Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Computer Fizz

The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a permissions request that did not succeed. Please do not modify it.

Computer Fizz

Computer Fizz (talk · contribs · count)

End date: 23:33, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Hello everyone in simplewiki. After much thought over several months and issues, I'd like to request adminship from the community to help improve the wiki and stop vandals and LTAs. I've been editing here since June 2016, and racked up about 3500 edits. Most of my work here revolves around reverting vandals and LTAs, but I have done some content creation here and know what makes a good quality article.

I've noticed that a lot of the backlogs are getting much longer slowly (QD log is sometimes as high as 37 which is more than ENwiki), and the date-changing LTA who vandalized for eleven days before being blocked. I don't believe this is a situation that can continue, and I'd like to request adminship to help clear these backlogs.

I believe that adminship should be used as access to the "danger buttons", and not to try to control the wiki with it, and my own opinion shouldn't be automatically more important than editors without admin. When new users contact me asking me why I reverted their edit, I'll always try to be as nice as possible (but clear!) and give them advice for future editing / ask for furthur questions.

I don't ever claim to be perfect, admit I've made a few mistakes in policy before, just that I "have a clue" and could use admin to benefit the wiki in a way it seems to require. I'm always open to hearing if people think I'm doing something wrong, or if there's something I didn't know, as humans are never perfect.

Computer Fizz (talk) 23:33, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Candidate's acceptance: Self-nomination

Closed as unsuccessful. - While I personally appreciate the work Computer Fizz does, I am in the situation that we only have 4 legal votes, but our criteria require 5 legal votes for a request to pass. Also, looking at the comments, most people seem to be opposed to Computer Fizz becoming an admin, at this time. Computer Fizz: please don't take it personally, my first request also failed (First half of 2006). At the end of 2006, I tried again, and was promoted with 12 support votes, and no opposition --Eptalon (talk) 13:09, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Support

• Support Per their answers below. I believe that Computer Fizz is familiar with policies, and I think I can trust them. I think they can make good decisions, which is really important for an admin. All in all, I see no real issue that prevents me from supporting this RfA. That being said, I have an advice based on my experience on Wikimedia projects and digital world that I'm willing to share. In this digital world, where you can't show your real emotions, others can easily misunderstand you. I usually try to read my comments again to avoid that. Even though, I can't solve this issue completely, it just reduces the risk of a misunderstanding. I call things like :) or even ! a "dangerous stuff", as they can be misinterpreted easily. That's actually no one's fault, it's just the nature of this digital world. Based on this rationale, I suggest you use them only when you are sure that they won't be misinterpreted, for example in a friendly atmosphere at the talk page of a user you know. That might or might not be true, but based on my experience, precautions never hurt. That applies to all wiki-relations: "Whenever you're not sure if what you're saying is fine, don't be bold". At least, that's something I try to adhere to.

So, just one more thing: An RfA is always a valuable experience. If it's successful, then that's a good thing, and everyone will appreciate your administrative efforts for the project. If it's unsuccessful, then you will know what you should do to be better. As I already said, this whole RfA thing is not a big deal.

All the best. Ahmad^talk 21:23, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Oppose

• Very Strong Oppose Not sure I can make this one worded strongly enough. There isn't an editor on this wiki who is a regular who I can think of who is less qualified to be an admin. Often does not understand policies here, and very frequently takes actions without thinking about the consequences of said actions. Has frequently made very bad comments to users such as this one. His actions quite frankly on a number of occasions have come very close to causing him to be blocked. Severely lacking in any sort of clue. -DJSasso (talk) 11:58, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• That isn't even mentioning previous socking and block evasion past. And actions that resulted in a community ban. -DJSasso (talk) 17:08, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Djsasso: Could you please link to these incidents of sockpuppetry and block evasion? Computer Fizz (talk) 17:31, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Here is block log for some of it. And here is the block log for the multiple blocks that lead to the community ban here. -DJSasso (talk) 17:50, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Djsasso: I see. While it should be noted that all I did was edit my own talk page (i.e. not evading anything), but I'd appreciate if you followed the ENwiki guideline of only looking at things in the past 12 months, as I haven't done anything like this in about five years (and have no plans on starting again). Thanks for being clear about your motives / answering questions I asked, though :) Computer Fizz (talk) 18:16, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

For roles like adminship, your entire history is up for evaluation. Just because something happened X number of years ago doesn't mean you are given a free pass. It still reflects on your character. Especially something like creating a second account to get around a block. While something small like making a bad edit or two can be overlooked sometimes. Socking and community banning are actually very big deals which generally are bad enough that a person should never be given the mop. (even en.wiki doesn't ignore stuff like that even if it was more than 12 months ago.) That being said, even if I ignored both of those things, the first comment I made is bad enough that you should not be anywhere near admin tools. -DJSasso (talk) 18:22, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose - similarly to what I mentioned in another RfA early last year, I think Computer Fizz's participation in the Project namespace is a bit too low for my liking. For most of 2018 and the first half of 2019, there has been minimal substantial contributions to discussions in Project namespace. I am also not comfortable with the apparent confusion of (some) policy intent. There is one example in this very RfA (regarding en:WP:REMOVED), in (now deleted) User:Computer Fizz/How to effectively deal with vandalism without being an admin, as well as a rather strange example at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#gender_for_transgender_people. Chenzw  Talk  13:33, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Addendum: because of the circumstances leading to this particular RfA, I felt that I should talk a bit about RfAs in general. This is a small wiki with a very slow uptake of new, regular editors, so as a consequence the administrator to active editor ratio is higher compared to EN. However this in itself does not mean that every editor eventually gets administrator, or that sustained and substantial editing experience on this wiki will guarantee a chance at administrator. Late last year on ST I mentioned that there is no advancement path from rollbacker to administrator. The essay en:Wikipedia:What adminship is not also pretty much sums up what I would like to emphasise. Chenzw  Talk  13:33, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
• While Computer Fizz is certainly a valuable contributor, I am concerned by the comments from DJSasso and Chenzw. Maybe the timing isn't yet right. I would also like to see more content creation. So oppose at this time. Desertborn (talk) 16:31, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

@Desertborn: Thanks for the feedback, did you see my conversation with Ahmah below while writing this? Computer Fizz (talk) 16:34, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

I had. But really I would hope a adminship candidate to be as uncontroversial as possible. On the other hand, if it is truly that long ago, I don't want to hold the past against you. At the moment my wiki time is limited, but I'll have to look through some of your more recent contributions when I have more time. I do feel like content creation is quite important though. It would be nice if you had more articles created than seven. Desertborn (talk) 16:41, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

@Desertborn: Like I've mentioned in the comments, I've created more articles than you can see with the tools, because sometimes vandals create an article with a good title but bad content, and then I overwrite it with a real article, which technically doesn't list it as a new page but is still a new page. Of course, if you haven't seen my whole rfa/contributions yet, I don't want to rush you :) Computer Fizz (talk) 16:48, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, this is an especially busy time for me, so it is hard to give sufficient attention. I'll strike my oppose for now, and remain neutral until I can do more research. Desertborn (talk) 16:58, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Shall we move this to Comments if it's neutral vote? --Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 10:55, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

No I guess, I have seen struck comments (Votes) remain in original section. Closing crat will probably not count struck comment.--BRP ^ever 11:02, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Noted with thanks :)--Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 11:19, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

┌──────────────────────────┘
His comment also seems to imply that sometime later he will switch to support or oppose based on once he's done more research. I would suggest not touching his vote until that happens. Computer Fizz (talk) 06:13, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

At this point, I am not sure I will have time to do sufficient research before this rfa ends. So maybe I should be moved to neutral section for now. Desertborn (talk) 11:25, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

This will be considered a struck vote, but feel free to leave a new comment in the comments section if you have anything else to add. RfAs on this wiki do not strictly have a concept of "neutral" votes. I also would like to take this opportunity to remind observers to not move/strike votes around unnecessarily. They will all be settled when the RfA ends. Chenzw  Talk  11:42, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose The candidate has the best intentions and shows a lot of promise as a community member and, perhaps, future adminship. However, currently I'm unable to render a support vote. I have reviewed a bulk of the edits made by Computer Fizz and spoken with them on more than one occasion. I find the candidate strongly desires to do the right thing, help the project, and serve the community. However, like others have pointed out, the nuanced differences of this project when compared to other projects means there is a strong learning curve here. Currently, I feel like the candidate is quite involved, skilled, and is headed in the right direction, but hasn't arrived yet. To me, this is very much a too soon situation. Speaking to Computer Fizz directly, I'd like to publicly say: "Keep up the great work you've been doing. Whether positive of negative, please do not let this RfA sour your motivation or otherwise detract from your contributions here. I look forward to supporting you in the future." Operator873^talkconnect 20:10, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Comments

• Thanks so much for serving, I know the vandal situation is getting worse. Couple of questions? Will you commit to more content creation as 7 pages created with 1 deleted seems quite little. Do you intend / have been regularly on IRC. Such undos may be a little odd, can you explain your rationale for just undoing someone else rollback without seeing what is going on? Will vote after answers. All the best. --Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 09:04, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Camouflaged Mirage: Hey there, thanks for the questions. My pages that I've created is a higher number than you'll see with automated tools, because often what I will do is take some sort of vandalism page (i.e. Grape created with the text i love grapes!!, which I then replace with A '''grape''' is a type of [[fruit]] that grows....) I don't always do this though, only sometimes. I'm very active on IRC, the two other people I see the most on there are Vermont and Bsadowski1 (both of which are already admins). I suppose the reason you're asking is so I can respond to the admin call if needed. I reverted that edit because non-admins aren't usually allowed to remove unblock requests. And I didn't paste the warnings back per en:WP:DRRC (which applies here per WP:ENWIKI). Hope this answers your questions, if you have any more let me know :) Computer Fizz (talk) 17:14, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree such approach is good, usually this will prevent recreation of test / vandalism pages, I do so too. Thanks for commitment to IRC, I did only once admin ping, otherwise I will typically ping the admins personally. For the issue with the talkpage, yes, there is no question that non-admins cannot remove block request (even admins will just decline not remove typically), the issue is the warnings are removed. Yes, we typically follow enwiki, not here but rest of the projects as well as enwp have the most comprehensive guidelines. Locally, we have Wikipedia:Talk page which states that don't remove but archive discussions. Warnings should be discussions too, and the removal of warnings for users is still considered acceptable, but for IP which these messages can be shared message, isn't. I will prefer them to be still there for admins to be able to see a trend of disruption easier and then give the appropriate response. Thanks for the answers and thank you for standing. --Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 18:41, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Camouflaged Mirage: That's true, and after that I've been restoring several editors who have removed their warnings (i.e. that the situation's fixed and I'm open to listening to the community). Let me know if you have anything else you want to ask me :) Computer Fizz (talk) 19:07, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I think there has been some misunderstanding on both sides here - warnings are not discussions in the context of Wikipedia:Talk page. The intention of the "do not delete discussions" guideline is to discourage editors from removing discussions which other have also commented on, but personally disagree with. I also want to point out that archival is not mandatory. In fact, I know of some registered editors in the past who simply prefer to blank their talk page (as part of the "archival" process) and leave the discussions in the page history. In other cases, en:WP:REMOVED applies, which states that any user may remove warnings/comments from their own talk page. For shared IPs, only notices about the fact that it's a shared IP may not be removed. Chenzw  Talk  02:15, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I misunderstood the guidelines, thanks Chenzw for clarification. Apologies to Computer Fizz too.

As to the vote, I think I'll be neutral in this. In the past 1 year of editing, Computer Fizz is largely unproblematic (at least not that bad per the previous accounts), however, if they can disclose their previous accounts will be much more useful (at least a disclosure, and explanation, rather than it being uncovered by an oppose vote). --Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 07:23, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

@Camouflaged Mirage: The only other account that I have ever used to edit the Simple English Wikipedia with is Krett12. I switched to this account on June 12th, 2016. I have had accounts before Krett12 as well, but none have ever edited this wiki. Computer Fizz (talk) 07:29, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, but if this can come before DJSasso comments it will be much better. Best, --Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 07:33, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

• Just a very quick observation: Of the roughly 3.500 edits of yours (most of which were last year), only about a third are to the 'Main namespace'. Vandal-fighting, reverting pages, and warning users is laudable, but you do not need an Admin flag to do that. What would the 'Admin flag' allow you do, for the benefit of the community, that you can't do now? (We currently have 15 admins, half of them active)? --Eptalon (talk) 18:02, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Eptalon: It would make sense that most of my edits were last year, since we're only a week into this one. I'm going to use the admin flag to clear backlogs that aren't always cleared by admins, and block vandals who aren't being blocked by the existing admins, as sometimes the wait time can be dangerously long as seen in my opening statement. Computer Fizz (talk) 18:13, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood; Eptalon means that you've only been active less than a year. Also, please remember to indent your replies. Thank you, Vermont (talk) 18:49, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• Given DJSasso's comment above, I would appreciate a short explanation of what that happened. My main question is this: was it a 2016-issue, or has it been continued after that? I've seen users, some have been glocked for crosswiki abuse, and they are established users now with admin rights, so I think a second chance is always appreciated, and that people can change dramatically. Can you please explain a little bit about it? Thanks. Ahmad^talk 20:50, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ahmad252: I didn't really want to elaborate much on it to avoid giving the vibe that I refuse to take no for an answer. But almost all of the issues Djsasso is mentioned were between December 2015 and June 2016, and mostly nothing there has happened since then. The only one that's happened more recently is the comment I made to Chenzw which was misinterepted, but I immediately clarified when I saw this and it's also the only time I think this has happened, notice how he made exactly one link. A lot of the time, you can see me actually being pretty kind to new editors: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. But if something comes off as too aggressive, I may clarify or edit it, like I've even done in this very RfA.

Of course, humans are never perfect, and if I do make a mistake you're always welcome to let me know. But the data he's gathered from 2016 isn't really an applicable outlook on me anymore. Let me know if this answers your questions about his statement, Ahmad :) Computer Fizz (talk) 21:23, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. Yes, I think it was convincing enough, at least for me, since I'm not concerned about it anymore. If that's fine, I think I might ask a couple of in-practice questions later. That's, to my experience, a usual thing in RfAs. Ahmad^talk 21:49, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ahmad252: It used to be, but it seems to have stopped in late years on this wiki. Of course, I'm still open to answering your questions. Computer Fizz (talk) 22:21, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

As a note, the "11 days" that Computer Fizz refers to is actually for a date-changing subtle vandalism LTA that was blocked 5 days after it began editing (a few days after release from the previous block), and one day after it was reported to VIP. Vermont (talk) 02:52, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

• Okay. As I said, I'll ask a couple of questions. To be clear, I personally don't like deciding based on time, but rather on skills and competence. Please note that my questions might be vague, so please don't hesitate to ask for clarification.
  1. At what point do you consider a user/IP as "vandalism-only", "spam-only" etc? I mean a real new user, not some LTA or something.
  2. Can you please give a short explanation of your opinion toward quick deletion? To be specific, when do you think it's better not to quick delete an article and send to a discussion instead?
  3. Imagine you are in a content dispute with a non-admin. For example, you think something should be in an article, and someone else opposes you. Are you going to block them? Why or why not? If that depends on the situation, please give a short explanation about each situation.
  4. Blocks - they are an important part of admin rights. When will you block a "normal" editor? By "normal", I mean someone who is not "vandalism-only", "spam-only" etc. Here, I don't want a subjective response, I just want you to give a "general" explanation of when you think a block should be applied.
  5. Can you explain a little bit about how serious you think personal attacks are? What do you think they can result in?
  6. What do you think of adminship, in a short statement? Can you describe it generally in a few sentences?
  7. This last one is somehow personal. So, as stated, you had some bad experiences before, which are gone now. As I said, I'm fine with that. I want to ask if there is anything in particular you want to talk about. For example, you might mention a "lesson" you've learned from that. You may not answer to this question, and that's fine with me. I'm asking this because I think such situations usually lead to some important lessons, but sometimes they don't, and your case might be one of them.

Just one last thing: I'm asking these questions to see what you think about them, not policies and/or guidelines. Of course, this is an indirect act of testing your understanding of some important policies, but the main element is your own judgement, not policy's. That being said, you can surely cite policies when you think it's necessary. To put it in a nutshell, this is about you. I also don't want this to be like some kind of "inspection section", so please feel free to ask questions. Thank you very much for your time and responses. Ahmad^talk 19:46, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ahmad252: Thanks for the questions. I'll try to answer best to my own words instead of just "copy-pasting from the project pages" and opinions. To answer the questions:

I would consider an account vandalism-only if it either makes an edit obviously vandalism (i.e. racial slurs, insults, etc), or in more ambiguous cases of stuff like taking out one or two sentences, adding false information, etc, it may be more wise to wait until they've done it multiple times, since you wouldn't want to block a legitimate user just making a mistake. "Vandalism-only" can't usually be applied to IPs, even if all the edits are vandalism.

Basically, if I think that anyone would question it as an article, I will send to RfD. Most of the pages I qd are just one-sentence pages with no real meaning on them, but I'd say the most misused criteria is A4. I'll send it to RfD if I think it makes even the smallest claim of notability, or if it's not in the five categories initially mentioned. I recently nominated a cipher for deletion because A4 only applies to "People, groups, companies, products, services or websites", and not ciphers.

I would never block someone just for disagreeing with me. I've agreed with IPs on content disputes before. The only time I would even consider blocking in such a case is if the content dispute ends in a way they don't like, but continue to complain even after the dispute is over. Even then, I wouldn't block if I was heavily involved.

Since you asked for a "general explanation", a block should be applied to stop problematic edits and protect the wiki. Almost every type of block I can think of falls under that description.

That depends on the type of personal attack. Just saying something like, "you're an idiot!", while technically a personal attack, is less severe than some alternatives, which I won't give an example of. I'd still definitely make sure to warn an editor for the personal attack in any such case, and possibly an immediate block if it was severe.

Adminship is giving trusted users access to "danger buttons" like deleting pages and blocking users from editing. Adminship is not a superiority of edits or a user tier list (i.e. in a content dispute, an admin and an IP should have equal weight as long as they're both in good faith and can provide good reasons).

Not much has changed consciously for me, just that I'm half a decade older and act a lot differently. One on-paper thing I have learned though is that someone can have an opinion of you without saying it. People may not tell you they don't like you or your edits, but they still could. Something I deal with a lot.

Hope this answers your questions, if it doesn't or you have any more, please do let me know! Computer Fizz (talk) 20:18, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. That surely was a complete answer. I just have one question based on your answers:

1. You said ""Vandalism-only" can't usually be applied to IPs, even if all the edits are vandalism". Can you please explain a little more? Do you mean that an IP can't be blocked indefinitely?

Thank you. Ahmad^talk 20:37, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ahmad252: Yeah, the phrase "Vandalism-only IP" isn't used, even if all the edits are vandalism. IP addresses aren't blocked indefinitely ever. IPs can be shared, and a constructive editor may want to use it later. Computer Fizz (talk) 20:40, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Right. Although I've used the term "vandalism-only IP" before, but I agree that it's not technically true, because, as you said, IPs can be shared. Thank you for your response. I think I'm ready to vote now. Ahmad^talk 20:43, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

The edits of IPs are often very distinctive, such that there may be good reason for saying that, as ducks quack, so do many IPs. Indeed, registered or not, editors who edit many pages have clear trends in which pages they do edit, and the type of changes they make. This is one of the ways in which sockpuppets are recognised. Where an informal term like "all-vandalism IP" is used, reasons may be found in the IP's edit history. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:27, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

@Macdonald-ross: It can be clear whether all the changes have come from one user, but that doesn't say anything about future changes. That also ties into why IPs aren't allowed to be blocked indefinitely. Computer Fizz (talk) 22:27, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Update: It appears 2A00:23C5:B827:B700:6C59:44D6:BBBA:DEB4 is blocked indefinitely. I'm not sure why this is. Computer Fizz (talk) 01:30, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't see any local policy page on IP blocked indef so I'll follow en, en:Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#IP_address_blocks IP addresses should rarely, if ever, be blocked indefinitely. I did seen some IP that are indef blocked in enwp, such as these: en:Category:Indefinitely_blocked_IP_addresses.--Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 06:56, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@Camouflaged Mirage: The IP got unblocked later. I think just nobody noticed it was indeffed at all until now. Computer Fizz (talk) 08:17, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

I saw the unblocking too Computer Fizz. Unblocked by Chenzw. Yeah, typically IP address shouldn't be indef (I guess Mac didn't notice that setting is on - it's easy to wrongly click in the block interface and IP blocks interface is a little confusing). --Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 08:27, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

The above adminship discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.