User:Djrobgordon/sandbox2

This is an essay. It is not a policy or guideline, it simply reflects some opinions of its authors. Please update the page as needed, or discuss it on the talk page.

One of the most common dictums tossed around in Requests for adminship is that "we need more admins." This is supported by the fact that, at any given moment, a few administrator tasks will be backlogged. In fact, I became interested in adminship because of frustration over a backlog at Wikipedia:Requested moves. Yet, otherwise levelheaded users routinely invent arcane criteria which prevent this problem from being remedied. Using myself as an example, I will illustrate the ways in which an experienced and, dare I say, valuable editor might be denied the ability to perform tasks necessary to the success of this project. Just to be clear, I, User:Djrobgordon, have never been nominated for, and therefore have never been denied, adminship. This essay explores the reasons I believe I would be denied if I were nominated. It is, in fact, much ado about nothing.

Disclaimer

I am not your girlfriend, who asks if she looks fat in her halter top, just so you'll tell her she doesn't. This is not me passive-aggressively begging for a nomination. If I were to be nominated, and the nominator were to mention this essay, I would have to decline, as such a request would border on disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point. If anything, I suspect this essay will always be a point of contention, should I earn a legitimate nomination. Even if it's never been read to that point, it will surely come out of the woodwork.

The "Oppose" votes

• Oppose No need for the tools.

I wouldn't give Pete Doherty a 15th century Swiss longsword, because he has no need for it. The two pertinent differences between these scenarios are that: 1) Pete Doherty's a fucking nut, and is liable to impale someone on a longsword, and 2) a 15th century Swiss longsword is a priceless antique that should be in a museum. Adminship can be dangerous, but, like the proverbial greatest gift, costs nothing. No time, effort, or funds are necessary to make an admin. Therefore, giving it to a user not likely to abuse it is more akin to giving Pete Doherty a toothbrush. If he chooses to use it, the world is a slightly, but nonetheless quantifiably, better place. If not, nothing has been lost.

• Oppose User has long periods of inactivity.^[1]

Adminship is not the numbers from Lost. If I don't do an administrator task every 108 minutes, the world will not end. There is not a finite number of adminships, so I'm not using a position someone else could be using better. If I don't close an AfD for a month, that doesn't erase the ones I closed the month before.

• Oppose 5500 edits just isn't enough for me. Try again in three month, and I'll support.

Actually, 5500 probably is enough for most people, but the only reason I have that many edits is that I started using AutoWikiBrowser this month. Before that, I was under 3,000, a count a number of voters would find low. Was I a significantly weaker candidate then? Maybe, but not because I hadn't yet learned how to use software to rack up quick, semi-automated edits.

• Oppose Not enough experience with (fill in voter's pet task here).

When I first started editing Wikipedia, I was amazed by the fact that any user could nominate an article he didn't deem valuable for deletion. I quickly and carelessly read some policy, then nominated List of songs that have been considered among the worst ever for deletion. I promptly got slaughtered in the ensuing discussion and learned two valuable lessons: 1) When nominating an article for deletion, always check the talk page to make sure someone else didn't do the same thing a week earlier, and 2) learn the policy behind a task thoroughly before engaging in it. I always follow both of those rules, which is why I'm not likely to grossly screw up a task, just because I'm not familiar with it yet. Put another way, if a user doesn't edit like Charles Bronson in Death Wish, he probably won't admin like one.

• Oppose Because of that thing user did a long time ago, which is pretty clearly against the rules now, but wasn't then.

The legal term for this is an ex post facto law. This kind of retroactive justice is prohibited by the United States Constitution, as it's not really fair to expect a person to predict what laws might be passed in the future. This applies to me as I uploaded a large number of Time Magazine covers, back when Wikipedia fair use policy declared magazine covers fair use, without caveat. The current policy is more restrictive, and rightly so. The Fair Use Cabal is one of the most active Cabals on RfA, so I'd expect this to be a significant hurdle.

• Oppose Too many edits to his user page.

Like many users, I do large rewrites in my sandbox, so that the world isn't subjected to them in their zygote stage. I put together Portal:Baseball in my sandbox. I also re-wrote Babe Ruth and Major League Baseball Draft there. And this essay really isn't helping matters. But at its core, this is a manifestation of my desire to keep half-finished shit out of public view, and isn't that a good trait in an administrator?