Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Nosebagbear
My RfA, closed on 03/10/2019, closed as successful. It did, however, have a number of significant concerns raised, causing both a number of opposes but were also shared by many who supported me and those who !voted neutral. These concerns were not made without merit. My thanks to those who raised them, and those who asked questions to clarify them.
This subpage is intended to let me highlight the principle points of concern, their specifics, and consider potential actions to avoid problems in the future. In the case where a reason was disputed as a problem I'll also include that. My thanks to Xeno for permission to utilise the layout of his RfA analysis - this is somewhat similar, but with some differences.
I've intended to include all who opposed or were neutral specifically partly or wholly on the basis of the issue as concerned users. I will also include those who were in one of those and changed. I've noted the cases where a significant number of support !voters also tagged it as a "beware/considered" point, but I believe it's quicker to summarise that aspect than relist much of the RfA participator list in certain instances. Nosebagbear (talk) 17:47, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
Failure to Comply with BLP edit
Struway2 raised an instance of failure to source controversial content here and asked for an explanation. I replied with this response, stating that I'd been working to clarify a statement but that I'd incorrectly relied on an already present source without confirming that it supported my statement, and that it was a clear error in BLP compliance, and apologised.
A follow-up question (Q13) was posed, however I chose not to respond (and will not clarify why/why not here).
Concerned Users edit
- GiantSnowman
- Amakaru, who also asked Q13
- WilliamJE
- Struway2, who raised the initial issue
- sparklism
- Yngvadottir
- Wm335td
- Fayenatic London (who changed from Neutral).
- Collect (neutral)
- A significant number of opposes and neutrals gave "per above reasons", and as one of the three most raised issues, it is likely this was a major factor.
- A very significant number of supports (and weak supports) named it as a significant concern
Response/Future plans edit
- The issue caused here was a failure to verify. Usually I feel I'm already quite aggressive on BLP that I wasn't sure what the logical steps to take were other than "be much more careful", but I realised that it was a type of editing I didn't handle much: I've written a couple of biographies, but when I do those I locate a bunch of sources, read all of them twice, then start laying out the content from those.
- But I don't edit already existing BLP articles that much - my content creation is usually on other areas.
- I've had a good re-read through the relevant policies, but I need more experience to bed it in and check I've not picked up bad habits.
- We have BLP articles lacking sources, which would be one approach, for me to take some practice in there.
- But if there is an issue in me editing a BLP article that already has sources, this would be perhaps better spent improving a cross-section of, for example, Start class biographies.
- Since it's all beneficial, and so long as I pick a good mix, enjoyable, I plan on doing both.
Community Input edit
Editing Duration/Count edit
A number of editors either partially or primarily cited an insufficient tenure (mostly by active time, partially by edit count), not giving sufficient ability to understand Wikipedia to the level needed as an Admin or to provide a sufficient positive basis to be assessed from.
There weren't any dedicated questions on this issue, though a couple of partially related ones such as Q11b.
I've separated it into its own category, as it's used as a self-standing reason in its own right, but it was often tied to several other oppose reasons. I've tried filtering to specific instances of edit count/tenure rather than opposes based on not enough experience in certain fields or general unclassified inexperience.
Concerned Users edit
- Pudeo, noted a couple of specific issues as well, but specifically felt that 1.5 years was insufficient for an Admin.
- Carrite
- Hlevy2, per Pudeo
- Gamaliel
- Rusf10
- Nihlus
- WilliamJE
- Some, though not that many, support !voters indicated that it would be preferable to have a longer tenure but generally noted it didn't weigh too highly.
Rebutting Users edit
Some editors, such as feminist, Vadder, Lepricavark and Iridescent specifically repudiated opposes based on my tenure/edit count.
Response/Future plans edit
- This section varies in two main ways from every response section I'm writing in this wash-up: agreement and action.
- Tenure/experience is certainly critical, but I do think that 1.5 years is sufficient. Obviously, a longer tenure might have meant I would have avoided some of the other mistakes and problems. However, so might an alternate usage of my edits within that span.
- That being said, I am absolutely well aware that I'm on the low end of experience for a new admin, let alone an admin in general.
- As an action to take, I have no intention in letting my activity slip off significantly. It's currently being a bit lower in October because I'm doing a lot of reading in my "wikipedia time". Once I'm rolling again, the edits will be somewhat more tailored to handling the other deficiencies identified here, but hopefully that should let me kill several birds with one wiki-stone.
Community Input edit
Block/Ban/CU Policy Knowledge Failures edit
I've looped these two aspects, both first indicated in TonyBallioni's oppose (though the SPI was first highlighted in Snaevar's oppose immediately before for a somewhat different reason), as they both pertain to the same area of expertise (or a failure to demonstrate such). Only a handful of RfA !voters separated the two aspects as well, so they would be difficult to judge the comparable importance placed on either to a precise degree - in fact I'm confident there would be a "more than the sum of their parts" issue at hand. That said, I'll cover my position towards them separately for clarity.
The CU not linking registered accounts to IPs is something that (beforehand) I hadn't considered - a genuine lack of policy knowledge.
The block/ban, particularly egregious, issue was a mess of confusion - I could put it down to tiredness given the time of post but I'd still expect not to get something as wrong as that. It was meant to say that the most common reason for blocks (as opposed to limited bans like IBANs/TBANs) for experienced users appeared to be 3RR blocks, but clearly it went very wrong indeed, including an AE policy error.
Q18 is a related check to block vs ban and the capabilities of any individual admin.
Concerned Users edit
- TonyBallioni
- Nihlus
- Amakuru
- SerialNumber54129
- OhKayeSierra
- Praxidicae
- Curt
- AntiCompositeNumber
- WilliamJE
- Kierzek
- usernamekiran
- Beyond My Ken
- Struway2
- Nsk92
- Alex Shih
- Yngvadottir
- Swarm
- Kashmiri
- Wm335td
- Clovermoss, neutral
- L3X1, neutral
- As one of the major oppose reasons, it's very likely that the majority of general oppose and neutral reasons were at least partly based on this
- A large number of support !votes (and weak support) also made specific note of this as a concern
Response/Future actions edit
- I've had a look through a mix of my other VP/AN(I) discussions, and at least in the last year, I don't seem to have had such a messing up of areas like this, but clearly it needs a strong set of actions to never to be repeated
- In terms of negative actions that could occur if I didn't learn lessons from this, obviously the general area of blocks, SPI requests and policy discussions come to mind
- I've commenced re-reading all of ARL (plus a couple of parts in it that I hadn't already read)
- I'm deliberately holding off from reading the how-to guide and practising blocks until I've concluded the various other areas. I wouldn't be implementing any until I'd both done that and was otherwise sufficiently confident that other learning had been done
- I won't be participating in WP:AE for the foreseeable future
- Above and beyond the written documentation I will be asking for advice from current active admins in certain block-related areas. Several have volunteered for this either on my Talk Page or by email, and various admins have helped me with non-admin matters in the past and I believe would be more than happy to provide help as requested.
Community input edit
Insufficient Content Creation edit
Some opposes felt that I could do with creating more articles, with a subset having a more general concern about needing more mainspace edits/higher mainspace % in general.
As well as it being mentioned in my nomination by WTT I named Fairness Project, which I recently took through GAR, as one of my best accomplishments on Wikipedia. On request to name my second best content creation (Q10) I gave Measures for Justice as my answer.
Concerned Users edit
- Lightburst
- KillerChihuahua
- Yngvadottir
- Wm335td
- Collect, neutral
- Peacemaker67 , neutral (moved from weak support)
- Some supports !votes did note that they'd like more content, but as of RfA-close, no weak supports.
- There are editors who opposed on a general shortness of tenure/edit count who may or may not be considered to share this specific concern.
Response/Future actions edit
- I definitely plan to continue my content work, which mainly divides into two sections: new articles and adding references/reviews to lots of discographies
- I've got one under construction that with the new season underway I should be able to now finish off (Draft:Rotimi Segun), and with the women's rugby game professionalising I aim to get a couple of articles in that area.
- After that I'll probably look to do a little diversifying, but I'm not sure what area I'd be interested in yet.
- I also want to improve a few articles to B-class, particularly various current sportsmen/women articles that have had a stub/start created but there's lots of sourcing available
- While I have a long term goal to get a 2nd GA, it's not an imminent priority - it's most likely if I find an article that I can improve beyond B-class.
- I do not currently have any intention to take an article to FA review. Obviously that's subject to change, but it would be some considerable time into the future if so.
Community input edit
Other Aspects edit
There are a few other areas which received more than one or two concerns - lack of conflict/content dispute resolution is the next most considered specific concern. If I get some time in the next few days I'll work to include it. If you have other aspects you think I've missed in the RfA that I should analyse just let me know below.