Brain Before Life

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Hello, Brain Before Life, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! Brain Before Life (talk) 04:40, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

moved from HuskyHuskie's userpage

We can have a longer discussion about it here

Hey HuskyHuskie, I thought it would be courteous to keep my reply concise over on the RFA page but to expand and elaborate here because I am a good listener and you make valid points which are not easily argued in brevity. I hope you are right about him and that you have better insight into his true personality. Having a high edit count is certainly relevant for someone with his type of perceived personality (as many in the oppose section perceive). If you make someone like him an admin, it adds to their clout. He has very strong believes and he is not wishy-washy or sheepish. He is very intransigent, determined, rigid, and inflexible. As an admin, you gotta be a team player and go with the flow, and sorta get "hive-minded" about things. He seems too independent, nonconforming, and confident, which is all fine, except that he has a very forceful quality about him that will possibly turn into a problem for future users. Past behavior is not always predictive of future behavior. Obviously, anyone planning for an eventual RFA can be on their best behavior for a year or whatever, but true analysis goes deeper than just that. You quite insightfully wrote "Had CT just had a blank user page, this personality issue would never have come up at all, and the only issue we'd be debating would be his close(s) at AfD." which is so true! Then he wouldn't be our beloved CT, and he would be someone else. He is who he is, and he is quite a unique individual with a very strong personality, which I don't find conducive to the duties of an admin. An admin exists to help other editors improve Wikipedia. He has the knowledge, but not the compassion. He is too headstrong, confident, and non-empathetic. I am so tempted to compare him to a couple of my favorite admins who are so enviably humble, but I don't want to brag on them, lol. They understand that newbies are the lifeblood of Wikipedia, and they treat young, fresh editors like they are the "future generation" of Wikipedia and they try to pass the project onto them and guide them and make them understand that Wikipedia is all about harnessing that desire to create a world-class encyclopedia, free for the whole world to benefit from. At the end of the day, Wikipedia is about providing a service to humanity--letting people have a high quality, ad-free, no-strings-attached, professional learning resource. That's the bottom line. Finally, for some praise about CT, he is content-centric, which I love about him! He has contributed so much to the project space and has an unequivocal conviction to content, content, content! That is the best type of Wikipedian, and he has the right reason for being a Wikipedian. He does not soapbox, cause drama, or get sidetracked. When reviewing his edits, I'm thoroughly impressed with his meaningful contributions (unlike some people who make bunches of small edits) to the various articles he has worked on. It clearly shows how dedicated he is to improving articles. If he takes the feedback earnestly from this RFA, then he will become a finely chiseled editor or admin, whatever outcome results from his RFA. The people in the oppose section are there to help him, telling him straightforwardly what they have issues with. If he shores up his shortcomings, he will gain the trust of the community which, by the way, wants to trust him. I admire your support of him and I know how much he appreciates your endorsement of him and defending him so faithfully. If you have any questions about my opinions of CT, or wish to narrowly understand the basis for any of my sentences, then respond here and I will cover anything in detail. I have added this page to my watchlist and I hope this RFA leads to something very positive and transformative for your friend CT. Cheers, Brain Before Life (talk) 18:49, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Wow, I just now saw this post had been added and removed from my talk page. You must have done all of that and then been followed by someone else's post on my talk page, because I only now happened to look at the talk page history and saw what you had posted and removed. Well, now I'll read this and reply, if warranted. HuskyHuskie (talk) 05:04, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Some thoughts about your comments:

• You wrote, You quite insightfully wrote "Had CT just had a blank user page, this personality issue would never have come up at all, and the only issue we'd be debating would be his close(s) at AfD." which is so true! Then he wouldn't be our beloved CT, and he would be someone else. Indeed, it is your point that is the insightful one, even if I disagree with your conclusion.
• You wrote, he is quite a unique individual with a very strong personality, which I don't find conducive to the duties of an admin. I know that this is a popular view of the appropriate personality of a mop holder, but I don't agree with it. I've seen cases where a wishy-washy admin made matters worse because they lacked a strong personality. The reality is, (in my opinion) there is probably a need for several personality types, as well as several editing types, in the admin role.
• You wrote, my favorite admins . . . understand that newbies are the lifeblood of Wikipedia, and they treat young, fresh editors like they are the "future generation" of Wikipedia and they try to pass the project onto them and guide them and make them understand that Wikipedia is all about harnessing that desire to create a world-class encyclopedia. Well, you and I will just have to agree to disagree on this; I think CT would be great in just such a role as this. I really do.

But I want to thank you for demonstrating your evenhandedness, by listing your praises of CT, which are all true and wonderful things about him. I appreciate your comments, and share your hope that CT will grow from this experience. Take care, BBL. HuskyHuskie (talk) 05:19, 20 January 2011 (UTC)