Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/TomStar81 3

Edit count for TomStar81
User:TomStar81

run at Tue Jul 1 06:20:53 2008 GMT

Category talk:        2 Category:             1 Image talk:           9 Image:                445 Mainspace             6744 Portal talk:          12 Portal:               16 Talk:                 2779 Template talk:        18 Template:             82 User talk:            1942 User:                 2073 Wikipedia talk:       663 Wikipedia:            2622 avg edits per page    2.98 earliest              23:29, 3 September 2004 number of unique pages 5839 total                 17408

2004/9 171   2004/10 486   2004/11 164   2004/12 114   2005/1  258   2005/2  295   2005/3  392   2005/4  264   2005/5  222   2005/6  111   2005/7  274   2005/8  332   2005/9  397   2005/10 223   2005/11 210   2005/12 523   2006/1  510   2006/2  371   2006/3  265   2006/4  251   2006/5  350   2006/6  377   2006/7  403   2006/8  186   2006/9  346   2006/10 269   2006/11 355   2006/12 397   2007/1  408   2007/2  356   2007/3  498   2007/4  225   2007/5  337   2007/6  259   2007/7  636   2007/8  286   2007/9  225   2007/10 447   2007/11 1803   2007/12 784   2008/1  327   2008/2  676   2008/3  430   2008/4  117   2008/5  631   2008/6  412   2008/7  35

(green denotes edits with an edit summary (even an automatic one), red  denotes edits without an edit summary)

Mainspace 376 [2]State Military characters of the Fullmetal Alchemist anime 339 [3]Iowa class battleship 286 [4]USS Wisconsin (BB-64) 262 [5]USS Missouri (BB-63) 102 [6]USS New Jersey (BB-62) 102 [7]List of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex episodes 100 [8]State Military characters of the Fullmetal Alchemist manga 91 [9]Montana class battleship 86 [10]USS Illinois (BB-65) 83 [11]Fort Bliss 77 [12]Albion (Gundam) 66 [13]Zumwalt class destroyer 65 [14]USS Enterprise (CVN-65) 65 [15]Main characters of Fullmetal Alchemist 61 [16]USS Iowa (BB-61)

Talk: 95 [17]Iowa class battleship 50 [18]USS Wisconsin (BB-64) 44 [19]USS Missouri (BB-63) 33 [20]StarCraft II  21 [21]State Military characters of the Fullmetal Alchemist anime 21 [22]Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars 18 [23]Motoko Kusanagi 17 [24]Zumwalt class destroyer 16 [25]USS New Jersey (BB-62) 16 [26]Montana class battleship 16 [27]USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) 14 [28]Main characters of Fullmetal Alchemist 12 [29]Fort Bliss 12 [30]USS Iowa (BB-61) 12 [31]Iowa class battleship/FAQ

Image: 11 [32]Missouri missles.PNG 10 [33]Falmel (Gundam).jpg 9 [34]Izumi Curtis (FMA).JPG 8 [35]GDI logo.JPG 8 [36]Endra class.jpg 8 [37]State Military (FMA).JPG 8 [38]Roy Mustangs Glove (FMA).JPG 7 [39]Hohenheim of Light (FMA).JPG 7 [40]C&C Generals Aircraft Carrier.JPG 7 [41]Dogos gear (gundam).jpg 7 [42]Albion subclass MS carrier.jpg 7 [43]Space Ark (gundam).jpg 7 [44]Rewloola.jpg 7 [45]Musaka.jpg 6 [46]Ioncannon.jpg

Image talk: 7 [47]USS Kentucky (BBG-1) concept artwork.jpg 2 [48]35wBridgecollapse.gif

Portal: 4 [49]United States Navy/Selected article/5 3 [50]War 2 [51]War/Featured article/35 2 [52]Anime and Manga

Portal talk: 7 [53]War 2 [54]United States Navy

Template: 17 [55]Universal Century ship classes 14 [56]Blackproject 14 [57]WPMILHIST Announcements 12 [58]Command & Conquer 3 [59]Fullmetal Alchemist 2 [60]Shiplife 2 [61]USN Original Six 2 [62]Ghost in the Shell 2 [63]POTD/2007-09-22

Template talk: 3 [64]Did you know 3 [65]Blackproject 2 [66]Infobox Ship Begin/doc

User: 1407 [67]TomStar81/Sandbox 458 [68]TomStar81 74  [69]TomStar81/World War II   42   [70]TomStar81/TQ 13  [71]TomStar81/Bio 10  [72]TomStar81/Copyrights 6   [73]Chris 73/Archive 007 4   [74]CmdrObot 4   [75]TomStar81/Browsebar 4   [76]TomStar81/L&D 4   [77]Marine 69-71/Workshop 4   [78]TomStar81/Spelling 3   [79]Kushan I.A.K.J/New Rollbacks School/Rollbacking/Test 2   [80]Jmdeur 2   [81]TomStar81/box3

User talk: 64 [82]MBK004 47 [83]Kirill Lokshin 40 [84]Roger Davies 39 [85]TomStar81/Archive 2 34 [86]SandyGeorgia 32 [87]TomStar81/Archive 3 28 [88]TomStar81/Archive 5 25 [89]TomStar81/Archive 4 20 [90]KiaraFan13 20 [91]TomStar81/Archive 1 19 [92]BQZip01 16 [93]Raul654 15 [94]Stan Shebs 14 [95]Apostrophe 14 [96]Neil

Wikipedia: 112 [97]Featured picture candidates 104 [98]WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Drive/79 104 [99]WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Drive/7 101 [100]WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Drive/78 100 [101]WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Drive/77 100 [102]WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Drive/123 68 [103]WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Drive/76 66 [104]WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Drive 51 [105]Reference desk/Miscellaneous 41 [106]Featured article candidates/Montana class battleship 31 [107]Inline citation 30 [108]WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/February 2008 26 [109]Featured article candidates/USS Illinois (BB-65) 25 [110]WikiProject Military history/Assessment 20 [111]Requests for adminship/TomStar81 2

Wikipedia talk: 239 [112]WikiProject Military history 189 [113]WikiProject Military history/Coordinators 31 [114]WikiProject Ships 25 [115]Today's featured article 18 [116]WikiProject Military history/Awards 15 [117]WikiProject Military history/Maritime warfare task force 9  [118]WikiProject Military history/Assessment/BCAD 9  [119]WikiProject Military history/World War II task force 8      [120]WikiProject Military history/United States military history task f       orce 8  [121]Featured article criteria 6  [122]Featured picture candidates 5  [123]What Wikipedia is not 5  [124]WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Drive 5  [125]WikiProject History 5  [126]WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/February 2008

If there were any problems, please [127]email Interiot or post at  [128]User talk:Interiot.


 * The edit count was retrieved from this link at 06:21, 1 July 2008 (UTC).

Kurt's oppose and the discussion surrounding it

 * 1) Oppose per answer to #9. Kurt Weber ( Go Colts! ) 04:13, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Heh. Should've known this was coming when you asked it.  Enigma  message 04:18, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Curious kurt, you opposed the last candidate you asked this question to because s/he referred back to policy. This user, however, from their adamant statement seems to have a personal opinion that they should not be used and is (seemingly) not blindly following a rule. – xeno cidic  ( talk ) 12:41, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It's more that Kurt has his own opinions on what policy and practice should be, they tend to differ from the status quo, and he then opposes people who disagree with him. Stifle (talk) 13:23, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Seriously now, what other element is missing to constitute this type of a question and subsequent response by Kurt as a violation of WP:POINT? Instead of taking an issue he has with an official policy, he is proving his point experimentally. SWik78 (talk • contribs) 14:43, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Of course it's a violation of WP:POINT, but then, all of Kurt's RfA votes are a violation of WP:POINT and we've decided that he should be allowed to do it. Additionally, no one should badger him about them.  Enigma  message 16:43, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * No, not all of his RfA votes are a violation of WP:POINT but I do see this one as such. SWik78 (talk • contribs) 17:06, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * For Kurt to ask a question in order to clarify his understanding of a candidate, and then to oppose the candidate for a policy-conforming answer to the question is not disruption of Wikipedia to make a point. He knows his personal criteria for admins, and he applies it.  Sure, it's easy to point fingers and link to things like WP:AGF and WP:POINT, but how many of you have tried to understand his philosophy?  There's nothing radical about it.  It's simply a different viewpoint.  I don't necessarily agree with him on some points, but they make sense, so long as you don't throw around accusations of process disruption.  So it's policy.  Nobody said you had to agree with policy. &mdash;  scetoaux (T | C)  17:21, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * (ec)Of course one doesn't have to agree with policy, but what Kurt did here was trick the candidate into answering the question a certain way to oppose, knowing the candidate didn't have much of a choice. Sorry, but I see all the prima facie opposes as a violation of WP:POINT. That includes the self-nom opposes, the admin coach opposes, and now the "agree with me on thinking policy is bunk or I'll oppose" opposes.  Enigma  message 17:33, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * How are the self-nom opposes violations of our pointy guideline? What disruption is caused by a single oppose vote in a Request for Adminship, regardless of the content of that oppose (so long as to not be in violation of civility policy and good-faith guidelines)? &mdash;  scetoaux (T | C)  17:38, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * (unindent) In fact, I wish to direct you to Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy. There appears to be some general agreement there that the policy on cool-down blocks should be changed to reflect something more realistic than an absolute never. &mdash;  scetoaux (T | C)  17:31, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * (ec)Let me answer two of your points, Scetoaux. First, my claim that WP:POINT is being violated comes not from his philosophical standpoint but from WP:POINT itself which states State your point; don't prove it experimentally. You're right, you don't have to agree with a policy but, in case you do disagree with it, debate and discussion at policy level would have been the correct way to go about the issue, not asking a trick question when you're well aware that it will trigger an oppose !vote regardless of your answer. Second, the discussion to which you provided a link was started after Kurt's questions and it is far from any consensus. If your intent was to defend his actions by notifying us of it, you're chronologically out of order. You can't defend or accuse someone of wrongdoing by citing events transpiring after the fact. By the way, let's not get into a generalized discussion about all things Kurt by invoking his self-nom opposes. They have nothing to do with this and discract from the issue at hand. SWik78 (talk • contribs) 17:51, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The clause about proving points experimentally doesn't apply here. This is RFA.  A person votes for a candidate whom they believe will be a good administrator, and votes against a candidate whom they believe will not.  If that clause were applied, every vote on every RFA would be in violation, simply due to the fact that personal criterion, a "point", is applied in editorial behavior.  Kurt believes that editors who blindly follow policy without critical thought, or editors that believe policy is the only guiding rule for an editor's behavior, should not be administrators.  Kurt's question isn't a "trick question".  If you answer the question correctly in his eyes, which is probably to indicate that the cool-down block policy is inadequate, and provided his other criteria are met (it's not impossible, he's just a really tough critic), he'd vote support.
 * And the link was not intended to defend Kurt. It's intended to convey the idea that current application of cool-down block policy is not as soundly approved-of as you would think it is.  It's another clause of many that brings admins down to the level of robots, and denies them a possibly useful tool in dispute resolution. &mdash;  scetoaux (T | C)  18:06, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I strongly disagree that the application of the complaint that I made to the RfA process would render that every vote on every RFA would be in violation because they're making a "point". There's a huge difference between making a point and violating WP:POINT. Also, I thought I explained why I believe the question to be a trick question: there are 2 possible answers, the person asking the question knew very well that either answer will yield oppose !votes. The damned if you do, damned if you don't part of that situation renders that question tricky. SWik78 (talk • contribs) 18:13, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Such is the nature of RFA, and has nothing to do with anything Kurt Weber has done. &mdash; scetoaux (T | C)  18:15, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Incorrect, this is only the nature of RFA if we let it become the nature of RFA. Kurt is violating WP:POINT, because he is trying to make his POV about the cool-down block policy be well known, by asking a question that he knows the person will answer per policy, and then opposing based on the answer. -- Chetblong ( talk ) 18:32, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I think this discussion may imply to some that it seeks to control something that shouldn't be controlled, demands a perfection out of the process that there will never be. No matter how eccentric or outrageous, Kurt Weber has his right to vote and express himself and nobody should set a precedent of classifying or categorizing it as a "trick question" or otherwise. Only votes based on ridiculous rationales like "per his belief that the world is not flat" or that "chickens can't fly" are to be frowned upon and disqualified by the discretion of the bureaucrat. However warped his thinking or suspect his intentions may be, Kurt Weber's vote on basis of a blocking policy question is valid. If you want to discuss Kurt Weber's approach to RfA, that should not happen on the main or talk page of a particular, on-going RfA.  Vishnava talk  21:18, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * So classifying or categorizing it as a "trick question" doesn't fall under right to vote and express oneself. Everyme (was Dorftrottel) (talk) 08:08, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Well debating about a "trick question" by Kurt Weber is not "right to vote and express oneself" on the RfA of TomStar81 3, which has to be about the candidate and not a separate debate on Kurt Weber's vote. Let Kurt Weber ask his question and make his vote, and discuss any concerns separately with Kurt Weber. The worry here is that excess scrutiny/pressure on Kurt Weber's question can possibly intimidate other people who choose to ask questions and vote as they wish.  Vishnava talk  00:00, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * To add, how can one "classify or categorize" an RfA vote without causing more problems? Why should one categorize RfA votes? It certainly may imply targeting someone, even when it appears justifiable.  Vishnava talk  07:17, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The Rfa process is meant to be a discussion. We should try to increase the amount of discussion, and not decrease it. Kurt has a right to give his opinion, so do I, and so do you. However, I do strongly disagree with Kurt.--SJP (talk) 17:16, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * People should have the right to express themselves in good faith. Sorry, but that question was not in good faith. If you know Kurt's history, you know he was looking for a reason to oppose, so he trapped the candidate. It's reprehensible, really. What was the candidate to do? Say he doesn't agree with the policies? That would garner an avalanche of opposes, because most people want the candidate to know and agree with policy for the most part. The only thing that should matter is whether the candidate will actively go against policy, but that's not how RfA works today.  Enigma  message 18:14, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Not at all. Since these so-called "policies" are totally nonbinding and totally non-prescriptive, it shouldn't matter at all whether or not he will go against so-called "policies"; all that matters is simply what he will do period.  Kurt Weber ( Go Colts! ) 00:16, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Like I said in a different discussion, policy should never take the place of an administrator's (or any editor's) best judgement. THAT's why we have the nify Ignore all rules policy. &mdash;  scetoaux (T | C)  03:55, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Excuse any lack of awareness, and I am myself in favor of not extending this discussion unnecessarily nor am I defending Kurt Weber in any way, but I have a couple of questions to ask: (1) can you really prove that Kurt's vote is malicious or deceitful? (2) would this not discourage or pressure other RfA participants about their votes being possibly questioned as tricks or ill-intentioned? I know that Kurt's particularly eccentric RfA votes have provoked this concern, so (3) why not open an WP:RFC or something to allow a wider discussion including with Kurt Weber, if his RfA voting is a matter of such concern? Naturally I don't want to look like blowing anything out of proportion, but it seems a better way than carrying on this particular discussion. I certainly don't think it is healthy or fair to carry this out on TomStar81 3's RfA.  Vishnava talk  07:17, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The issue such as it were is sort of like catching the great Al Capone on tax evasion: It is not that Kurt going against policy or anything, but of all the things you could object to at rfa this one seems both ridiculas and stupid. And do not worry about carrying ot out on mu rfa, I assure you, I am quite used to it :) TomStar81 (Talk) 07:30, 4 July 2008 (UTC)