User talk:Teratix/Archives/2021/September

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Your questions at my RfA

I just wanted to let you know that of all the questions that were asked on my RfA, I felt yours were the most challenging. The reason I say this is that I feel I was having difficulty explaining where I stand on protection. After some days thinking about it, I wanted to hopefully clarify to you where I stand and perhaps put you at some ease with how I would use protection.

As I noted in my principle #10, consensus doesn't mean you agree. I don't agree with all aspects of how protection is performed on this project. However, that does not mean that I will act against our policies. I think there are significant problems. For example, 90% of pending changes protected pages are indefinite. Yet, WP:PEND says such indefinite protection should only be used in cases of severe, long-term disruption. There appears to be a disjunct there between policy and its execution.

Please understand that whatever my personal opinions are regarding any level of protection, if I am acting on a request at WP:RFPP I will do so in full compliance with policy, and not allow my own personal feelings color how I act. A high priority as Wikipedians is for us to function as a group. If I were to act on my own feelings when they are in disagreement with consensus on how policy is applied, I would be working against the community, not for it. I would hope I would never act in such a manner. If you think that I am acting in such a compromised manner, by all means please do let me know. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:30, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Hello Hammersoft, and thanks for following up.

First off, let me assure you that I do not have, and never had, a serious belief that you would abuse your position as administrator to undermine the protection policy. If I did, I would have opposed your RfA. Re-reading my comment I see I did make a vague reference to "some concerns", but I did not explain the nature of these issues sufficiently.

I was more concerned about how your dislike of extended-confirmed protection would affect your response to subtler, borderline requests for ECP; the kinds that reasonable editors can disagree on, because the protection policy is vague and leaves significant room for administrator discretion. Naturally, some administrators will incline towards granting these borderline requests, and others towards declining them, because of differences in bias, experience and philosophy.

My impression, based on your vigorous opposition to ECP, was that you would be strongly inclined towards declining these borderline requests. And I wasn't sure that was desirable for an administrator in 2020 – I believe ECP is a powerful and important tool in Wikipedia's arsenal for ensuring our most controversial pages are kept free of disruption. However, I was not concerned enough to withhold my support.

Finally, in RfAs which garner exceptional community support and little to no chance of failure, such as yours, I believe it is particularly important to voice even minor concerns – otherwise valuable feedback for practically spotless candidates instead goes unspoken.

Thanks again for commenting here, and congratulations on the most emphatic RfA victory ever. – Teratix ₵ 08:08, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

• Thank you! I think we're on the same page. I do recognize the importance of WP:ECP as a stepping stone where semi isn't working, and full protection would work but would shut down editing for most editors on the project. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:45, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Wiki of Functions followup

Hi there, I'm a researcher for the Wikilambda project. Last month we held a naming contest and I'm following up with those who voted to see if you might be willing to provide some feedback to help guide the project.

This would be a 45 minute conversation about your past experience with other Wikimedia projects and thoughts about the future of this new initiative. I'm hoping to gather a wide range of perspectives so I'd be interested in your opinion regardless of whether you plan to have further involvement.

As a way of saying thanks, the research team is offering a $35 gift card (in your local currency) for participation. We could chat by phone or through a website for audio conferencing.

If you're interested just pick a time slot from this calendar link:
https://wikilambda-voter.youcanbook.me

Hope to hear from you soon!

// jeff (design researcher) (talk) 23:18, 12 January 2021 (UTC)