Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Faustus37

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

Faustus37

Final (1/26/0); ended 13:31, 24 April 2012 (UTC) Originally scheduled to end 06:46, 1 May 2012 (UTC) - Closed per WP:SNOW. Reaper Eternal (talk) 13:31, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Nomination

Faustus37 (talk · contribs) – YOUR DESCRIPTION OF THE USER Faustus37 (talk) 10:52, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: Self-nomination.

Wikipedia editor since April 2005 (7 years), 5,000+ edits, over 200 new articles. Faustus37 (talk)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. Please answer these questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?

A: Dispute arbitration and article administration from an inclusionist perspective. I unabashedly support the notion that Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. Delete the obviously unsourced and non-notable? Absolutely. If that wasn't a concern, we wouldn't need administators here in the first place. If there's a question, however, I support keeping it until the question is definitively resolved one way or another. To wit, human knowledge is not confined to size in any sense, why should Wikipedia be? We have Moore's Law to account for that. Not to put too fine a point on it, AFD should not be based on intellectual snobbery, but on clearing out uncontroversially obvious crap. Nothing more. Faustus37 (talk) 07:50, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?

A: I have made significant contributions to Idaho-related articles over a seven-year period.

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: I strongly oppose deletionists, but I try to be as objective as possible.

General comments

• Links for Faustus37: Faustus37 (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
• Edit summary usage for Faustus37 can be found here.

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Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review his contributions before commenting.

Discussion

Support

1. Support I like the cut of your jib. Anyone willing to volunteer for a thankless task with honest opinions is fine by me. GimliDotNet ^{(Speak to me,Stuff I've done)} 11:49, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

   In spite of it all, your support of the irrelevant in his quest for the thankless still doesn't go unnoticed. I thank you. ;-) Faustus37 (talk) 12:14, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Looking at your Wikipedia: space contributions, there isn't enough participation there to give me a good idea how you would use the tools: I see only 17 edits total to that namespace. That's simply not enough "behind the scenes" experience for the admin toolkit. And it's not really clear from your answer to question 1 what you'd do with the tools if you had them. 28bytes (talk) 06:50, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
2. I concur with 28bytes and would add that immediately throwing the inclusionist-deletionist lingo into the mix makes me just a little uneasy. I'm glad you're upfront about your beliefs, but at the same time I hesitate to support someone who feels that strongly about it one way or the other. SÆdon^talk 07:05, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
3. Oppose Sorry, but anyone who states from the outset that they intend to push an inclusionist (or, for that matter, deletionist or any other) agenda at their RfA rings immediate alarm bells. I simply would not trust an admin with such strong views to be unbiased in closing AfDs and CSDs. Yunshui 雲‍水 07:25, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
4. Oppose - Per Yunshui. Yasht101 07:46, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

   28bytes makes a valid point. I have indeed not made the effort I should have to keep articles in the past. The rest of you, well, I fail to see why the inclusionist-deletionist debate is a "debate" in the first place. We're here to preserve knowledge, not to abridge it. Faustus37 (talk) 07:57, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

   The fact that you fail to see there is a debate and your apparent belief that one side is 100% correct makes it clear that you would be unable to judge deletion issues neutrally. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:04, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

   The more XfD experience we can see, the better we'll be able to tell what kind of inclusionist we'd be getting: the "good kind", who saves articles by finding good reliable-source references and adding them to the article, or the "not-so-good kind", who just drops by an AfD and votes "Keep, I'm sure there are sources somewhere." Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/MichaelQSchmidt 2 is a good example of the community overwhelming supporting a strongly inclusionist editor as an admin, but he had 12,500 project-space edits at the time. You don't necessarily need that many, but you will need at least a few hundred in order to be seriously considered. 28bytes (talk) 08:13, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

   (1) I don't support keeping articles for their own sake. (2) No side is "100 % correct," Boing! said Zebedee. That said, I'd much rather keep crap than delete the good stuff. Once again, I can't help but respect 28bytes' insight. While the climate here for inclusionists overall has improved recently, I didn't exactly expect rose petals thrown at my feet either. Faustus37 (talk) 08:28, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

   OK, in that case, I agree with 28bytes in that I think we'd need to see quite a bit more experience at AfD etc to see how your inclusionist preference works out in practice. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:40, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

5. Oppose. Sorry, but anyone with a strong inclusionist or deletionist position should not do admin work related to article deletion - admin actions should be carried out from a neutral position, ignoring one's personal view, from the approach solely of going with consensus. I also agree that the lack of namespace edits would make it harder to judge anyway -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:01, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

   Also, the aggressive responses suggest an inability to handle criticism - admins have to face far worse than anything said so far on this page. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:50, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

   "Inability to handle criticism" is not synonymous with "bend over, shut up and take it" you know. Read my comments. Critics have made several valid points which I freely acknowledged. After all, no true debate is complete without at least one rebuttal ... Faustus37 (talk) 12:07, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

6. Oppose I took a look at your file upload log. Out of the latest 10 uploads, 8 have been deleted as F9, 1 has been deleted as F8 (although the rest of the deletion reason suggests that there was a typo and that this really was supposed to be F9) and 1 has been kept. The deleted files are all from last year, but I'm not confident that you know enough about the image use policy. Also very few edits outside mainspace (Talk: 95 edits, User talk: 30 edits, Wikipedia: 21 edits, Wikipedia talk: 3 edits, Template talk: 3 edits), suggesting little discussion with other editors. You suggested that you want to participate in deletion processes, but with only 21 edits to the Wikipedia namespace where deletion discussions normally take place, you seem to have too little experience of that. Sorry, but this looks like WP:NOTNOW. --Stefan2 (talk) 08:28, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

   Duly noted, Stefan2. Suffice it to say I sought - and obtained - an education on the matter. We're not perfect, but at least for some of us it's not for a lack of trying. ;-) Faustus37 (talk) 08:34, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

7. I cannot support giving you authority in deletion-related matters, if you make it clear (and in the first sentence of the first answer too) that any of your AfD closures will be strongly impacted by your "inclusionist perspective". →Στc. 08:36, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

   And ...? So what? It's much better to accidentally preserve bad knowledge than delete good knowledge, now isn't it? Faustus37 (talk) 08:41, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

   That's not my point. What I worry about is whether you can accurately determine consensus at an AfD or not, given what you answered in Q1. →Στc. 08:47, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

   Again, so what? Should we pass down a sanitized account of things to our progeny, or let them separate fact from bullshit like we had the opportunity to do so? Yes, the Internet is a liberating thing now for free-thinkers. What about 50 years from now? One should consider that too. Faustus37 (talk) 09:04, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

8. JustHell no. I'm sorry, there are so many things you just don't meet. Take a look at some previous RfA's, or Denis Brown's that is on going at the minute. You will understand what Wikipedia are looking for in an Administrator. Good luck in the future but I can't support at this time. Childlike responses do not make for a good admin. Try to respect those who offer you critism and those who wish you well in the future. You should have read the article on running for RfA before coming here. MrLittleIrish ^(talk) © 10:02, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

   (1) It's "criticism." (2) I fully respect those who have pointed out that I haven't made a lot of comments on past AfD comments and so forth. They say I'm not ready for admin based on that. I find it hard to argue. I believe I've been fully contrite in that sense. (3) I read it all, I just don't believe in being a liar. If that makes me unelectable as Wikipedia admin, so be it. Life goes on. Faustus37 (talk) 10:13, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

   Who said you have to be a liar. I'm pretty sure most, if not all editors who cast their !vote here would prefer an honest candidate. The way you have responded to a number of !votes on your RfA has led me to believe that you have no, or little respect for an opinion that does not match your own. If you replied to a newbie editor the way you have to some of the !voters here, you could potentially discourage them from contributing to this project ever again! That's not what we need. In my own opinion, if I were you, I would take each point into consideration, work on your contributions and come back in a year or so with experience in admin related areas. Until then, I personally believe this will be closed as a WP:NOTNOW or WP:SNOW. I do wish you the best of luck in the future, and I hope to support any future RfA's you may participate in. MrLittleIrish ^(talk) © 11:03, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

   Oh, quite the opposite. I will support a well-referenced newbie over Wikipedia's entrenched pseudo-intellectual clique all day long. ;-) Faustus37 (talk) 11:30, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

9. Oppose as not active enough (three years, five hundred edits, give or take). Low activity means lack of exposure to the workings of Wikipedia. Only 30 user talk page edits in six years means no experience of interacting with other users. QU ^TalkQu 08:50, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

   Oh please. I rarely post YouTube comments, either. That doesn't mean I'm not interested in their content ... Faustus37 (talk) 09:04, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

10. Strongest Possible Oppose per lack of experience, the second part of my neutral, and the way you react to criticism during this RfA. Bmusician 09:11, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

    I've upped to "strongest possible oppose" because of your attack to Rschen. Bmusician 09:26, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

    Whatever. Wikipedia is the seventh most visited site on the Internet. In many ways we're entrusted with 10,000 years of human history among a great many other things. I fully appreciate the enormity of that task. Forgive me if I take exception to some random user accusing me of "poor" answers to questions without something to back him/her up. Faustus37 (talk) 10:29, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

11. Oppose the answers to your questions are poor. --Rschen 7754 09:15, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

    Yeah? Your answer sucks too. Elaborate. Faustus37 (talk) 09:25, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

    You're the one running for adminship, not me. The burden of proof is on you to prove why we should support your nomination. You've done little to inspire people's confidence in you. --Rschen7754 09:29, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

    Fine. The proof is this: I support a truly inclusionist Wikipedia which presents a true footprint of the early 21st Century (and beyond), good, bad and otherwise. Therefore I oppose censors at every level, both moral AND intellectual (and yes, the latter very much exists too). If we don't here, SOMEONE ELSE WILL. I say it should be an institution committed to it, at least in a sense that transcends more than theory. If that does little to inspire confidence in "the people," well, that their problem, not mine ... Faustus37 (talk) 09:57, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

12. Oppose: While it is great to see a valuable contributor of article content running for adminship, there are too few edits outside of article space to support at the present time. --sparkl_!sm ^hey! 09:20, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
13. Oppose. No compelling nomination statement, and very short answers to the questions, the candidate has obviously not read any of the vast amount of advice that is available to RfA candidates, and incusion/demletion issues apart, is possibly not fully aware of what being an admin actually entails. Reading advice pages, how-tos, essays, and policy, is part of being an active Wikipedian before attempting to convince the community that one is ready for the admin tools. Taking part in collaborative and semi administrative areas is essential for demonstrating the interpersonal skills and knowledge of policy needed for adminship. This candidate has done practically neither at any level that permits an evaluation of how the tools would be used.. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:33, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
14. Oppose From the badgering of oppose voters it is obvious the candidate is lacking the level of maturity expected in an admin. Yoenit (talk) 09:37, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

    "Badgering"? Oh no, no, no, no. I was not asked "please elaborate on your answers." I was TOLD "your questions are poor." Initiate discourse in a civil manner, I will respond in kind. However ... Faustus37 (talk) 10:02, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

    Admins have to face far worse things than that and need to show the ability to respond in a civil and constructive manner - so I'm afraid that's a big fail on that one. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:47, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

    And how am I not "civil and constructive"? An admin is much like a judge. Judges rule on principle and precedent. Good judges are strong-willed. Don't like my decision? Fine. Appeal. Enlightened civilizations have that option. So does Wikipedia. Faustus37 (talk) 11:19, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

15. Oppose I don't like your aggressive replies to people who participated on voting (for example "Yeah? Your answer sucks too." doesn't sound friendly), I can't imagine how you would deal with all people who disagree with you if you passed. Administrators should be neutral and it seems that you can't stay calm and neutral even on your own RfA. Petrb (talk) 09:41, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
16. Oppose as per Petrb and Yoenit. As an admin you'll have to think with a level head. You have demonstrated the inability to do that. The Determinator p t c 09:52, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
17. Oppose I don't think the replies here by the candidate show the attitude needed to be an admin. There are times when it's hard to remain polite, and times when being somewhat rude is the only course. RfA is definitely the place to keep polite even if you are being slagged off - and I wouldn't use that term to describe Rschen's post. Blunt, yes, but not rude. I'm also not sure that you aren't seeking the tools without there being rather a lot of PoV involved, from your answer to Q1. Peridon (talk) 10:12, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
18. Very strong oppose, for several reasons. I have managed to find no evidence at all of any participation in any admin-related work, apart from a very small number of AfD contributions, the last one being in July 2008. Such experience is necessary before anyone becomes an administrator, both as an indication of how they will handle such work, and so that they have had relevant experience. You have taken almost no part in discussions of any sort. You have made all of one talk page post (plus a second edit to add your signature) since August 2011. How can someone who virtually never interacts with other users be an administrator? However, we do now finally have an indication of how you may be expected to participate in discussions, as you have made several posts to this page, and we see a negative and unconstructive approach to other editors. Finally, there is no question of supporting someone who intends to use adminship to pursue a particular point of view, no matter what that point of view is. All in all, you appear to have very little idea what being an administrator entails. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:53, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

    Peridon and JamesBWatson: Objectivity is kind of like King Arthur. While it's a noble thought, it's a myth all the same. We're all deletionist or inculsionist to some degree. The same is true of the 1,300+ English-language administrators on Wikipedia. One more either way isn't going to make much of a difference one way or another. Nonetheless, my philosophy is clear. Whether or not I actually get it is ultimately of no consequence. The important thing is that I cared enough to give a damn. Faustus37 (talk) 11:11, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

19. Very strong oppose. Very poor answers to the questions, too little evidence of interaction, and nothing to suggest that you bring even the communication skills needed in an admin. Your reply to Rschen7754 is unacceptably aggressive in any dialogue, and as an admin you would encounter far more difficult situations. If you can't even remain civil at that stage of a dialogue, especially when under scrutiny at RFA, then I don't want you anywhere near the admin tools. NOTNOW, NOTNEVER. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:17, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

    I second this. MrLittleIrish ^(talk) © 11:36, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

20. Oppose per Your answer sucks too. Not what I want to see in an admin. 2eschew surplusage (talk) 11:25, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

    • sigh* It's not like I'm going to use said tools with excessive impunity, because, well, I'M NOT. If anything I'm going to be overly laissez-faire with them. I thought I made that abundantly clear. Evidently not ... Faustus37 (talk) 11:46, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

21. Oppose. Unconvincing reasons for adminship. Limited collaboration with other users. Inappropriately aggressive. Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:50, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

    Limited collaboration? Fine. I have no rebuttal. Guilty as charged. Inappropriate aggression? Absolutely NOT! Wikipedia is in many ways the single best repository for human knowledge, ever. We already lost Alexandria and Baghdad, damned if we're going to lose this! If the defense of that doesn't instill aggression in you, then I truly question your humanity ... Faustus37 (talk) 11:58, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

22. Oppose 178 edits within a year? You don't need the rights! Use {{editprotected}}... mabdul 12:15, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
23. Oppose This user is taking an entirely incorrect approach to becoming an admin.
    1. This shows his aggresivenes.
    2. This shows how he doesn't need the tools.
    3. His answers are poor and he only 5000 edits in 7 years being here.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Temporarily Online} 12:21, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
24. Oppose as per Boing! said Zebedee and especially with regard to his agressive responses. PJBoellaard (talk) 12:24, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

    Too funny! And your spelling sucks too (it's "aggressiveness" and "aggressive" respectively). Don't forget your verbs, either! Do you people really think becoming an admin should be based on sheer NUMBERS? As opposed to, you know, LIFE EXPERIENCE? I truly, truly feel sorry for you if you do ... Faustus37 (talk) 12:34, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

25. Opppose - stating an agenda (any agenda, even if I agree with it) as the primary reason you want to be entrusted with Tools that require a neutral hand (and defending that with self-serving aphorisms) is a poor way to start and RfA, but it wouldn't have led me to oppose. Lack of Talk Page work and the incivility during this RfA, however, have. We need Admins who are capable of working with new editors; in fact, when a new editor royally bollacks something up, based on incompetence, not malice, it's usually only an admin (usually only a potential blocking admin) who makes the actions that decide if that new editor is bitten away from the project, or will seek ways to be productive. That admin can make all the difference, and unfortunately, given your responses above, I don't feel comfortable with you being that admin. Achowat (talk) 12:44, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

    A fair criticism. We all have our improvements to make ... Faustus37 (talk) 12:49, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

26. Oppose - since it seems that he intends to pursue an inclusionist viewpoint and his replies to challenges are quite incivil in my view, I have no choice but to vote Oppose. AndieM (Am I behaving?) 13:22, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Neutral

You are undoubtedly a great editor with great intentions, but you have only made two edits to Articles for Deletion discussions, have made very few edits to the Wikipedia: and User talk: namespaces, and the answer to Q3 worries me. I will not oppose you, but I'm afraid I can't support either. Bmusician 08:24, 24 April 2012 (UTC) moved to oppose --Bmusician 09:11, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I can't argue with your concerns that I haven't been a staunch defender of inclusionists behind the scenes, because I haven't. We all have lives to live and what not. Wikipedia is not my life, and take a 10-gauge to my head if Wikipedia ever becomes my life. As for Q3, just because I'm ultra-liberal on these matters doesn't mean I approve everything. Faustus37 (talk) 08:53, 24 April 2012 (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.