Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Mlaffs

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

Mlaffs

(talk page) (73/3/1) Closed 21:14, 1 July 2009 (UTC) by Avi (talk)

Nomination

Mlaffs (talk · contribs) – When I had my first encounter with Mlaffs, I was struck by two things: his honesty and his intelligence. A few days ago, I granted him the new autoreviewer userright after finding his name on the JVbot Whitelist. He quickly responded to me and notified me that he might not be qualified for the tool because he believed the high number of redirects he has created might have given me a false positive (although in his gnome work he has created well over the 75 articles required for the tool). Frankly, this impressed me. While many editors on Wikipedia only looking for status would have quietly kept the tool enabled on their accounts, Mlaffs took the chance that he would not get the “shiny new hardware” and told the truth.

Looking further into Mlaffs’s edits, I found a patient and hardworking “gnome-like” editor with over 68,000 well spent edits over a period of 19 months (or one year and seven months). If he is granted the tools, they will be used to aid in Mlaffs’s excellent gnome work. As I am sure everyone knows, the delete button can come in handy when dealing with disambiguation pages, moves, and redirects. In his contributions to discussions, one can see that Mlaffs is a thorough and effective communicator with insightful and polite responses. Although he primarily does gnomish work, he has not neglected the content building aspect of the encyclopedia either, and has a live featured list nomination. Wikipedia needs more administrators that are honestly here to help the project grow, and because of this, Mlaffs would be a great addition to the team. Thank you, Malinaccier (talk) 19:57, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept, with humility, and a small amount of fear. I'd been thinking about this possibility for a while, and had started a somewhat stillborn editor review based on another administrator's advice, in order to get some feedback on my work here. However, I didn't look at this as imminent at all, thinking that I'd have to be a self-nom if I was ever going to go ahead with it. I was honestly shocked when Malinaccier offered to nominate me. I'm grateful for the trust placed in me by even making the nomination, and I'd take it as a responsibility to be worthy of that trust were I to be successful. Mlaffs (talk) 21:12, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear 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 prefer to start by outlining what I wouldn't intend to take part in. I wouldn't be closing deletion debates, nor would I be issuing blocks. I wouldn't be stepping into any areas where I haven't built a lot of experience already as an editor. In the short- and medium-term, I'd want to use the tools for the sort of gnomish tasks that got me thinking about them in the first place. For example, radio stations change call signs a lot, which result in page moves, new disambiguations, undoing disambiguations, and the like. Deletions are often necessary as part of that process, and so I'd probably be on the lookout for G6 speedy deletion requests, particularly where they're in support of a subject area with which I'm familiar. I've also found myself getting a bit interested in categorization lately, and so I might want to dip a toe into C2 speedy requests as well or category renames resulting from CfD. Long-term, I suspect my administrative work would develop the same way my editing patterns have — I run into something that seems interesting, learn about it, ask questions, and then dig in. I'd probably also be watching for more simple and mundane areas where there are regularly backlogs, to see if there's a load that I can lift from other admins who can (and might want to) add value on the complex stuff. I certainly wouldn't be the most active admin out of the box. Ultimately, I guess I look at it like I look at living in my condo building — it's not that I think my life is incomplete unless I own a wrench and a screwdriver, but there are times when it's easier to do things myself rather than calling the super or hiring a handyman, and I may even find that I start to like home improvement and want to do it more regularly. Of course, that's just a handy analogy — IRL, I always call the super or hire a handyman.

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

A: As Malinaccier notes above, I'm a gnome, and so my best contributions are decidedly gnome-like. I tend to look for a task or project and then work the heck out of it. The project I'm most proud of took place through last summer, where I cleaned up incoming links to almost every single disambiguation page that included radio or television call signs. This involved several thousand edits to get the links correct, with only about a hundred at the end that I wasn't able to solve and had to tag accordingly. Another big project was doing a station by station run through the FCC's radio station database to develop a list of our gaps in coverage (building and maintaining that list accounts for what looks like an inordinately large number of edits in Userspace — it's a sub-page). That work led to dozens of page moves to get articles named correctly, and adding project tags to numerous talk pages that hadn't yet been identified. It was the page move piece of that work that got me thinking about an RfA in the first place. Most recently, I’ve nominated List of Toronto Blue Jays seasons for featured list consideration. I didn’t create the article, but I did make a lot of enhancements to it based upon what I saw in similar articles that were already featured lists. I took it to the project talk page first to solicit feedback, followed by a peer review. While I can understand that there might be a skeptical belief otherwise, I didn’t do this because I wanted to have a gold star to burnish my record; it was really all about stretching my wings a bit and wanting to experience the process of focused collaboration and receiving critical feedback. The fact that the FL discussion is ongoing while this RfA is starting is completely a weird coincidence.

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 think I can honestly say that the vast majority of my interactions with other editors have been positive, or at least no worse than neutral. That being said, I was involved with the date delinking arbitration case. I wasn’t an involved party per se, but I was certainly an interested one. I have absolutely no opinion about date autoformatting, nor am I particularly wedded to most date links themselves. However, I did take part in a couple of AN/ANI threads about the process piece of this — the manner in which the mass delinking effort was effected — and so I provided a small amount of evidence to the Arbcom case from that perspective. There was a lot of emotion associated with that whole episode, and I preferred to refrain from commenting unless I thought it would add value. However, when I did, I'd like to hope that I was a voice of moderation, and that I made my points calmly and rationally. It should also go without saying that, were I to be successful in this candidacy, I wouldn't go within a hundred kilometres of the ongoing discussions and work in that area in an administrative capacity. All that being said, there's little here that's stressful, at least not in the big picture. I do big thinking involving big risks all day long at work. This is where I come to do bite-sized, repetitive tasks to wind down at night or while I'm watching a ball game on the weekends, so I'm simply not prepared to let stress mess with that. Deep breaths, and all that.

Optional question from Keepscases

4. What celebrity do you think would be the best spokesperson for Wikipedia? Why?

A: Nice question - I love stuff that makes my brain work. You know, there are a few different ways I could go with this. My first thought was Steve Jobs — a key figure in the technology world, along with the cool factor of the products that Apple creates. And really, if Wikipedia isn’t a perfect example of “Think Different”, I don’t know what is. My second thought was Wile E. Coyote — can’t you just see him inserting POV comments into the Lever, Jet engine, and Trinitrotoluene articles? There’s always Alyssa Milano — it’s tough to go wrong with a beautiful spokesmodel, and if you follow her Twitter feed at all, you get the sense that there’s a little more depth there than the stereotypical Hollywood starlet.

Eventually, I have to settle on Cecil Adams, the author of the syndicated The Straight Dope column and email newsletter. It’s all about answering the unanswerable, and debunking the bunk. The books are a fun read, and very informative. The ad campaign practically writes itself — “When I want the straight dope, I go to Wikpedia!”.

Additional optional questions from Steve Crossin

5. As an administrator, do you feel it's more important to abide by and enforce the letter or the spirit of policies and guidelines, or to use your administrative judgment to implement a better solution. Basically what I'm asking is, if general policies and guidelines would provide a solution that you could solve better by using common sense and your judgment as an admin, would you do so? If possible, please give an example.

A. Going to need to sleep on this one if you don't mind. I'll return to it tomorrow; just didn't want you to think I was ignoring it. So, I suppose "yes" wouldn't be a satisfactory answer, would it? No, I didn't think so. It's my honest answer, though. I think it's important to enforce the letter of the law, I think it's important to enforce the spirit of the law, and I think it's important to use judgment and common sense to arrive at a better result. You can't really do all three at once, so when one of those becomes more important than the others is very situational. Particularly while I'm getting my feet wet, I expect that I'd be enforcing letter far more often. As I start to understand certain policies better and act in enforcement of them, I may well find that I'll be enforcing spirit more often. If I get really good at this, I may well find situations where I feel my judgment ends up getting to the best solution. Honestly though, I don't know yet. The most important thing is getting to the right solution, and I'd like to hope that policy will usually lead to that. I can say this though — I think that ignore all rules is a useful policy. I think it also needs to be applied very carefully in cases of administrative action. However, I believe that careful application of it can justify enforcing spirit over letter, and can justify common sense over both. Most importantly, while I'd always need to be accountable for my actions, that would never be more true than when deviating from the letter of the law. Acting on my judgment when it's not directly in line with written policy and then dropping out of sight isn't good — if I can't stick around to explain or defend my actions, I'd be better off letting someone else act instead.

6. On a daily basis, regardless of where you do janitor work, administrators will likely have to resolve a dispute between one or more editors, in some form or another. For this reason, it is best if administrators have past experience in dispute resolution, or can at least demonstrate how you, as an administrator, would have the skills and experience required to solve these disputes. For example, provide a situation where there was a conflict that you were involved that you managed to arrive to an amicable resoltuion, or a situation where you helped to resolve a dispute between two or more editors.

A. I’ve thought back, and I honestly can’t think of a situation on Wikipedia where I’ve been involved in resolving a dispute between multiple editors. Similarly, in terms of resolving an on-Wiki conflict, I can only remember doing so if you look at AfD as being conflict, and the resolution of that conflict be turning another editor around on their opinion through strength of argument. I was involved in one of those situations earlier today. That seems a pretty broad interpretation, though.

So, I’d have to look at real life for examples. On three separate occasions, I’ve sat on the boards of non-profit organizations. The most recent of these was a nearly three-year term as president of an organization. Chairing board meetings of a non-profit, particularly one where the board is entirely comprised of volunteers, are often primarily an exercise in dispute resolution. It’s rather amazing how heated debate can get among people who are all ostensibly working toward the same goal. Good thing that never happens here, eh?

Similarly, in my work life, I manage a team of eight. It’s often a high-pressure environment, with deadlines that are driven by the need to meet legal or regulatory requirements. We’re reliant on many internal partners to provide feedback on and contribute to the work we create, and require that feedback/contribution within timelines that they’re often not prepared or willing to meet. I’ve spent more time than I care to remember talking one of my staff down from the ledge as a result of a confrontation with one of these partners, or trying to get multiple partners to sit down and hammer out disagreements over content in a way that’s going to get the result I need.

My style in these situations is to give each party in turn the chance to outline their concerns, without interruption. I’ll then attempt to summarize each party’s position in my own words, identify areas where common ground already exists, and understand the core concerns underlying their positions. From there, it’s usually about trying to find the tactful way to help show people where they’re being unreasonable, framing the discussion either in what’s important to the business or in how giving ground will benefit them.

I suspect that many parts of this approach won’t work in an environment such as this one, and that I’d need to be prepared to adapt my approach depending on the situation. That’s a challenge I find intriguing.

Additional question from User:Wizardman

7. When should no consensus closed on AFDs default to keep, and when should they default to delete, and why?

A. I'm not sure whether you're looking for a policy-based answer or my opinion. I'm assuming it's the former, so I'll say that the effect of an AfD that's closed as “no consensus” is ordinarily that the article is kept, although without prejudice to a later nomination should there be a desire to gauge whether or not the community’s opinion has changed. As far as I understand policy, the limited situation where a “no consensus” might result in an article being deleted is where the article is about a living person who is relatively unknown and not a public figure, and where that person has requested that the article be deleted. In case I was wrong and you were looking for my opinion, for what it's worth, this seems a reasonable exception to me.

Questions from Tony1

8. What is your view of the notion of AdminReview, a community-driven process—still in draft form—for dealing with prima facie reasonable grievances against the use of or threat to use administrator tools in a way a user believes has breached admin policy?

A: The notion I like; I'm worried about how the notion would translate into practice. In theory, I think having a forum for editors who believe that they've been treated in some way unfairly by an admin is a good idea. It certainly appears that you have good intentions in proposing this method, and it seems to be well-considered. In practice, I wonder about the crossover between this process and RfC Admin. Are they intended to co-exist? Can they? When should an editor avail themself of one versus the other? I wonder about the amount of process and bureaucracy that are built into this to arrive at results that are essentially opinion/advice, without any intent or ability to be binding on either the editor or the admin. Naturally, I worry about the possibility — strike that, the likelihood — that this will be a magnet for drama. In fact, to the extent that I've followed the development of this process at all, the drama is unfortunately the one thing that's stood out, which I think is really unfortunate. I'm not saying that's a reason not to introduce this, but it's certainly something that would need careful management should this eventually become live.

Rejoinder: A good, considered answer. If you don't mind, I'll contact you at a later stage for feedback on the talk page there. Tony (talk) 12:49, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Questions from User:Carlossuarez46

9a. What policy areas have you contributed to?

A. I’ve gone through the policies, and I honestly can’t remember editing any of those pages or being involved with any of their associated talk pages. Not quite the same thing, but I was once involved in a discussion at WP:MOSNUM, around conversions for weights and measures. I've also been involved in what seems like a monthly debate on the talk page at WP:ATHLETE — the guideline that nobody likes but on which nobody can agree how it should be changed.

9b. If you had the power to change a policy, which would you choose and what would you change and why?

A. Honestly, to the extent that I've examined any of it critically, I think most of the written policy is reasonably sound. So, I have to hope that you’ll pardon my selection — it’s not exactly sexy, but it does stick in my craw a bit. Given the power to change one policy, I’d choose Wikipedia:Naming conventions. What I would change is the section of the policy that says Use standard English for titles even if trademarks encourage otherwise. First of all, while I’ll willingly confess that I don’t know the history of the decision, why is there a specific exception for iPod and eBay, particularly for the article names themselves and when beginning a sentence? If you’re going to have a policy, have a policy. Second, there’s a difference between trademarks for brands of products and actual company names, but this policy doesn’t distinguish. As an example, I’d offer the article Telus. It’s not just that the company spells the name TELUS in their advertising and communications with customers — more importantly, TELUS Corporation is their legal name, as reflected in their continuous disclosure documents filed with the securities regulatory authorities, their incorporating documents, etc. I’m a very strong believer in style, but if we’re creating an encyclopedia here, we also have an obligation to reflect reality.

Oh, and not a policy change, but I'd also change the portion of the manual of style that deals with the treatment of em-dashes. I'll obviously abide by the guideline in article space but, as you'll see from my responses here, I'm exercising a small amount of rebellion. Sorry, Tony1.

9c. Do longstanding essays (WP:SNOW, WP:OUTCOMES, WP:ATA, for a few) have any weight in XFD debates?

A. Pardon my boldness, but I'm going to assume that what you're really asking me is not as much do they as should they. I mean, in practice, they clearly do have weight, to varying degrees. As to whether or not they should, yes, I think so. WP:SNOW, applied properly, is simply paying respect to common sense — when the outcome is clear and overwhelming, we don’t necessarily need process for process’ sake. Of course, before invoking it, it's important to make sure that what looks like snow isn't really confetti. WP:OUTCOMES and WP:ATA are useful reading before bringing something to XFD or before commenting in a discussion there. They can also provide a useful reference within the discussion, although shouldn’t be the sole argument cited by a participant. For example, it's not good to simply point to WP:OUTCOMES and say that fully-licensed radio stations are generally held to be notable. If you know the context, it's useful to mention why that's true; similarly, if you don't know the context, it's equally useful to outline why you believe that's a good idea. It’s also important to remember that, to the extent that either essay reflects consensus, it is possible for consensus to change — hopefully the essays will change in response, but that’s not guaranteed.

9d. Should a WikiProject be permitted to adopt policies that conflict with community policies or guidelines for articles within the scope (two examples: can WikiProject FooSport determine that any competitor in FooSport at a university level is notable? that no stubs of FooSport biographies be permitted and any stubs must be redirected to team roster lists until something beyond a stub is written?

A. No.

Oh, wait, you'd probably like that expanded on a bit, wouldn't you? Using FooSport in your examples is a great choice. I think if WikiProject FooSport wants to establish their own minimum standards for what competitors they think are notable, that's great — it allows their members to focus on creating, expanding, and maintaining the articles that they think are the highest value to their project and, presumably, to Wikipedia overall. However, that doesn't mean that they can impose those standards on the rest of the community, particularly if those standards are more inclusive than the community's. So, no, based on my current reading of WP:BIO and WP:ATHLETE, the FooSport project can't decide that any competitor in FooSport at a university level is notable. It's certainly possible for some of them to be notable, though. Similarly, if the FooSport project wants to decide that they're not going to create any FooSport stub bios, that's great. However, if someone else wants to come along and create one or more FooSport stub bios, and the subjects of those bios satisfy WP:ATHLETE or WP:BIO, the FooSport project can't just start unilaterally redirecting those articles to the team roster list.

All that being said, if WikiProject FooSport can get enough movement on WP:ATHLETE to have their standards recognized as consensus within the community, more power to them. I've said more than once that WP:ATHLETE is a bit of a third rail around here.

Optional questions from KillerChihuahua

10. When is it appropriate for an administrator to edit a fully protected page?

A: To my understanding, there are two primary situations: 1) when the edit is clearly uncontroversial, or 2) when consensus for the edit has been established on the article's talk page or at another appropriate forum.

11. An article is on Afd, nominated as a violation of BLP1E. The subject is a one-off from another, notable, article subject. The views are more or less evenly divided between "Keep" and "Merge or delete". When pressed for rationale, the Keeps respond that the subject is not attempting to remain private, and has been on Letterman, although they concede he has only done the One thing (Two if you count being on Letterman talking about the One thing, and many of the Keep views DO count Letterman.) How will you close this Afd?

A: Based on the available facts, and assuming that the related notable individual was not involved with the one event (I don't see any indication here that they are), I believe that I would close this as "Delete". I don't think that one appearance on Letterman is necessarily evidence that the subject doesn't intend to remain low profile. There's obviously no prejudice against recreating the article if there ends up being persistent coverage of the event in reliable sources.

If the related notable individual was involved with the event, I believe that I'd close this as "Delete", but recommend merging the appropriate content to the article of the notable individual and adding a redirect from the subject of the deleted article.

Those comments notwithstanding, please consider this my pinkie swear that, as much as I have no intention to close deletion debates any time in the foreseeable future, I'd be that much less likely to close a discussion with this set of facts. Heck, I probably wouldn't even be commenting in a discussion like this.

Additional optional questions from Groomtech

12. Do you believe that Wikipedians have rights? If so, what will you do to uphold them?

A: Rights? Sure, and many of them have lefts too — probably a lot slower typing otherwise… sorry, couldn't resist. It's an interesting question, and one I’ll admit I’d never thought about before I started seeing it in these discussions. I guess I’d start by saying that my gut says that Wikipedians do have rights. They have the right not to be abused, attacked, or harassed. They have the right to be treated with fairness by their peers, particularly by their peers who have been granted extra tools or responsibilities through discussion or election. They have the right to be accurately credited for their contributions. They have the right to appeal a block or a ban, as well as either of those restrictions or any others placed on them by the Arbitration Committee. All that being said, my head says that the one right Wikipedians don’t have is the right to edit. They can be restricted, blocked, or banned. Heck, the Foundation could just turn off the power on the servers and keep all of us from editing. As a result, all of the other rights mentioned above aren’t absolute. They're more like 'fundamental privileges', so to speak. As for what I'd do to uphold them, I suspect that would be a by-product of using the tools properly rather than a result of any active consideration on my part. I don't go through my work or home life looking to make sure I'm actively upholding the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms either, but I'm pretty sure I'm not infringing anybody's rights either simply by acting like a responsible human being.

General comments

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

---

Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review Special:Contributions/Mlaffs before commenting.

Discussion

• Edit count posted to talk page. - Dank (push to talk) 21:26, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Support

1. Support. As nominator. Malinaccier (talk) 21:23, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
2. The candidate's CSD work is good. He works as a copyeditor during the day, which is probably why he doesn't come home at night and copyedit featured articles on Wikipedia. AFAIK, he has just the one (hopefully) featured list, but I'll let him slide </humor> based on the quality of what I've seen of his 48,000 non-deleted articlespace edits. - Dank (push to talk) 21:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Support. Well qualified. Tan | 39 21:26, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Support. I very much like what I see. No concerns noted at all from a brief review. ~ mazca ^talk 21:28, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Can't see anything that would make me oppose. Good luck! weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 21:29, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Strong Support - Mlaffs would make an excellent admin. He has already shown that he can do quality work with other users and admin. I see no concerns. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 21:31, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Support Sure. Meetare Shappy ^Cunkelfratz! 21:35, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Support Not a name I knew, but a perusal of his contributions and his answers above show a hardworking behind-the-scenes editor with a sensible approach to adminship; the tools will be of use, and used sensibly, I'm sure. Bencherlite^Talk 21:40, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Support No reason not to, as far as I can see. — Aitias // discussion 21:47, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
10. Support Great user. -download ׀ sign! 22:00, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
11. Support; seem them around, should do fine as an admin. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 22:22, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
12. --Giants27 (c|s) 22:28, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
13. Support. Does good work building the encyclopedia and doesn't seem to be too involved in the drama. We need more administrators (and editors) like that. Jafeluv (talk) 22:38, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
14. Support. Why not? -FASTILY ^(TALK) 22:43, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Oh for goodness sake David, you're saying that at every RFA. Stifle (talk) 22:52, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
16. Support per above. Dlohcierekim 23:30, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
17. Strong support. Was on my old shortlist for a while, great user. Wizardman 00:00, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
18. Support I actually just discovered Mlaffs a couple days ago and was planning on nominating him myself, pending the conclusion of my own RFA and a more in-depth review of his contribs. It seems Malinaccier beat me to the punch. Mlaffs will make an excellent admin. Timmeh 00:49, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
19. Support No problems here. Good luck! Pastor Theo (talk) 01:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
20. Support As per Malinaccier and feel that giving the user tools will only benefit the project and see no scope for misuse of tools.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 01:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
21. Support No problems here, net positive. -T'Shael, Lord of the Vulcans 02:01, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
22. Support Uh... yep! -- Mike (Kicking222) 02:13, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
23. Support Exploding Boy (talk) 02:57, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
24. Support JPG-GR (talk) 03:55, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
25. Support. I've seen Mlaffs around and have never seen anything which causes concern. I don't see anything which leads me to believe the tools would be abused. This is a clueful editor who would make a great admin. ···日本穣^? · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:07, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
26. Support. Hard-working, thoughtful, and drama-free. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:15, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
27. Support Triplestop (talk) 13:53, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
28. Support Keepscases (talk) 14:14, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
29. Support—I'm impressed with his technical queries at the full-date unlinking bot RFC, which show a valuable skill-base along with his gnoming and copy-editing interests. Good answers above thus far. Tony (talk) 15:46, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
30. Support He seemed very knowledgeable in my only main encounter with him: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/KCTJ. Tavix |  Talk  16:30, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
31. Support. Experienced. Solid contributor. older ≠ wiser 16:48, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
32. Support I can't find any concerns. Mm40 (talk) 17:08, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
33. Support Per nom, no issues I can see. Spencer^{T♦Nominate!} 17:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
34. Support Looks like a good candidate. Davewild (talk) 17:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
35. Weak support, purely to counteract David Fuchs' "weak oppose". Adminship is not reserved for prolific audited content contributors.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 19:02, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
36. Strong Support as I've worked closely with the candidate on structural and other issues over many months and feel strongly that he'll wield the mop well. - Dravecky (talk) 19:58, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
37. I'd rather you be open and honest about your wiki-beliefs than try to appease me or everyone else. And you were. The fact you've had experience in real life in dispute resolutuion, so that's a bonus, but you seem to be a fine Wikipedian and I have no hesitation in supporting you. Best of luck. Steve Crossin ^{The clock is ticking....} 20:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
38. Support Not even vaguely likely to abuse the extra "tools" through abuse or more aptly misuse. Clearly competent. A pleasure to support. Pedro :  Chat  20:12, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
39. God Bless the Gnomes. Excellent, quiet contrib history. Certainly highly qualified to continue on your trek of improving Wikipedia one byt at a time with a few extra buttons. Keeper | 76 21:07, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
40. Support Is poised/competent, around for the long term. Royalbroil 04:11, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
41. Malaffs' answers and contributions mark him as a reasonable contributor who knows what to do with the tools, but more importantly, they show a reasonable attitude towards editing that shows they know when to stop using the tools as well. That's wonderful. NW (Talk) 13:16, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
42. Support Hmph, I thought he was one. MBisanz ^talk 14:11, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
43. Support. Good, balanced answers.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:49, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
44. Almost a strong support per User:A_Nobody#RfA_Standards as this candidate has several good things going, including having never been blocked, making strong arguments rather than just votes in such discussions as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Canadian Girls in Training, being an article creator per User:Mlaffs#Articles_I.27ve_started, and for receiving User:Mlaffs/Awards. So, with at least four distinctive positives that demonstrate recognition by fellow editors, persuasive arguing skills, and evidence of being here to indeed contribute to our compendium of knowledge, I feel reasonably good about this candidate. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
45. Support Looks good. America69 (talk) 21:02, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
46. Support Definitely. You do a lot of good gnome work here and nothing in your contribution record gives me any hint that you'd misuse the tools. ThemFromSpace 00:12, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
47. Support Seems like you'll be a great admin. MacMed^talk_stalk 02:26, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
48. Support. Clueful, and has a sense of light-hearted humor too! KillerChihuahua^?!? 10:33, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
49. Support. Good luck! One two three... 10:49, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
50. Support no one could do it better (Mjal (talk) 18:15, 27 June 2009 (UTC))
51. Support. No reason to oppose; many to support. --Vassyana (talk) 05:34, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
52. Support good answers to questions and a willingness to venture closs to the third rail ;-) Carlossuarez46 (talk) 16:38, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
53. Support. Good contributions & good answers. Axl ¤ [Talk] 18:23, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
54. Support Nothing holds me back from supporting this candidate. iMatthew ^talk at  23:35, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
55. Support, decent editor. --Aqwis (talk) 23:36, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
56. Support per Peter Damian. Erik9 (talk) 00:50, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
57. Support — Mikhailov Kusserow (talk) 07:48, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
58. Support Absolutely ridiculous opposes, though maybe that should be left unsaid. Aditya ^α _ß 08:48, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
59. Support I'd normally be neutral (or oppose) on lack of audited content, but in the absence of anything else, I think you're worth a shot with the mop. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:47, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
60. Support Although article-writing is not all that strong, the candidate clearly has the best interests of the project at heart, along with sound judgment, good disposition, and understanding of policy, to be an effective admin.  JGHowes  ^talk 12:59, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
61. Support A great editor, very encouraging candidate for adminship. Already does good work for Wikipedia, shows a convincing motive for wanting the mop, and has thoughtful answers to the problems. The right stuff! Gray62 (talk) 16:34, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
62. support Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens (talk) 20:24, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
63. Support. No concerns to warrant opposing. -- Banjeboi 21:29, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
64. Unexpected support. I am normally skeptical of would-be admins whose only or primary encyclopedic contributions are vast numbers of gnome-like edits. However, your answers to questions and your clarity on what you would want to achieve with the bit makes me support. Martinp (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:03, 29 June 2009 (UTC).
65. Support. Looks fine to me. — Σxplicit 06:29, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
66. Support A good editor, will probably be a responsible admin. --~   Knowzilla   ^{(Talk) 08:40, 30 June 2009 (UTC)}
67. Support for "very low" edit counts and experience :P -- Tinu Cherian - 11:08, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
68. Support Looks good! LittleMountain5 21:19, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
69. Support Have Fun :) \ Backslash Forwardslash / {talk} 00:56, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

    Support. — Mikhailov Kusserow (talk) 11:49, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

    Indenting and striking duplicate !vote. -- Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 13:41, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

70. Support Great responses to the questions, and with less than 9 hours left in the RfA no opposes have shown up that would make me worry. -- Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 13:44, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
71. Support No qualms here. hmwithτ 14:52, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
72. Acalamari 15:28, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
73. Support - per Malinaccier. AdjustShift (talk) 21:08, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Weak oppose per lack of significant audited content contributions ^{(more info)} --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 22:15, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

   Hmm, just realized I don't really know what that means. Dlohcierekim 23:31, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

   Check his more info link. It basically means GAs, featured content, etc. Malinaccier (talk) 00:14, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

   Thanks. I don't have any of that stuff. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 15:55, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

2. Oppose per lack of significant audited content contributions Peter Damian (talk) 18:18, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

   Hooray for creative rationales! (X! · talk)  · @970  ·  22:16, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

   Considering the commenter's stated intentions it might be uncharitable to fault their imagination.  Skomorokh  01:37, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

3. Oppose Gnomes with tools are too great a risk, sorry. All admins must have either content or dispute resolution experience. Hipocrite (talk) 17:12, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

   Giving tools useful to gnomes to gnomes is a greater boon than the risk. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:08, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Neutral

1. I have to admit that if you do not make List of Toronto Blue Jays seasons up to WP:FL nomination[1], I would've definitely landed to Oppose for your non-inline sourcing to your 4 created list articles and lack of article building.[2] Although I am impressed by your 68,058 edits by hand, clueful answers and civil attitude, I believe admins exist to help editors build articles, so they need to fully acknowledge and experience our core content policy WP:V. I do not require FA/GA/ or even DYK to candidates, and I've appreciated WikiGnomes and fairies and elves, but except the list that could be a FL, I can not be convinced about your content building. I think your candidateship would be successful, so I raise my small concern.--Caspian blue 04:13, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. But I think sometimes we have to make exceptions. :) ChildofMidnight (talk) 05:22, 26 June 2009 (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.