am aware of.


 * 1) In my comments on April 7th I made a mistake, and thought that less than half an hour had passed between KI's rename, and the restoration of the original name. That was a mistake.  It was actually  96 and a half hours -- four days plus half an hour.  A mistake, but a trivial one -- not one I think should apologize for.
 * 2) I also said I thought that during the renaming, and subsequent restoration of the original name, the articles original talk page had gone AWOL. I felt sure that the multiple exchanges on talk pages that passed between myself and contributor(s) with concerns had occurred on the article's talk page.  Later on April 7th I realized that several talk page exchanges that I thought had occurred on the articles talk page had actually occurred months ago on my personal talk page.  This failure of imagination on my part doubled my concern over KI's counter-policy, biased choice of a new name.
 * 3) *This was a more serious mistake. One I should apologize for.  User:KI, User:Abestos I apologize for overlooking that exchanges of talk page messages I remembered may have occurred on personal talk pages.  There are a couple of lessons there for me.  I confess that even after realizing that eschanges that I thought were missing from the talk page were missing from the article's talk page didn't mean that the the talk page hadn't been lost.  I share some responsibility for the escalation in tension between the two of us.  That escalation has clouded my evaluation of how likely or unlikely that is.  Most likely KI is not responsible for losing talk page exchanges.
 * 4) *And I acknowledge that the by allowing my emotions to be clouded I was firmer with KI than I would otherwise have been if I thought they had only made an counter-policy, biased rename. Being firmer with him than I otherwise would have been I fell short of the standards I set for myself.  And I apologize.
 * 5) When I got KI's second brief, cryptic followup note on my talk page, which cited WP:NPA as their justification for the renaming I made an effort to figure out what they really meant.  It occurred to me that what he really meant to say was that they thought I had attacked him.  I wondered if the most likely turn of phrase to have triggered the feeling was when I said he had "abused WP:Bold". I could have said I thought he had -misinterpreted- WP:Bold.  I regret the slightly milder phrasing hadn't occurred to me.  And I apologize for that.  I hadn't intended to trigger the feeling that he was being personally attacked.  It is only his jugdement I meant to question, not his character.
 * 6) I was in the middle of acknowledging and apologizing for these errors when I checked their recent contribution history, and saw that they had compained that the two messages I had composed for them were being described as "harrassment" on the Administrator's noticeboard. It seemed likely the third message I planned to leave them would be considered to be further harrassment, even if I did try to initiate a bipartisan diffusing of tension by acknowledging my errors.  Well, it is a week later, and I regret not publicly acknoledging those errors earlier.  I apologize for that.

I don't apologize for continuing to want KI to either acknowledge that their renaming was coutrary to policy -- or to make a civil, serious attempt to explain how it was within policy. I don't apologize for raising what I contiue to regard as a counter-policy renaming as an issue during their run for an administratorship.

We are all human. To err is human. An openness and acknowledge errors is important in building trust. In my opinion an unwillingness to acknowledge error is often worse than the error.

KI's choices which I question

 * 1) Original renaming, without floating names on the talk page first -- choosing a name that implies that the accused charities were guilty.
 * 2) In his first reply on my talk page there are two things KI did I think were not really responsible:
 * 3) Claimed they didn't feel strongly about "this" -- as if, it seemed to me, that excused them of responsibility for their choices.
 * 4) *We should all be held just as accountable for our actions whether we work on articles we car about, or don't care about.
 * 5) *If we don't care enough about an article to feel an obligation to defend our actions, that is probably a good sign we shouldn't be editing that particular article.
 * 6) Claimed that the rename "was according to Wikipedia naming conventions" -- without specifying what they were.
 * 7) *We shouldn't be citing unspecified policies. There are many policies, and they are vulnerable to misinterpretation.  It is best to either be very familiar with them, familiar enough that we can cite them by name, when we cite them -- or we should refresh our memory prior to calling upon their authority.  And in that case we should also cite them by name.
 * 8) Their second reply was brief, cryptic and misleading.
 * 9) *Even if we think we are the agrieved party, we should still do our best to make sure tension don't continue to rise. I believe that KI is sincere in their belief they were being personally attacked.  I also believe an attempt to discuss policy, and how it relates to a contributor's editing choices, so long as it remains civil, is not a personal attack.
 * 10) In my opinion, in his request, about me, on the Administrator's noticeboard, he fell far short of candor.
 * 11) Another voter asked KI about his past edit conflicts, and whether any of them caused them stress. I think it fell far short of candor for him to not mention the exchanges we had, just four days earlier, that had lead him to complain of harrassment on the noticeboard.
 * 12) When called on this discrepancy KI stated he didn't regard it as significant. Not significant, and yet it led to a request for administrators to "watch over" me?  That is not candid.
 * 13) His answers to my candor question illustrate:
 * 14) A misunderstanding of wikipedians responsbilities to make an effort to defuse strained relations on their own, before asking for help.
 * 15) Obliviousness to the point the administrator who followed up his request was trying to make. I believe the administrator was suggesting he reconsider whether my notes to them constituted harassment.
 * 16) KI applies the phrase personal attack loosely. They characterized another voters comment as a personal attack.  And yet, in this whole series of exchanges, it seems to me that he is the only one who has used inflammatory language, like "insane", "bizarre", "flaming", and "tirade".  If their trigger for what they regard as a personal attack is so sensitive, they should be more careful about their use of attack words.
 * 17) KI has left a series of warnings that I should remove some questions I put on the vote page, without explaining why he finds them offensive. I did my best to phrase those questions as inoffensively as I could.  They do reflect those areas where I feel they has fallen short of the judgement and candor we have a right to expect from administrator candidates.  I think the questions were civil, and I think I was entitled to ask them.
 * 18) KI left a pair of notes on another wikipedian's talk page, admonishing them for "instigating" my "harrassment" of them. Even if, for the sake of argument, I was harrassing them, rather than trying to get them to discuss the policies they claimed justified their actions, and asking them to comply with other policies, I believe it would be extremely unfair and unreasonable to try to hold them responsible.  That user explained that they merely gave a civil, neutral answer to a technical question, and some neutral advice.  They did nothing to justify an admonishment.

I believe these mistakes illustrate areas of growth candidate KI should work on before his next run for administrator

I've gone into detail because he seems to have made an effort to avoid being held accountable or to give candid answers. I am not planning any further comments on his editorial judgement until the next time he runs for administrator, or if he makes another highly questionable edit to one of the articles on my watchlist.

I am not completely happy with all my judgement calls either. And I will be taking some lessons learned into account. -- Geo Swan 22:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

The quality of the candidate's edits?
Several other contributors have stated that the general quality of the candidate's edits are good. I found that too when I checked out their contribution history. But I don't think that should be the sole or most important criteria when judging whether a nominee has the judgement to be an administrator. (moved here from the main vote page) --  Geo Swan 17:23, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. KI 18:13, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

After the fact note, in case of future need
Aumakua 05:12, 10 June 2006 (UTC)