This is exactly how the first three questions will appear on an RfA. Please reply so I can get an idea of how you rate yourself. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:04, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Questions for the candidate
editDear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. It is recommended that you answer these optional questions to provide guidance for participants:
- 1. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?
- A: I'd probably stick to where I'm most comfortable which would be blocking users reported to WP:AIV and moving hooks from the prep areas to the queues for did you know.
- 2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
- A: My best contributions to Wikipedia are either the DYKs I have or my daily editing of the templates listed here and here. However, my best overall contribution is my only piece of reviewed content, Joey Hamilton.
- 3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?
- A: Back in February of this year, I encountered a new user who had vandalized an admin's userpage so I reverted him. He then came over to my talk page telling me about how the admin had wrongly deleted a page he had created, to which I responded by explaining it had been speedy deleted but I escalated the situation here. Which the user was reasonably upset and posted warnings, insults etc. to my talk page. I now realize that I handled that situation horribly, and if it reoccurs in the future, I'll use the experience I gained here to better handle the situation.
Commentary
editSorry for taking so long to reply. You have a very impressive amount of DYKs, certainly a favorable aspect. Moreover, the GA shows that you have audited contributions. Experience is something you have plenty of. However, since AIV is patrolled quite frequently and DYK is a pretty small use of the tools (I've seen people oppose on RfA's because a lack of need for the tools), is there anything else you would be interested in? You've participated in plenty of AfD's; would you like to close them? Or you could patrol RFPP and determine which pages need to be protected. CSD could certainly use plenty of admins as well. Just a suggestion, you know. Let me know whether you have any other areas of interest. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:31, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
Blocking questions
edit- Additional optional questions from King of Hearts
- 4. What is the difference between a ban and a block?
- A: The difference between a block and a ban is that with blocking even an indefinite block there's always the possibility of it being unblocked without discussion (i.e. it expires or an admin unblocks upon your request). However a ban is decided by the community or ArbCom and the only way to become unbanned is an appeal to the community or to ArbCom.
- 5. When should cool-down blocks be used and why?
- A: Cool-down blocks should be used to prevent the escalation of a minor dispute into a major dispute. The reason being that the dispute (whether it be over policy or content) needs to stay civil with no personal attacks for consensus to be reached.
- 6. You see a UAA report for the username "Foobar Records." The account was created 6 hours ago, and has made no edits. What action should you take?
- A: I write a notice (when it be personal or templated) on their talk page that their username could be seen as a conflict of interest and they should strongly consider changing their username. However, if they begin editing and show COI after I messaged them, I would block their username as spam.
Deletion questions
edit- Additional optional questions from King of Hearts
- 7. What is the difference between no context (CSD A1) and no content (CSD A3)?
- A: The difference between A1 and A3 is that with A1 there's no way to identify that the article is about and why it's notable. With A3 it may look like an A1 but it identifies the subject but mainly consists of wiki/external links.
- 8. Why is merging and deleting not a possible outcome for an AfD?
- A: Merging and deleting is not an outcome at AfD because merges are usually done because a subject is not notable enough for an article but he relates to another article which is notable. Thus, if you merge the content from Article A to Article B, you need to keep the history of A in case the subject becomes notable.
- 9. A user comes to you asking why his article got deleted. You look in the log and see that another admin deleted it with the reason "Expired PROD." What action should you take?
- A: If the user approached me about why his article I would firstly, mention to them about the possible ownership of articles. After which I'd take a look at the article to see if there was any outstanding problems other than possible lack of references. If there are no outstanding problems (i.e. copyvio, POV etc.) I'd restore the article. Reason being that the article was deleted via PROD and PROD has to be 100% uncontroversial after deletion.
- 10. A non-free image is brought to FfD under the grounds that it does not significantly add to the reader's understanding. We end up with 5 people !voting to delete "per nom," and 5 people !voting to keep because it cannot be replaced with a free alternative. How should you close this FfD?
- A: I would close it as keep because even though it was an even !vote the keep votes were stronger than the delete votes.
- Incorrect. See WP:NFCC: "[Non-free content] may be used on the English Wikipedia only where all 10 of the following criteria are met ... it is the duty of users seeking to include or retain content to provide a valid rationale." The keep !voters addressed NFCC #1, but not NFCC #8, which is required to retain the image. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:01, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
- A: I would close it as keep because even though it was an even !vote the keep votes were stronger than the delete votes.
Protection questions
edit- Additional optional questions from King of Hearts
- 11. Why are pages not preemptively protected?
- 12. An article is reported on RFPP for vandalism. About how often (in hits per week) does the vandalism need to occur in order to justify semi-protection?
- A: Significant amounts of vandalism is quite broad but I'd say 5 if it's a BLP or 10 if it's a non-BLP. Not really sure though.
- I would say maybe a little higher, like 20. Actually, it all depends. If there are zero constructive IP edits, and a pattern of 1 hit every 2 days or so has continued for months, it's perfectly reasonable to protect. If there are many constructive IP edits, 30 hits/week might not be enough. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:58, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
- A: Significant amounts of vandalism is quite broad but I'd say 5 if it's a BLP or 10 if it's a non-BLP. Not really sure though.
Miscellaneous questions
edit- Additional optional questions from King of Hearts
- 13. What do you interpret IAR to mean? When will you invoke IAR?
- A: I interpret IAR to mean that any editor should use their common sense when editing. If they know something's right or that they should do something but policy prevents it then they should go ahead with it. However a comment as to why you did what you did would be helpful. The only time I can think of invoking IAR is if I'm closing an AfD (speedy keep or speedy delete only) and the result is heavily favoring the opposite direction as to which I commented.
- 14. Some RFPP requests end up with a user being blocked, while some AN3 requests end up with a page being protected. As you can see, in some cases where an edit war is clearly occuring, there exists a fine line between choosing to block and choosing to protect. How would you decide which method to use in order to prevent editing?
- A: I would look over the talk page and the user's talk pages to see if any relevant discussion on the issue had taken place. If so, I'd protect the page until consensus can be reached. However, if the users were just reverting each other and leaving reasons in the edit summary with no talk page discussion, I'd block the editors for edit warring.
- 15. You make an edit on an article, and another user reverts you. You re-revert, telling him in your edit summary to see the article's talk page, on which you initiate a discussion. That user reverts again without leaving an edit summary. You leave a note on his talk page and wait for a day, and he still does not reply. Now you revert again, assuming that he's given up on the issue. But he hasn't, and comes back with a revert. What do you do?
- A: I would confront the user again asking them to discuss their reversion on my talk page and attempt to discuss the issue with them. If they fail to reply in a day then I'd go back to the article and revert a 4th time (not breaking 3RR however). If the user reverted again I'd report the user to WP:ANEW for edit warring and failing to discuss the issue.