Northamerica1000 (talk·contribs) – Fellow Wikipedians, it is my pleasure to nominate Northamerica1000 for administrator. He has been a part of this community for nearly a year-and-a-half, during which time he has amassed almost 100,000 edits. He has been entrusted with autopatrolled status, and he is also a file mover, reviewer, and rollbacker. A part of multiple science-related WikiProjects, Northamerica1000 fight vandalism and participates in articles for creation. He does good work here and granting him the mop will only increase his efficiency. With all the talk about the need to promote more admins and with the concern that RfA is dying, I ask you why, if adminship is indeed no big deal, should we not give this editor the mop? AutomaticStrikeout 01:36, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept this nomination for adminship, and thank you. Northamerica1000(talk) 23:44, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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: There are a great deal of avenues and choices in administrative work on Wikipedia. Foremostly, I feel that I have sound experience in contributing to the encyclopedia to assist in the administration of Wikipedia in accordance with Wikipedia's policies, guidelines and consensus in an egalitarian and equitable manner. Being an administrator significantly increases one's responsibility on Wikipedia, and I would utilize the administrative tools in a productive, yet judicious and discerning manner. Particular interests include file organization and management, WikiProjects, collaborations, portals and featured portal designation, editor retention, Articles for creation, Articles for deletion and AfD discussions, the Teahouse, welcoming users, countering vandalism, making productive contributions to discussions, new page patrolling, copy editing, simply improving the encyclopedia and several other avenues. These interests being realized in administration have many potential forms. For example, I've made significant contributions to AfD and have performed several non-administrator AfD closures. A few closure examples include Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Texas Alliance for Life, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Blood Confession and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Just Do It (Niké).
The process of discussion and consensus on Wikipedia is intriguing and ultimately, productive. The world is comprised of many people with divergent cultural backgrounds, ideation, knowledge, beliefs and values, and the manner in which this all eventually and ultimately meshes on Wikipedia in the form of productive articles and consensus is awesome. I'm interested in further contributing to discussions and performing consensus-based discussion resolutions and closures, including those at the administrators noticeboards such as Requests for closure and ANI. Additonal interests include countering vandalism in its many forms, utilizing page protection when necessary, helping out with updating content changes for the main page, various other deletion discussions (i.e. deletion review, Templates for discussion, etc.), article/file deletion and undeletion (the latter when warranted, i.e. Userfication), and additional areas. All of this would involve the cautious, rather than hasty, use of the tools from the start, per the learning curve for the use of any new tools on Wikipedia.
2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
A: The best contributions are those that improve the encyclopedia for the viewing public, further the goals of the project and in the process also lend to the acquistion of personal knowledge and learning during the process of article improvement. Regarding the notion of my “best” contributions, I tend to favor article improvements and expansions that involve significant research and thoughtful copy editing. A significant part of the fun of Wikipedia is finding articles about subjects and areas of interest, performing research to locate various reliable sources, particularly empirical research sources when available, and then copy editing articles to improve their content, sourcing and presentation. The process of researching and copy editing is quite conducive to the acquisition of personal knowledge, and in the process the encyclopedia is also improved. In this manner, one can learn about new topics and expand their knowledge of already-known ones while also concurrently improving the encyclopedia. This equates to a win-win situation for both the editor and the reader. For people's perusal, I maintain a list of some of my contributions at User:Northamerica1000/Contributions.
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: Active editors will inevitably have occasional conflicts with other editors, and the most important thing to do when this occurs is to first consider the other person's viewpoint. From here, calm, rational discussion between those in disagreement can often lead to resolution or compromise. In some instances, a person may be in error, and through the process of discussion the error is corrected. Other times, people may have philosophical differences about an article, topic or matter and not ultimately reach a resolution, but compromise may be reached. If compromise isn't attained, sometimes editors may have to “agree to disagree.” These processes and others also often lend to the formation of consensus on Wikipedia.
I personally don't become stressed from disagreements and their discussion, but I'm aware that others may. Tension and stress can interfere with cognition, which can be transferred in the form of negatively-affecting discussions. Conversely, calmness tends to lend to more productive discussions. It's important to encourage calm interaction. If a user is becoming overtly stressed out or even hostile, encouraging them to “take a step back” and take a break from the discussion often counters these matters. Afterward, the subsequent discussion often becomes more engaging and productive.
Addendum: Here are some links to discussions I was involved in that had some conflict. I remained calm, civil and rational:
ANI discussion that began on 12 January 2012 (UTC): Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive735#Article Rescue Squadron on AfD. Please note that I did make one error on this page, in which I typed "This is my first and only Wikipedia account. Your suspicions are incorrect in this case. I'm not another person that you may be thinking about, in this case." This occurred because I simply forgot about my short-term, abandoned User:Unitedstates1000 account.
4. If given the mop, will you be subject to recall? If not, why not?
A: I'd definitely give it consideration. Doing so would entail creating parameters for oneself and then volunteering to de-sysop if one's own parameters are not met. A concern, though, is that at Wikipedia:Administrators open to recall it is stated, "The status of the approach on this page is currently unclear." (et al.) Further clarification of the procedures, methods of judgment and processes of implementation would increase the likelihood of my adherence to this option. Northamerica1000(talk) 01:26, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
5. If you saw a new editor placing admin templates on his/her userpage, or otherwise claiming to be an administrator when they clearly arent, what actions, if any, would you take? What if it was a more established user?
A: After first checking to ensure that the person is not an administrator, for example, by performing a check at Special:ListUsers/sysop, I would remove any erroneously-placed admin templates if present along with an edit summary explaining their removal and message them about the matter. In the case of a template simply being mistakenly placed, as could occur in a copy/paste error, basic discussion could resolve the matter. In the event of ongoing false claims, a sterner warning would be appropriate along with a request that the erroneous information be struck from their posts. Additionally, in the event of the latter, the user would also be warned that continued false representation can result in blocks for deliberately introducing factual errors, up to and including being blocked indefinitely if the behavior persists. Northamerica1000(talk) 03:49, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
6. If you were reviewing someone's request for permissions, and you saw that they had been blocked in the past, how would you go about determining the outcome of their request? Would the amount of time be important, or just their contributions since the block(s)?
A: The foremost considerations in this matter would be the reason and circumstances for why the block was enacted, whether or not this was the person's first block or if they have been blocked multiple times, and if so what for (for simliar or for different matters), and the timeframe of the block in the event that there has been more than one. If a person was previously blocked for a violation similar to the very permission they are requesting, this would have to be taken into consideration. For example, in an instance where a user who requests autopatrolled permission has been blocked for creating faulty, unreferenced, spam-like articles in the far past, but has since demonstrated significant changes in behavior and is following guidelines and policies, less weight would be applicable regarding the block and the outcome of a request for permission would be primarily based upon the efficacy of the request relative to the the requesters experience and abilities, along with the degree of congruence relative to the guidelines for autopatrolled permission. Conversely, if the person recently made such request shortly after a related block for said example, the request would likely be denied with advice to make said request in the future after demonstrating compliance with policies and guidelines. The amount of time that has occurred and the number of contributions an editor has made after a block can be subjective. Per the example above, if a user was blocked in the far past and has made few or no edits in the time between the block and the request, the gravitas of the block would be higher. Conversely, in a situation where a user who has performed many edits and has not made subsequent violations related to the rationale for the block, the distant block would have less gravitas. Northamerica1000(talk) 01:03, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
7. Given that your first 500 edits were done in less than 10 days, it is reasonable to conclude that you may have edited WP before opening this account, can you please disclose any other accounts you have edited with or confirm that ArbCom are aware of them and ask someone from ArbCom to attest to that.
A: The first account I created on Wikipedia was User:Unitedstates1000, but I decided to change my user name. The pages for this initial, short-term account redirect to my current user pages. My contributions under the initial account can be viewed here. Prior to that I made occasional edits to Wikipedia under IP addresses while traveling. It's unclear why the arbitration committee would need to be aware of my initial User:Unitedstates1000 account, because there is no dispute inherent regarding this matter. Northamerica1000(talk) 01:12, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The ArbCom is only relevant if, for example you account was in your real name and you had decided to stop using it for reasons of privacy and therfore did not wish to disclose your real name.
I am still a bit confused of over the change from account to another one, you stopped editing with Unitedstates1000 and six minutes later you created this one, then continued to edit in the subject area of Hotels, yet you took to last month before you linked the two accounts. That first account had been in use for less than a month and made over 1000 edits is that correct ? Mtking (edits) 01:37, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The first account was in use for less than a month and a total of 1,119 edits were performed under it. I created the new account simply because I liked my current account name more than the prior one. I'd forgotten about the former, short-term account and upon reviewing some of my past edits, saw it in an article's revision history. From there, I then linked the old account user pages to redirect to my current ones. Under the former account, 1,119 edits were performed and the first edit occurred on May 12, 2011 (see Edit Counter), and the last edit was performed on June 8, 2011 (see User contributions). Northamerica1000(talk) 02:08, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum: I simply decided to begin editing under a new user name and abandoned the old account, because I preferred the new name compared to the former. I also requested deletion of the old account simply because it isn't being used whatsoever, but the request was denied (See this diff page and scroll down to the end to view the full discussion.) Since the pages couldn't be deleted, I redirected them to my current user pages. Hopefully this helps to significantly clarify this matter. Northamerica1000(talk) 09:05, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum: Also note that the last edit under the Unitedstates1000 account occurred on 11:25, 8 June 2011 (UTC) (See User contributions) and the first edit under the Northamerica1000 occurred on 12:22, 8 June 2011 (UTC) (User contributions). There was absolutely zero overlap between the accounts. When the former was abandoned it was never used again. I redirected the user pages to my current ones using my present account on 3 October 2012 after my request for deletion of the abandoned account pages was denied, as stated above. Northamerica1000(talk) 07:51, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
8. Since the toolserver resource cant help (due to your contribution count being so large) to to assess your contributions in some non-content creation areas of WP for example (but not limited to) in areas such as Speedy Deletion (perhaps with examples where you have added or removed CSD tags) or help in fighting vandals etc and Can you please outline the work you have done in the areas of WP that require the administration, such as AIV
A: As an example of countering vandalism, I've performed over 1,000 edits using STiki (see User:Northamerica1000/Awards). In the process, I've learned about the procedures for countering vandalism such as warning levels and types of user notifications. These skills would be transferrable toward contributing at AIV. Some areas of my non-content contributions include AfD, AfC and Prods. Some of my contributions at AfD include:
9. Do you, personally, feel that you deserve to be an administrator on this project, and if so, what makes you more deserving than other candidates with more experience than yourself, who have lost out at this place? If you don't feel you deserve it, what qualities do you feel you will add to the admin base on this project?
A: Rather than deserving, I feel qualified and competent per my experience and abilities. Regarding comparisons to other editors who have been declined, their reasons for being declined would be relative to their own contributions to the encyclopedia. Some of my personal qualities that would contribute to the administrative base of Wikipedia include a fair-minded, rational approach, respect of other's opinions and viewpoints and my ability to multitask. Northamerica1000(talk) 01:49, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A: The "Clear keep outcomes" section of the essay is a suggested procedure from an essay. I generally refer to the Non-administrators closing discussions section at Wikipedia:Deletion process because this is a guideline page and has more weight compared to an essay. Furthermore, it is denoted at the top of the essay that it is "intended to supplement the Wikipedia:Deletion process page, which should be deferred to in case of inconsistency between that page and this one." That said, ultimately, the outcome of the discussion favored article retention based upon the overall strength of the arguments in the discussion. Northamerica1000(talk) 03:30, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A: Supervotes should not be performed because this style of discussion closure typically fails to take consensus within discussions into consideration. Furthermore, supervotes typically lend undue weight to the opinion of the closer. Discussion closures should be based upon consensus and the weight of the various arguments within discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 04:24, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
12 Your answer to Q2 refers us here [6] re your contributions to articles. There you have listed the article Weight phobia under the title of your "Articles Created". Its history shows that you did not create this article and have made just one edit there: three months after it was created from a redirect (which you had not been involved with, nor had you edited the original article) you added a portal link. A substantial contribution early on in an article's history can conceivably be confused with its creation - but one minor edit? A listing muddle between "articles created" and "articles edited" (however slightly) is also possible. But given the info revealed in Q7, could there have been other "initial, short-term account(s)" perhaps forgotten in the mists of time? See, I'm also intrigued as to how, back in July 2011 and also soon after you started here, that just two and a half hours after you created it and less than an hour after your last (for the time being) edit there, User: Neutrality took over writing of Angolan cuisine: [7] and that same morning sent it off for a (failed) DYK: [8] (which was achieved a week later: [9]). I have looked at the article's and Neutrality's and your talk pages: none show any communication about this coincidental interest timing. Not a word about "Hey - that article you started 2 hours ago? I've just added heaps and sent it for a DYK! Well done us!" Not a word about this article between you, at all, ever. I would be interested to know your method of article-writing collaboration there. Plutonium27 (talk) 02:49, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A: It appears that the Weight phobia link was added in error because it at one time appeared in an articles created summary, from which I copied and pasted it to the my contributions list*. I've removed the entry from the list. Regarding previous account usage, the User:Unitedstates1000 account is the sole one. Regarding the lack of a query in discussing the Angolan cuisine article, it appears that I simply moved on to other editing matters at the time** and didn't consider the option of seeking collaboration for the article. Northamerica1000(talk) 03:14, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
* (Addendum: See this diff page and the Revision history for the Weight phobia article, in which the first entry has my edit summary. This is why it was listed in an articles created summary.) Northamerica1000(talk) 08:34, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum – Back in February 2012 I created the Weight phobia article, which currently redirects to Obesophobia. A unique series of events occurred in which the article was initially moved to Weight-Increase phobia (diff), which had been changed with a new topical focus upon Weight phobia, but the nominator for deletion objected to changing the article's content and hence the data from Weight-Increase phobia was moved back to the Weight phobia article (diff). Later, the content of Weight Phobia was merged to the Obesophobia article by another editor (diff). Also, the nominator of Weight-Increase phobia for deletion also kindly thanked me for moving the content back to the Weight phobia article at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Weight-Increase Phobia and also thanked me for working to improve the Weight phobia article, which was nice. I learned from this experience that in some instances, some users may disapprove of changing the entire structure of article's that are at AfD. Conversely, in other instances editors don't object, and are actually positive about said changes: see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Big.LITTLE for an example. Ultimately, my edits to the Weight phobia article were realized as an improvement to the Obesophobia article when the information was merged to it. Please note that it takes significant time and energy to research these matters and then convey them here in written form. I truly hope this serves to better-clarify this matter, and please do not hesitate to ask for additional information. Thank you. Northamerica1000(talk) 03:25, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Are you suggesting that the candidate is the same person as me? If so, that is just absurd. Neutralitytalk 19:58, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'd just like to chime in that I recently imported the list of all my starts to a thread at Wikipediocracy and found one or two listed by the software that I did not start. The output of that tool is not flawless and I could see how it could easily be pasted in with a couple odd pages not actually started inadvertently included... The answer rings very true to me, in other words. I only mention this because a couple opposers below intimate that it does not, based, apparently, on wild hunches of theirs... Carrite (talk) 22:53, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
13. Why does your User talk page have so many graphics at the top? Do you believe this content facilitates communication with other editors? And do you maintain talk page archives? (I can't find them on that page.)
A: I utliize my User talk page to convey various topics because it seems that most users go directly to this page, rather than to the User page. Graphics add visual appeal to pages, and can also be used to convey interests, along with humor. For example, the WikiProject Environment banner advertisement on the page may generate interest in that project, and the Wikimedia Commons banner ad serves to promote Commons. These likely don't facilitate significant editor communication, although they may in some instances. I will be adding a talk page archive to my User talk page shortly. Northamerica1000(talk) 04:02, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum: I've completely reformatted all of my User pages per common Wikipedia protocol (e.g. links/topics/interests on User page, User talk page simplified, archive box added to talk page and archive page created). Northamerica1000(talk) 08:10, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
14. As a follow on from question 12, I had a look at Quiche, an article you state you have significantly contributed to. After merging information from French Quiche, your work was exclusively this set of edits followed a while later by this set. After the second set, you added it to your list [10]. I'm curious to ask what you feel makes a contribution "significant"?
A: I formulated the list by reviewing my contribution history, and upon checking out the Quiche article, I also decided to make a few more changes to it. The contributions are significant because they involved merging information from the French Quiche lorraine article to the Quiche article (see also: Talk:French Quiche lorraine), layout improvements, style improvements, additional organization, research to find and then add additional sources to the article and the addition of entries to the further reading section, all of which take time and energy. In this manner, I also consider the time and energy invested in articles when adding articles to the Significant contributions section of my contributions list. Northamerica1000(talk) 09:33, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
15. I saw that about 5,000 of your edits have been deleted. Have you ever been engaged in an edit-war? How do you account for this unusual high number? Kraxler (talk) 15:25, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A: The Deleted edits are primarily due to participation in improving various articles that have been at XfD which were subsequently deleted. I've never engaged in an edit war, although there have been rare instances in which reversions have occurred below the The three-revert rule threshold. To avoid edit warring, it's best to discuss matters on an article's talk page in efforts to hopefully resolve any issues that may arise. I've never been blocked for edit warring, nor for any other matters. Northamerica1000(talk) 02:09, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Is this one of the "rare instances"? What astounds me in this discussion is claiming "consensus" after at least two other users pointed out that the image could not be used under the guidelines (independent of opinion/consensus) and actually voted "remove". (Image was then speedily deleted.)
About the 5,000 deleted edits: Isn't it rather that you tried to hold on at all costs to non-notable and untenable subjects, piecemeal editing them, and then they were deleted, nevertheless? I mean, article rescue is splendid, if the subject is rescuable. But the numbers seem to show that you are a heavily biased inclusionist. Kraxler (talk) 03:14, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
For starters, I hope people won't state that any response to this query is indicative of "badgering." Please note in advance that this is merely a response to a question. That said, the Occupy Wall Street article was about a controversial subject and many editors had diverse opinions about the article. The link above demonstrates that I took the initiative to start a discussion thread about the matter. The discussion itself occurred close to a year ago. As the discussion turned out, it was deemed that the image was unfit for the article. In that discussion, I was not claiming consensus, I was requesting discussion to obtain consensus. Regarding the latter part of your comment, I disagree with the synthesis of utilizing computer-generated numbers to qualify what appears to be personal opinions about an editor. Northamerica1000(talk) 05:02, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion took place on the Talk pages of Occupy Wall Street where you repeatedly added an image, and on your own talk page. The sequence is given by the time-stamp.:
This image has been continuously removed from the article. Any comments and suggestions are welcomed. —Northamerica1000(talk) 03:45, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
This image has consensus to remove regardless of it's fair use tag. The image has been manipulated for a purposeful attempt to create a point of view. Absolutely not a usable image for this article.--Amadscientist (talk) 14:01, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Remove Agree. Clearly not allowed. It has WP:OR written all over it. Arzel (talk) 15:41, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Please read WP:SYNTH. I have explained this repeatedly and you have made no response, but instead keep inserting the image. Please stop. Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 16:30, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
False. Consensus appears thus far to include this image in the Occupy Wall Street article (Northamerica1000, not signed).
Your claim about consensus is utterly false (show me one other user who agrees the image should be added) Centrify (f / k / a FCAYS) (talk) (contribs) 16:49, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Strong delete - Pure WP:OR and useless on this or any other page. Has no encyclopedic value whatsoever. Toa Nidhiki05 19:30, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Please allow time for other users to respond to this discussion. Northamerica1000(talk) 21:05, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
The last comment was added in the face of 4 contrary votes, citing guidelines, and no supportive vote in 18 hours time, the image was sson after deleted. Could you explain what was going on? Kraxler (talk) 16:49, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not seeing the information you state (above in bold, as unsigned) that you ascertain I wrote on the page link you provided above. Could you please provide a diff page that has the information you provided above? Your approach here is quite concerning. Northamerica1000(talk) 17:29, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I had a look through both user's histories and didn't find either comment, so it appears that there may be some rather creative commenting going on here in this AfD. -- Trevj (talk) 18:07, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Here are the pages: diff page for discussion on my talk page, Occupy Wall Street talk page. The comment on my talk page was based upon the fact that the person who uploaded and added the image to the article did not contribute to the discussion at all, and it's implied that the person wanted it to be used in the article. As I stated above, the discussion on the talk page resulted in a consensus for the image to not be used. Again, this was almost a year ago. Northamerica1000(talk) 00:55, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Background: I've analyzed roughly your last 500 votes at AfD, from around the middle of 2012 until now. During that time, you voted Keep about 86% of the time. Also during that time, your voting was reasonably "accurate", meaning that your matched the eventual consensus often (in fact, about 83% of the time). These two statistics are contradictory to me, and I'll explain why. Historically, half or more of AfD's finish with a delete consensus, and less than 1 in 5 finish with a keep consensus. (See these stats from about a year ago which show 55.2% closing as delete, and 18.9% closing as keep.) If you're voting Keep 86% of the time, and your vote matches the consensus 83% of the time, then somehow you are consistently voting on AfD's that are much more likely to end up being kept rather than deleted. So, on to my actual questions:
16. Could you explain your process for selecting AfD's to vote on? Do you consciously seek out AfD's on articles that you believe are likely to end up being kept, and ignore AfD's on articles that are unlikely to be kept? If so, why?
A: AfD is a continuously changing forum, and my selection criterion for topics to participate in vary per the constantly-updating nature of AfD. I have a strong knowledge base in a wide variety of subjects, so sometimes I participate in AfD discussions involving topics that I'm familiar with. Sometimes I participate because I like or enjoy a topic. Other times I work to improve articles that are nominated at AfD and also !vote at the discussion. Regarding the latter, sometimes a topic is obviously notable yet that notability is not recognized in AfD discussions. I enjoy participating in these types of discussions because it's in the interests of the encyclopedia for notable topics to be covered in the encyclopedia, per WP:PRESERVE, part of Wikipedia's Editing policy. I don't ignore entries when scrolling through AfD logs, but may not participate when the outcome of the discussion is obvious or if I have no interest in the topic. Some of the work I do involves article rescue, and in this manner when working to rescue an article I tend to work on those that have at least some likelihood of being retained, merged, etc. It would be counterproductive to spend a significant amount of time and energy improving an article that has a high likelihood of being deleted. Northamerica1000(talk) 01:26, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
17. Following on the question above: As an admin, how would you select AfD's to close? Would your selection process for closing AfD's resemble your selection process for voting on AfD's? Would you be comfortable with going through a day's worth of AfD's and closing more than half of them (on average) as delete?
A: Regarding selection of AfD's to close, a place to start would be the most dated entries, accessible at: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old and at Current and past Articles for deletion (AfD) discussions. My selection process for closures would not resemble my selection criterion for AfD discussions I contribute to. I would have no problem deleting articles per consensus in AfD discussions, because consensus is how these matters are decided. I also would have no problem in deleting Speedy deletion and Proposed deletion candidates, in congruence with the policies at those pages. I would have no problem closing discussions as delete and then deleting articles when consensus is to do so. Northamerica1000(talk) 01:56, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
18 A. If a user was new, what would you say to them to greet them to Wikipedia?
A: Per my membership in WikiProject Editor Retention, I periodically welcome new editors to Wikipedia using some of the many welcoming template options, often using Twinkle. The messages are standardized boilerplate that provide useful links and are functional to welcome new editors, while also not being overly personal in nature. Northamerica1000(talk) 00:42, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
18 B. Why do you edit Wikipedia?
A: It's enjoyable to learn about new topics and expand one's knowledge of known ones, while also simultaneously contributing to the improvement of the encyclopedia. Additionally, Wikipedia's user-friendly interface is pleasant to work with. Wikipedia also enables editors to be creative in generating new content, such as templates, which is conducive toward improving the encyclopedia while learning about Wikitext language. Collaborations are also of interest, as articles can be significantly improved when several editors work together on them. Northamerica1000(talk) 00:42, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
19. With regard to your general support for the ethos of WP:Inclusionism (and please admonish/correct me if I've misinterpreted that), your (though now withdrawn) membership of the ARS and your aforementioned attitude to selecting AFDs in which to participate... You have covered (quite well, imo) your distinction between picking AFDs for commentary as an editor and picking AFDs for closure as an admin. Were you to be given adminship, would you continue to contribute to AFDs as an editor? If so, do you think your attitude to AFDs would change? Stalwart111 01:07, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A: I don't particularly align myself with any of the “isms” or “ists” (e.g. “deletionist”, “inclusionist”, etc.), because I feel this can have an effect of categorizing and stereotyping people. I do have an Association of Structurist Wikipedians template on my User page, as some of the information on the page is congruent with parts of my editing philosophy, per information on the page regarding the structure of articles, content and the overall structure of Wikipedia itself, informational organization and machine readability (regarding the latter, see also the new Wikidata project). If adminship were to occur, I would continue to participate in AfD discussions as an editor. Once an editor has contributed to AfD discussions, they are forbidden from closing the discussion. I don't have a particular attitude toward AfD discussions, as they tend to vary considerably. Rather, some articles that don't pass various Wikipedia guidelines and policies are deleted by consensus, while others are retained. This serves to ultimately better-organize Wikipedia as the end result. Northamerica1000(talk) 01:49, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Edit summary usage for Northamerica1000 can be found here.
Comment – After careful consideration, which has occurred over a period of time greater than the span of this discussion, I have decided to resign from the WikiProject Article Rescue Squadron (See diff). Comments in this discussion such as "Oppose per usual "allegiance", "fanclub" membership, and "enabling"" and "Strong Oppose per the ARS issues TParis brought up." have contributed to this decision, but only to a very minor degree. I've noticed for some time that in some instances, membership in this project may possibly negatively influence other people's perceptions and judgments about editors, simply because some people don't like the project and then may transfer that dislike toward various members. This comment is not intended to influence this discussion in any way, shape or form: it's just a notification for the record. Northamerica1000(talk) 10:40, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sad to see you leave the rescue squad, your absence will be a colossal loss. Its no exaggeration to say your work for us has been over a hundred times greater than the contributions of a moderately active member like myself. It's also disappointing to see some apparently holding the resignation against you. It's a wise move, as said before on ARS talk, anyone wishing to one day serve as an admin would be well advised to leave. Considering the obvious value and nobility of the ARS, those lacking years of experience with wikipedia are sometimes perplexed by the dislike directed towards us. In several ways ARS stands in the same relation to the wider community as the early Christians did to the Roman empire. Despite them doing all sorts of valuable work (like caring for widows and orphans who would otherwise have to starve or sell themselves into slavery), early Christians were widely despised, with crowds gleefully cheering as church members were humiliated and killed in the arena. I guess the difference is that the blood of the early martyrs seeded the rapid growth of the church. According to the best historians like von Harnack , their unrelenting selflessness, love for each other, and valuable work for those in need caused their faith to be adopted by about 55% of the Roman empire's population in only 300 years. At which point even the elite began to convert. As nothing analogous has happened here, it probably means the virtues the ARS represents like inclusiveness and friendliness are seeking new and even better forms to express themselves. So nothing wrong with leaving the ARS, and thanks so much for all you've done for us. FeydHuxtable (talk) 13:59, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment on earlier account(s): a fair amount of people have expressed concern over the earlier account(s) used by NorthAmerica1000. For those people feeling that the UnitedStates1000account clearly was not a newbie, and having reservations because they fear that another, earlier account is not being disclosed: while I of course can't disprove that, I have found quite easily that NorthAmerica1000 edited with a fixed IP address quite heavily before starting his UnitedStates1000 account, which explains how that account could jump in so quickly and easily: [11]. The IP address has made some 730 edits in total. Considering that the IP address is being used on the same articles and pages as the named account (though as far as I have checked never with any ill intent and always in perfectly acceptable ways; e.g. here), I suppose this isn't outing but providing info available and useful for every editor here. If people feel that this is nonetheless a case of outing, I'll happily remove this info again. Fram (talk) 14:12, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You could perhaps have emailed North in advance to check he's cool with you saying this. But thanks for helping to suggest concerns about North's trustworthiness are baseless. I've seen you speak up for Squad memebers several times before when they've been unfairly accussed, which is especially good of you as you dont seem to share the same views many of us have concerning inclusion. FeydHuxtable (talk) 14:29, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As stated in my response to question #7, prior to the Unitedstates1000 account I edited under various IP addresses while traveling prior to creation of my first User:Unitedstates1000 account. Upon spot-checking the edits listed in the link above in User:Fram's comment [12], they do indeed appear to be mine, performed after I traveled and settled at my current locale, and prior to creating the User:Unitedstates1000 account. I utilize a shared static (fixed) IP address via Wifi that is shared by other people, so it's possible that some of the edits are not mine. Per the plurality above as "account(s)", the correct word would be "account"; the User:Unitedstates1000 account is the sole previous account, which was abandoned. All other past edits were performed as an unregistered user. Northamerica1000(talk) 02:58, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review their contributions before commenting.
Support per your articles for creation, articles for deletion, other admin are work, current user-rights, edit summary usage, -editing and basic main-space article work. Will be a great editor with the tools and I agree with the nominator, this user obviously deserves the mop. TBrandley 03:45, 6 November 2012 (UTC) Moved to neutral, reasoning is provided there[reply]
Support based on interaction at articles for deletion, where we often seem to be on opposite sides of an issue, but civil, sane, source-based and policy-based. Stuartyeates (talk) 00:15, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support Hard-working, level headed editor. I know this editor from many overlapping areas of content. In particular, on one controversial article we were both watchlisting, I didn't always agree with Northamerica1000, but they were invariably courteous and calm, and focused only on improving the article. I totally believe they can be trusted with the tools and will use them to improve the encyclopedia. --MelanieN (talk) 01:09, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support Trusted user no reason not to give them the bit. -- RP459Talk/Contributions 01:13, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I have absolutely no concerns at this time. Ks0stm(T•C•G•E) 01:37, 7 November 2012 (UTC) After the opposes brought up I need to think on this a few days. Ks0stm(T•C•G•E) 20:36, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support no issues. --Rschen7754 01:50, 7 November 2012 (UTC) Holding for now. --Rschen7754 20:40, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support I've seen this candidate around a fair amount and I have no concerns about his ability to delete the main page and block me share the admin backlog burden. BencherliteTalk 01:53, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Still supporting; this is "requests for adminship" not "candidates for sainthood" and while Northamerica1000 may not be perfect, that is not the standard we should be aiming for. His mistakes are no doubt things from which he will learn rather than being proof positive of his utter unsuitability to be able to delete, block and protect, etc. There's a lot of stones and mud being thrown, and I can only compliment the candidate for remaining as calm as he is despite some of the commentary. BencherliteTalk 13:49, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Based on the answer to my question, in which Northamerica1000 actually says he doesn't deserve to be an admin, that's good enough for me to move to support - clearly not after power, and disagrees with his nominator. Sweet :) FishBarking? 02:15, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Dedicated editor; personal traits and edit history all clear positives. dci | TALK 02:23, 7 November 2012 (UTC) Moving to neutral per various concerns below. dci | TALK 17:48, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Well-rounded, solid candidate. SpencerT♦C 02:35, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support - no issues, great history of edits. Moving to oppose per the issues brought up. More explanation there. Vacation9 (talk) 05:35, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support Excellent Contributions. I was surprised to see this RfA. I thought you were already an admin. Moving to neutral as per the recently brought out concerns about copyvio. --Anbu121 (talk me) 18:14, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support — Absolutely. An excellent article writer with experience in maintenance areas, demonstrates an in-depth understanding of policy, and is forthright in his responses to some pretty hefty accusations. I feel very confident that we would be making the right decision in trusting Northamerica1000 with the sysop bit. Kurtis (talk) 07:47, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I still support this user on balance, despite some legitemate concerns raised in the oppose column. Northamerica1000 will likely do good work as an administrator and I suspect he'll have learned a great deal from this RfA. Maybe next time. Kurtis (talk) 21:19, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I've not interacted much with him but I have certainly came across his work many times. I was impressed by work especially on AfDs. Overall looks nice and handsome to me. TheSpecialUserTSU 08:44, 7 November 2012 (UTC) - Moved to neutral. TheSpecialUserTSU 13:25, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support I'm mildly disturbed that the chap doesn't appear to sleep - analysing his edits and there is no hour where he hasn't made at least 2400 edits! But I'm happy he's willing to stand up for himself, he is clearly here to help out the encyclopedia and appears to have a decent temperment. I've seen areas for improvement, but I'm happy to support this user. WormTT(talk) 09:51, 7 November 2012 (UTC) moving to oppose - upon further investigation, will provide further information there WormTT(talk) 16:30, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support. A fine candidate. Good luck. — Hex(❝?!❞) 10:02, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support Seems competant, I've encountered them around and never had a problem, examination of their history shows nothing that alarms me. WilyD 11:32, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support No reason to think they'll misuse the tools. FeydHuxtable (talk) 11:53, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Upgrading to strong support per their outstanding energy , productivity and collegiality. Per the exceptional stats from Scotty's question, North is good at consensus formation due to their persuasive contributions to AfDs, their willingness not just to vote but also to spend hours researching and adding sources to articles, and their keen discernment in rarely wasting time chasing lost causes. North is probably too modest to point this out, but for an editor who's been here for less than 18 months he has a most impressive collection of barnstars ( User:Northamerica1000/Awards ) showing how much the wider community values his work. He often awards barnstars too, and is frequently encouraging newbies and fellow editors in other ways. In as much as its accurate to view admins as role models, very few are more suited than Northamerica1000. FeydHuxtable (talk) 19:17, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support He seems to specialise in food topics which can be surprisingly controversial (yogurt, hummus, pizza cheese, &c.). He seems to handle such work with good grace and little drama. Warden (talk) 13:01, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support Despite the fact that many (most?) of our interactions have been disagreements, I have always respected Northamerica1000's reasoning and arguments. He's rational, level-headed and doesn't get stressed under pressure, plus he knows policy and can apply it. Very clueful, no concerns, give him a mop. Yunshui雲水 13:22, 7 November 2012 (UTC) Moving to Neutral, explanation below. Yunshui雲水 11:06, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support per the above comments from over twenty fellow editors! --Jfgsloeditor (talk) 13:37, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support per satisfactory answers to my (and other) questions above. I reserve my right to change answer if user answers some outstanding questions unsatisfactorily. gwickwire | Leave a message 18:38, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support per my relationship in respect to being involved with editing on Wikipedia with this editor on Tennis articles. This is one superb editor, even if the editor does not get to be an admin/sysops quite right yet at this time. I think we need to focus on getting admins from the editor base instead of the users that only deal with patrolling Wikipedia policy pages and discussions.HotHat (talk) 05:00, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Very strong support I first discovered northamerica1000 in checks & balances. I have since seen him everywhere – to me he is a Wikipedia:WikiGnome that gets things done without a lot of hoopla. He does things that few others do, like help with the setup of wikiprojects and portals. Even in wp:ARS he is rarely seen in public - instead he quietly maintains the infrastructure. He is one of the most competent editors I have come across, and one of the few who is not scared to say and do things that are unpopular. (btw he is the only reason I am participating in this discussion – this place usually scares me) Ottawahitech (talk) 05:24, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support Adminship is not a big deal, and even if it is, this user deserves it. ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛TalkEmail 14:51, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support Seems level-headed enough. Midhart90 (talk) 15:57, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Significant content contributor with a strong track record and no evidence that he would misuse the admin tools. polarscribe (talk) 17:47, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support, substantially per Bencherlite and Polarscribe. Several of the opposers' rationales strike me as quite weak, though others have merit and I am glad to see that the candiate is already taking some of them into account, just as he has changed some of his approachers per other discussions in the past. By this point it is obvious, for better or worse, that this RfA is not going to pass; it might be best for the candidate to withdraw at this time and come back to RfA after a few more months. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:34, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support per my own comments under the neutral section, NA1000's responses to those opposing the nomination, and the additions made to his RfA. I would also suggest withdrawing at this point, as it does not appear participants will be changing their minds. I, Jethrobotdrop me a line (note: not a bot!) 19:41, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support - we unblock, re-admit, fresh-start and topic-ban (rather than block) on the basis of commitments to "do better", "work harder" or "play nicer" but oppose adminship on the basis that someone had a couple of minor indiscretions months or years ago. If adminship is really "no big deal" (an anti-elitism attitude we seem to value so highly from nominees) and can be revoked at any time for conduct unbecoming, then that sort of attitude seems a bit counter-productive. Does he work hard now - yes. Is he generally civil - yes. Does he make ongoing productive contributions to the encyclopaedia - yes. Would his being an admin likely help other editors make a similarly productive contribution - I think so, yes. Why in every other instance do we assume good faith except for RFA? Admins aren't special, admins aren't special and admin's aren't special - but admin nominees are excepted to be uber-neutral, pure-as-the-driven-snow demi-gods? Stalwart111 05:08, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think we have several very special admins. ;) --v/r - TP 13:31, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support: Having dealt with NA1000 a lot at ARS, I will tell you he is level-headed and very dedicated. There is simply no way I see him abusing the rules in closing AfDs - he never gets heated when questioning whether an article at AfD might be rescued, and is a firm believer in consensus and good faith collaboration. Opposes claiming that "something doesn't smell right" about some answer or other are really not convincing. If this RfA doesn't pass, his great article work which is far more important than admin work will continue, but it will be the wrong result in terms of whether he is qualified. BTW, no one even told me NA1000 was up for admin, ARS doesn't do canvassing like that like people like to think sometimes.--Milowent • hasspoken 16:23, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support: Not sure how much it will help, but seems likely in my experience to be a net positive with or without the tools. Might as well flip the bit. --Nouniquenames 19:05, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support useful editor who would make a good admin. Sometimes not spotting copyvio is not ideal, but not as serious an issue as a tendency to do copyvio would be. There are significant issues raised in the oppose section re the user talkpage and the possibility of a prior account. The first issue has been addressed by the candidate and the second by user:Fram. The only remaining oppose that I find to be of substance is the queston of whether the candidate is overly inclusionist, however I take reassurance from the hgh proportion of times that the editor !votes with consensus. It is perfectly OK for an editor to cherry pick by mainly participating in AFDs where there is a serious chance of saving the article. Inclusionism only becomes a problem when people try to save articles that longstanding consensus would delete, I don't see this problem being exhibited by the candidate. ϢereSpielChequers 20:09, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support because failing to attain perfection does not preclude being trusted and good enough to benefit the encyclopedia. Our best and most experienced Admins make mistakes. I'm certain enough that NA1K will err and then correct his errors to solidly support him. DocTree (ʞlɐʇ·cont) Join WER 03:42, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support You deserve adminship, you've done so much good work on helping article creations. ☠Jaguar☠ 12:32, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Admin is no big deal - User is well competent to use a mop - we need to support more users that are outside of the current cliques of admins and their approved/mentored friends that appear to be /are attempting to control the project. - Youreallycan 17:25, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support: The issues TParis brought up gave me some concern but you've done good work on helping article creations and you dont't support deletion unless it is needed. Don't get discouraged. - Ret.Prof (talk) 17:31, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support 100,000 edits in 18 months is such a fast edit count rate. m'encarta (t) 21:04, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Solid content creator. Dropping out of ARS to curry favor with deletionists here is lame, but less lame than some people who are opposing this ostensibly because of Question 12, which is the result of defective tool output; or upon a comparatively high number of deleted edits, which relates to very solid ARS work. But really: why the fuck are you running for the right to use delete buttons and to redact comments and to block people? You're an excellent content creator, be proud of that and leave the vandal fighting for the vandal fighters... Carrite (talk) 02:20, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I've seen enough from him to know that he's an ethical, well-rounded user. HairTalk 19:46, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've been watching this RfA with interest. I was poised to sit this one out, but frankly, you've earned my support and shall have it therefor. I am genuinely confident that you would be a credit to the admin corps. Fret not being denied entry to the club. Fresh air is not welcome in the vacuum of repugnant stench; unfortunately. Be well. My76Strat (talk) 22:49, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support Answered my questions good, and seems to be a good role for an admin.--Lucky102 (talk) 20:37, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support He does a tremendous amount of work, and really cares about helping Wikipedia. I'm glad I noticed his name in the section name at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship which I have on my watchlist. I don't usually participate in these things. He'll be a great administrator. DreamFocus 21:34, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I doubt it will matter at this point but. After reviewing the rather weak opposes and the neutral comments like (too many opposes). Also, per the comments of this or that a year ago. If they cannot find anything more recent than that then you are doing fine. Kumioko (talk) 04:48, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Northamerica1000s willingness to work in the area of borderline notable topics is not a weakness but a desired quality in an admin. He consistently shows good judgment and no doubt would apply that same good judgment in using the admin tools. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 07:01, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Might as well keep things balanced. I feel at this time we don't need anymore administrators on this project - we're going to wind up with too many chiefs and not enough indians. Sorry. FishBarking? 23:52, 6 November 2012 (UTC) Moved to Support, based on answer to my question above - disagrees with his own nominator, that's good enough for me :) FishBarking? 02:09, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion has been boldly moved to the talk page so that irrelevant conversations about RfA in general don't derail this individual RfA. Please continue the conversation there. Thanks. ‑Scottywong| communicate _ 00:54, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Something does not just feel right with the answers to my question 7 and Plutonium27's question 12. As it appears to me you open a WP account make 1,119 edits in less than 4 weeks, then stop editing open a new one 6 minutes later, and then wait 15 months to link the account and do so 6 weeks before starting a RfA. This coupled with the editing at Angolan cuisine, the assertion that " it's likely that I simply moved on to other editing matters at the time and didn't consider the option of seeking collaboration for the article" seams week when you look article history as you came back to the article 8 days later. Mtking (edits) 06:51, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that I did not start this RfA, User:AutomaticStrikeout did after asking me on my User talk page if I was interested in the prospect (See User talk:Northamerica1000#RfA?). Also, I've added addendums to questions #7 and #12 in hopes to better clarify my answers. Hope this helps out. Northamerica1000(talk) 09:47, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Something just doesn't smell right about the answer to Q12. MalleusFatuorum 06:49, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It would be great if you provide some solid evidence to substantiate what you smell wrong. --Anbu121 (talk me) 08:33, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Malleus is topic-banned by Arbcom and "may not engage in any threaded discussions relating to RFA." There is a grey area as to whether this includes a ban on him answering comments such as this in an RFA, or whether it only bans discussions about RFA. In any case, for understandable reasons, MF has previously indicated on his talk page that it is safer for him not to reply in such circumstances. BencherliteTalk 08:41, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, that means he's effectively incapable of participating on RFA, as he can't participate in any subsequent discussions in good faith. Hence stricken.--Kim Bruning (talk) 10:08, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The arbcom restriction specifically allows the editor to place his judgement on the page. Restored, please let's just move on from here. WormTT(talk) 10:11, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – Could you (User:Anbu121) please be more specific regarding my answer(s) to question #12, if you're allowed to do so? Also, please note that I've addended my answer there after performing more research. Thank you for your consideration. Northamerica1000(talk) 03:39, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I see no grey area. MF is allowed to vote, to ask questions of the candidate, and to express views on the candidate in an unthreaded comment only. Anything else is a threaded conversation and is not permitted. As a practical suggestion, MF is free to amend their comments about a candidate. Apteva (talk) 19:58, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It "smells" completely right to me, see my addendum to Q12 above. In short: the tool listing starts doesn't provide perfect output, as I discovered firsthand... Carrite (talk) 23:01, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per his stances in the myriad of AfDs we've both participated in. He seems unwilling to acknowledge close criteria other than GNG, and willing to source-dump into an AfD content that belongs on the article's talk page or in the article itself. I believe him to be too overly inclusionist to be level-headed in closing AfDs. The change in accounts is also a concern, as is the fact that he hasn't been on Wikipedia with this account for two years yet pbp 07:45, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
To further my comment, here are NA1K's last 250 AfD votes, which he accumulated in only three months. He voted "keep" or "speedy keep" on 90% of the AfDs he participated in. This when roughly two out of three AfDs are closed as deleted. pbp 19:57, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Mtking and Malleus. Answers to Q7 and Q12 don't ring true. While adminship is for life I need to be fully confident in a candidate before I can support, and I'm afraid I'm not able to support here. Sorry. I could revisit this vote if the answers are explained further.Begoontalk 08:11, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – Please note that I've added an addendum with a link to better qualify my answer to Question #7, and have added additional links to a diff page and Revision history pages to better-qualify my answers in Question #12. Northamerica1000(talk) 09:09, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I'm striking this oppose because, after more thought, my concerns should be weighed against the good work you have done on this account. I'm a suspicious old thing at heart, and I tend to see "red lights" when new editors are as accomplished as you appear to have been from the start - but just as important is what you are doing now, and have been doing for quite some time, and I can't fault that. I cannot, in all conscience, say that I am concerned you will abuse the tools or that you are not experienced enough, and that's really all that should lead me to register opposition. Sorry for putting you "on the spot" because of my doubtful nature. Begoontalk 12:42, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - User:Northamerica1000 suffers from WP:Editcountitis, and thus is IMO unfit to be an admin. Just one example: [13] : Everything is added piecemeal, including self-reverts (contrary to his assertion that he checks facts and sources). An admin who does not understand the function, or is unwilling to use, the "Show preview" button, would be a farce. To compare, see here (an article I started) what can be added in one edit. Kraxler (talk) 13:39, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
WP:Editcountitis lists the symptoms of this condition. The only one that I'm noticing here is "voting support or oppose based on number of edits at Requests for adminship" but you're the sufferer, not the candidate. Warden (talk) 14:04, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
WP:Editcountitis says "Voting support or oppose based on number of edits at Requests for adminship, rather than by checking the user's actual contributions." That's exactly the point, the candidate here states that he has 100,000 or so edits, claiming experience. I checked his actual contributions and gave a link for other users to check too, and found that the number of edits is artificially inflated compared to the quality/size of the contributions. Check it out yourself, instead attacking me/my vote without argument, Col. Warden. Kraxler (talk) 14:23, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The nominator (not the candidate) mentioned the candidate's edit total. I'm not seeing any evidence that the candidate has boasted of this or makes anything of it. The candidate doesn't, for example, have a userbox with their edit count. So, the way that they edit articles just seems to be a matter of style. Some editors like to work in sandboxes. Other prefer to make separate edits in situ. This doesn't seem to be the big deal that you're making of it. You're welcome to oppose, if you wish, but let's be clear about the candidate's position, please. Warden (talk) 15:10, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I saw later that the edit count is published on the talk page, so you can check it out there. Please note that Northamerica1000 has accumulated in a year and ahalf almost 100,000 edits, of which about 5,000 (five thousand) were reverted. Holy cow, five thousand reverts deletes!!!! In a year and a half. It's about 5% of all his contributions. Some voters farther down call this euphemistically "carelessness". Kraxler (talk) 15:21, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You're talking about "deleted edits", right? I don't think they are quite the same as reverts. I'm not sure what the normal range is for this but, for example, the editor DGG has 97,990 live edits and 11,301 deleted edits. Warden (talk) 15:59, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A normal range is under 1,000 in any space of time (normally not more than 6 years, I'm not sure if there are records from before that). A very few Admins and Sysops have more, for reasons they probably can explain. DGG has 11,300 deletes in about 6 years, an average of under 1,900 per year, compared to over 3,500 for Northamerica1000. and DGG has not applied for adminship. I'm still waiting for NAK's answer. Please give him a little time, and then we might proceed in our discussion. Kraxler (talk) 16:50, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the info, it was not mentioned on his user page, or I didn't see it. Kraxler (talk) 17:06, 7 November 2012 (UTC) [reply]
My understanding is that a deleted edit is one which is no longer visible because it has been deleted. A ordinary revert is not a deleted edit if it is still visible in the history. Deleted edits will tend to arise if you edit an article which is then deleted. For example, if you place cleanup tags on the article because it isn't very good. Presumably it's work of this kind which has given DGG lots of deleted edits. I suppose that the candidate has accumulated such edits because of his work trying to rescue articles at AFD. For example, in my experience, he will commonly make cleanup edits and place cleanup tags on rescue candidates. Not all these are saved and so the ones that are deleted give rise to "deleted edits". This seems like a reasonable consequence of patrolling work and so shouldn't be held against the candidate. Right? Warden (talk) 17:48, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Looking through his deleted contribs, it does seem that a large portion of them are due to the work he does trying to clean up articles that have been nominated for deletion. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:16, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone who works in CSD or rescue will have a high proportion of deleted edits. This is nothing to do with edit-warring. Only when an article is deleted do edits move from current to deleted. Edit-warring edits still count as edits when reverted, and only change status if the article goes west altogether. Peridon (talk) 22:20, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As I said, I rather discuss the subject again after getting answers to the very interesting questions 15, 16 and 17. Kraxler (talk) 00:33, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – I perceive edit counts as insignificant, because working to improve the encyclopedia is what's important. My internet connection is pretty good, but I've had occasional occurrences in which my internet connection immediately cuts off, and the data isn't present when pressing the back button on a web browser. There have also been occurrences in which Wikipedia becomes uneditable while maintenance occurs, and I've occasionally experienced data loss during these times as well. I've lost significant work when using the Show preview function due to these types of occasional sporadic occurrences. I want to further address this matter here. There are some benefits to editing as one goes along. For example, it's much easier and saves time to make edits in article sections by clicking the edit link for the article section, rather than for the entire article, scrolling down and finding the content to be edited, and then performing the edit. Sometimes people have a later realization about an article improvement that they didn't consider before, in which case it is functional to perform the edit to improve the article, compared to not doing so per other's potential concerns about edit counts. Sometimes people check in to articles they've contributed to in the past and make additional minor additions or edits. Some edits involving clean-up and copy-editing, such as layout changes, correcting layout and formatting errors, cleaning up grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, etc., and often don't require making significant edits. Again, in these instances clicking directly on the edit link for sections brings users directly to the content in a convenient manner. It seems that the opposer here disagrees with the style in which I perform edits, but this is not correlated with competence to accurately and fairly perform administrative duties on Wikipedia. Again, to reiterate, I perceive edit counts as insignificant; my primary interests involve improving the encyclopedia. I hope this serves to significantly better-clarify this matter. Northamerica1000(talk) 02:47, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"Occasional data loss" is no excuse for piecemeal editing. If it was, the "Show preview" button would not have been added. I edit pages sometimes for 6 to 8 hours, without data loss, even if the internet connection breaks down. It's not necessary to be connected, the text still appears in the editing window, and can be copied and pasted to a word file if the internet connection doesn't come back, or if Wikipedia is in maintenance mode, to be edited offline, or online, later. I really had data loss about three times in six years... Kraxler (talk) 03:37, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Someone mentioned my high proportion of deleted edits. Anyone who does significant work listing articles for deletion will have a large number of such edits, because every time a prod, speedy, or AfD tag is placed on a page, that's an edit--when the page is deleted, it becomes a deleted edit. And as mentioned, earlier. if anyone places a problem tag on an article, & it does not get fixed & the page gets deleted, that's a deleted edit also. And as also mentioned, if anyone tries to fix a page, and then realizes it's impossible & lists it for deletion, that generates several deleted edits. (And on the other hand, if one works only with good articles raising them to FA, one will never have a deleted edit. That's good to do also.) DGG ( talk ) 15:21, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You're not under scrutiny here, DGG, but thanks for the explanation. Cheers. Kraxler (talk) 03:37, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You do realize that it is easier to step through revisions changed a little at a time than a big change in one revision, right? Your vote essentially says: "this editor makes it easy for other editors, and I am against that." Such a position is not only counterintuitive, but detrimental to the project. Please reconsider. --Nouniquenames 19:12, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
For me it is more difficult to "step through revisions changed a little at a time than a big change in one revision", but that's very subjective, and not decisive for my vote. My vote is based mainly on Northamerica's answers to the questions, including my own additional questions. I think the readers of this page can make up their minds on how to vote without being asked directly to change their votes. Kraxler (talk) 12:59, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Well-meaning and hardworking editor, but lacks the diligence needed to be a good admin IMO. Moving a page from userspace to AfC space, and editing it afterwards, without checking that it is a copyright violation (Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Maryland Crime Victims' Resource Center, Inc); Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Chase Burns (possible Douche) was declined as being a joke, leaving "thank you" notes at the IP talk page that created it (User talk:165.95.53.203), when it was clearly a juvenile BLP violation which should get something a bit stronger than a "thank you"; in October, he moved Citizen Hearst from the AfC pages to the mainspace, only for the article to be then deleted as a copyright violation. His article creations are often very poorly sourced, only linking to e.g. Maplandia[14] or Wikimapia (Old Channal, Baragi, Uttur, Vajjaramatti, Jaliberi, Jeeragal, Kishori, ...). His actions at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Weight-Increase Phobia are also indicative of a lack of care. But the recurring missed copyright violations (not violations he created, but that he ignored when moving pages from e.g. AfC to the mainspace) are the most worrying to me, the article edits are a lesser problem. Fram (talk) 14:58, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – The thank you notes are automatically generated using the Yet Another AFC Helper Script gadget that is available in people's user preferences page. I didn't detect the copyright violation for Citizen Hearst, but I don't perceive this as a major oversight; just something that was missed, although copyright violations are very serious. Also, the first red link you provide above doesn't appear to be based upon copyright violation on the surface: the link just links to a create page and there's no deletion summary on the page. However, I don't have access to the deleted articles. Regarding your assessment of my article contributions as "poorly sourced," please feel free to nominate them for deletion if you feel they don't meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines. On a lighter note, I appreciate your concerns about editors who are nominated for adminship making zero errors, but they will nevertheless occur by any editor from time-to-time, because we all make mistakes! Northamerica1000(talk) 16:07, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – In the future I'll be sure to check each and every AfC submission for copyright violations prior to moving them into Main mainspace, even when it's obvious that they are not, using an application such as Copyvio Detector. I do fully understand the importance of copyright violations being eliminated from the encyclopedia. I didn't "ignore" any copyright violations as stated in User:Fram's comment above, they just weren't detected. I'm concerned about opposition to adminship based in part upon thank you messages that are automatically sent when users create or decline AfC submissions using the Yet Another AFC Helper Script. When I declined the Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Chase Burns (expletive deleted) article, the thank you note was sent by default using the script. In the future I'll go to the user's talk page, blank the template message, and then type out a customized message. Importantly, there are currently no links to copyvio detectors on the AfC Reviewing instructions page, so that page should definitely be updated, with either direct links to copyvio detectors or at the very least a link to Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Resources. On the AfC reviewing instructions page it states, "Check that the submission has not been copied from another source. Search for a portion of the text of the article on Google or another search engine," to check the article's sources, and additional websites, which is fine, but copyvios are not always going to be plainly noticeable using these methods. Also, on AfC's main page, there's only one link to a copyvio script in the Bots section, but the script isn't functional. Northamerica1000(talk) 00:02, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is quite usual for people to move user drafts to AfC, and then check them for copyvio--even to move them, quickly mark them as copyvios, and then list them for deletion. I have deleted a few dozen such, from various editors. I do not know why they do it this way, but some people do. I haven't checked NA's moves, though, to see if he has been working this way. DGG ( talk ) 13:51, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
At Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Deux Filles, NorthAmerica now removed the obvious but least problematic copyright violation (a too long quote), but didn't notice that most of the rest of the submission was also a copyright violation, e.g. "Turner and Tucker left an early incarnation of the The in 1981 to pursue a different musical direction" comes stright from [15] (original probably [16]): "Turner and Tucker left an early incarnation of The The in 1981 to pursue another musical direction."; also the articles "Simon Fisher Turner claimed that the idea of Deux Filles came to him in a dream, and he and Tucker strictly maintained the fiction throughout their career." matches the source "Turner claims that the idea of Deux Filles came to him in a dream, and he and Tucker strictly maintained the fiction throughout the duo’s career.". This is an edit from today, not some old history, so no real improvement in this regard (luckily the submission was declined for other reasons, notability, so it didn't make it to the main namespace). Fram (talk) 09:38, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Fram. It's not that I didn't notice the additional copyright violation that you found, they just weren't detected using Copyvio Detector or in Google searches from my locale. The information I removed from the submission was detected using the Copyvio Detector. You seem to have significant expertise in detecting copyright violations, so please consider contributing to the discussions linked above at AfC talk! I wouldn't mind if you would userfy the (now deleted) entry to my userspace on a temporary basis to enable further analysis. Since I have no access to deleted articles, I'm unable to make comparisons. BTW, just so you know, I appreciate your concerns regarding copyright violations on Wikipedia. Also, please do not hesitate to discuss these matters on my talk page. Northamerica1000(talk) 10:06, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As a matter of principle, I never userfy copyright violations. Nothing personal, I have refused this for others as well. I'll not raise a fuss if some other admin does it anyway, that's their choice. As for why tools sometimes don't detect these but I do; in these instances, there were minor changes between the source and the Wikipedia text, which may cause false negatives. My method of detecting copyright violations often starts with a gut feeling (some sentences or paragraphs just look too much like press releases or newspaper articles or website biographies), and then to look for text snippets, unusual word combinations, ... When these match, it becomes easier to find whether the article is a copyright violation or not. Often, comparing the sources given in the article with the article text also gives a clue: many (most) copyright violators are not deliberately doing this, they just don't know or understand what is allowed and what isn't, and that sourcing isn't the same as attributing. Fram (talk) 10:21, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Primarily per the candidate's response to Oppose #1. In an era where the community seems concerned about how we can hold administrators accountable for their actions after RFA, here we have a candidate who doesn't even want to be held accountable for requesting the tools. How accountable would an administrator like this really be? Townlake (talk) 15:00, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – It was alluded in oppose #1 that I started this RfA myself. I was nominated by another user who asked me on my talk page if I were interested in becoming an administrator. I then answered the initial questions provided on the starter nomination page by the nominator, then notified the nominator that the questions were completed, upon which time the nominator made the RfA live. I was simply trying to be specific in response to oppose #1, because people may otherwise incorrectly perceive this as a self-nomination. I certainly participated in the nomination by answering the initial questions on the starter page, otherwise the nomination never would have went live! I truly hope this serves to further clarify this matter. I most certainly want to be held accountable for requesting the tools! Northamerica1000(talk) 01:36, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Concerns about AFD, somewhat evasive answers to questions, and coyness about previous accounts all lead me to oppose. Skinwalker (talk) 15:12, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose due to concerns about past accounts. I feel bad about opposing, since he's overall a fine user--hopefully he won't be discouraged if this doesn't succeed. Mark Arsten (talk) 15:30, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – Just to clarify, I've had only one previous account (User:Unitedstates1000), not multiple ones as stated in your comment above as plural. Northamerica1000(talk) 16:37, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - While the issues brought up above are more-or-less compelling, individually, the reason I end up in the Oppose section is because of the unorthodox nature of NAK's User: and User talk: page. Admins should be expected to be welcoming and open to new users; to a new user, the mop means "Seasoned and Experienced User...the kind of person who can help you". Going to a User page that soft directs to a User talk page that looks like a User page unless you feel like digging down to find the User talk page is simply too convoluted a system for new users to feel "welcome". That said, NAK does good work and our paths have crossed before. If the User page issue were cleared up, my !vote may change.Achowat (talk) 15:49, 7 November 2012 (UTC) !Vote removed per improved User Talk[reply]
Comment – I'm initially leery of immediately changing the layout of my user pages to encourage the changing of a user's !vote here. Please provide suggestions on my User talk page about (further)* improvements, if you feel so inclined. Northamerica1000(talk) 16:46, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Your talk page is still decorated like a Christmas tree, and makes it difficult to see where to leave a message. Please check WP:OWNTALK (quote "...the purpose of user talk pages is to draw the attention or discuss the edits of a user. Wikipedia is not a social networking site..."). I suggest you try to understand, and comply with, the guidelines. Kraxler (talk) 01:06, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – I've now completely reworked my user pages as of the time of this post. Northamerica1000(talk) 04:23, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
To be honest, I find it slightly disturbing that you would completely change your user page in order to get a vote here. When you put this with the ARS issues, it give the impression (whether true or not) that you will do anything to become an admin. I'm not saying that's what you are doing, I am only saying that's how it appears, and you have the right to know what sort of image you are putting out when you do things like that. Be well.--Sue Rangell[citation needed] 20:28, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The changes needed to occur, and I actually like their new layout. Also, notice how I stated above, "I'm initially leery of immediately changing the layout of my user pages to encourage the changing of a user's !vote here." This has been stricken, but the intention in changing my user pages remains based upon many suggestions from several editors within this overall discussion that this needed to be performed. Northamerica1000(talk) 14:22, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest possible oppose This user doesn't understand deletion nor canvassing policy. My concerns were outlined a year ago here as far as deletion policy. While I admit this user has done great work in ARS and they are improving, they have a habit of wikilawyering and getting it wrong. I've bashed my head against a desk over this user quite a few times because they just don't get it. At one point I was going to create an RFC over competence. Handing this user the tools would be a mistake.--v/r - TP 16:10, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – Please feel free to elaborate upon your opinions on my User talk page. Your concerns from a year ago may be dated relative to my progression on Wikipedia. Perhaps we can discuss your opinions to a greater degree, and from there reach some sort of agreement. As we have had limited communication, this would be a functional first step. Thank you for your consideration. Northamerica1000(talk) 16:26, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm willing to discuss, it was a year ago and I'll admit you've mostly stayed off my radar since then even though we overlap in AfD. I'll go back and review some of your latest AfDs to see if there has been change.--v/r - TP 16:47, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – Here is the link to the entire discussion that I initiated over 13 months ago on 22 September 2011 (UTC), which User:TParis refers to: Checks and Balances in the Articles for Deletion Nomination Process. It's a discussion thread I started to obtain people's opinions about ideas to improve deletion processes on Wikipedia, including improving checks and balances. The discussion is quite long, and in the process I learned a great deal more about the deletion process. Many editors contributed to the discussion. My knowledge of deletion and canvassing policy is literally very strong, quite the opposite of what User:TParis stated above in their oppose !vote. It appears that TParis and I may have some differences of opinion, but I remain fully competent to utilize the tools in a just manner despite these differences of opinion. Northamerica1000(talk) 00:42, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – Hello TParis. Regarding the copy-paste !votes from the past, [17], [18] (this second link was listed twice in a row in your comment on 22 September 2011 at the diff link you provided in your oppose !vote above, and links to the same page), they were simply performed to save time, because the rationales were applicable toward multiple AfD discussions in an identical manner. Regarding the utilization of WP:NOT in the discussions, ([19]) I understand what you were stating. However, from time-to-time other people continue to !vote in this manner when an article is nominated for deletion per WP:NOT policy, stating for example that WP:NOT is not applicable relative to the circumstances of the article in question. Also, please note that two other editors !voted using the same rationale in the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of golf courses in Portugal, another stated that WP:NOT was incorrectly invoked in the nomination, and that you closed that discussion as keep. If you object to this style of !voting and feel that the rationale was invalid, why did you close the discussion as keep, rather than discount stated !votes per your views regarding this matter, and perhaps close the discussion in another manner? Do you perceive keep as the consensus in this discussion at this time? I hope this better serves to address your concerns regarding this matter, and please do not hesitate to contact me if you need additional information or have any further questions. Northamerica1000(talk) 02:17, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – In the link provided above, I'm criticized for utilizing a duplicate !vote in AfD !votes, which was performed to save time, yet many people do this constantly on Wikipedia (e.g. "per nom,") and the poster also engages in the same activity themselves when closing AfD discussions. For examples see how TParis utilizes the exactsamecopypaste rationale in these AfD closures (linked within this sentence). Also, TParis is incorrectly correlating a person's comprehension of deletion policy with information at the link he provided. In that comment, he brings up duplicate !votes, the use of WP:NOT in AfD discussions, !voting statistics and percentages regarding !votes compared to how the discussions closed. Many Wikipedia editors post duplicate !votes to save time, many counter faulty WP:NOT arguments by stating that an article or topic passes WP:NOT (see [20]) and !voting statistics are not correlated with comprehension of Wikipedia policies. It appears that the use of WP:NOT as a keep rationale isn't permissible to TParis, because WP:NOT is a policy page of What Wikipedia is not, which I'm quite well-aware of, yet in the above-mentioned AfD when other users provided similar rationales, he didn't criticize those !votes and closed the discussion as keep. In the above oppose, TParis is ambiguous, stating perceptions about "habits" of Wikilawyering and "getting it wrong", and "they just don't get it", but provides no links to qualify this opinion. For the record, this is intended to promote discussion, not to be wikilawyering. If a person feels they're being unfairly characterized, I consider it in good character for one to ask for additional clarification. Perhaps consider asking me some questions about deletion policy and canvassing relative to the canvassing guideline page, and if I answer them wrong, then make statements that I don't understand them. Also, the examples in the link above within the !vote are from over 13 months ago! Northamerica1000(talk) 13:02, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I was asked to respond. I chose not to because these responses are not directed at me, they are directed at others. Have NA1K referred to me in 2nd voice, hence directing the comments at me, I'd surely feel part of a discussion where response was necessary. As they are directed at others, I feel this is indicative of the talking over others that I mentioned earlier.--v/r - TP 14:45, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. TParis' concerns worried me, so I did a bit of digging. The fact talk page archives are missing didn't concern me too much until I really started digging. Northamerica1000 blanks his page rather than archives it, which is not against policy, but does avoid scrutiny. It is especially annoying because he has an archive box, but no archived conversations in it. Looking further, it didn't take too much to find this discussion with Fram (in Sept 2012), which highlights issues with the speed of Northamerica's editing. Similarly with this discussion from July 2012 where he was adding empty reference sections. On top of that, I'm not happy with his deleted edits. For example, he recently moved a userspace draft to AfC - despite it being a copyvio, I would expect an editor to be checking for this. (admins only) and removed a G11 at Yew Chung Education Foundation another copyvio. Worse than that, he actually created Citizen Hearst in AfC - another copyvio. There's enough here to persuade me to oppose. WormTT(talk) 17:00, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion with Fram doesn't seem to have anything to do with the speed of the candidate's editing. That discussion is about the use of AutoEd to make cleanup edits. Now I've noticed the candidate making edits of that kind. I didn't fully understand what they were but supposed that he knew what he was doing and it seems that he does. How is this in any way a problem? And why do you present it as a problem when it appears that you didn't read the discussion enough to understand what it was about? Are you just flinging mud in the hope that something sticks? What's your real agenda? I have the impression that there's a lot of innuendo in this RfA with talk of "smell". Is there some canvassing taking place on back-channels like IRC? Can people please state their concerns openly. For example, I've seen it suggested in the past that this editor is really User:A Nobody, returning with a new account. This doesn't seem likely to me but, if that's the real issue, can we have it out in the open rather than disguised by feeble stuff like we're currently seeing. Warden (talk) 17:30, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I thought it was fairly clear that I was referring to the piecemeal style of his editing - creating the extraordinary speed. Fram pointed out very recently that a large portion of Northamerica's edits were not showing to the front end, or in other words serve no purpose. I would have thought these things were pretty obvious to a long term editor, especially one who was up for adminship. You're welcome to dismiss my concerns as innuendo, but I have no agenda, I've not worked with this editor, I've not been on IRC for a long while. My concerns are simple, Northamerica appears to obfuscate his editing history which makes it difficult for me to assess him, and when I look in depth I find issues that concern me. I find it hard to trust a candidate under these circumstances. WormTT(talk) 18:28, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – I added the new archive box to my User talk page per the information in question #13 above. It isn't populated yet because I haven't archived anything there yet. All of my edits are freely viewable on the page's Revision history. I have absolutely nothing to hide, and simply chose to blank dated entries. I certainly have no intentions of "avoiding scrutiny" whatsoever, and please feel to scrutinize my edits at any time! Now and into the future, I'll be archiving dated entries on my newly-created archive page. Hope this helps to clarify matters. Northamerica1000(talk) 00:55, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Creating copyvios is a serious charge. However I've checked the deleted edits for Citizen Hearst and the Copyvio seems to have been done by User:Citizenhearst not by the candidate. The candidate approved the AFC without spotting the copyvio, which is not ideal, but much less serious. ϢereSpielChequers 20:19, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct that he did not "create" the copyvio, but I do believe introducing it to the main space is a very serious issue. As you point out, the user who wrote the article had the same name as the article, thus implying they 1) they were only here for that article and 2) they had not familiarised themselves with our rules. That combined with the fact that the article read a bit too well, would have been enough of a red light for me to check for copy vios. It may have been a mistake but it was certainly serious. WormTT(talk) 07:54, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per usual "allegiance", "fanclub" membership, and "enabling" (thanks for the civility, NPA, and AGF, administrators!) and per IntoThatDarkness, WTT, TP, etc. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:52, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per talk page (If users go directly to your talk page, they probably meant to do so, intending to use your talk page for its primary purpose. Serving up a bloated userpage anyway is hostile to those users.) and competence issues as documented by Fram and WTT above. Kilopi (talk) 19:38, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per concerns raised by Malleus, Fram, WTT and TParis. --John (talk) 20:34, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per WTT, TParis and Malleus. Buggie111 (talk) 21:43, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose (Moved from Support) - per concerns raised by WTT, TParis, and Malleus. I am sorry to oppose such an active and striving user, but edit count doesn't reflect accuracy. His AfD votes are not all that successful, and there has been concerns raised about copyvios. Solve these problems, and you have a support from me in your second nom. Vacation9 22:07, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I found additional information; candidate has made only a few non-admin closures, including closing an AfD as Speedy Delete, something specified in Wikipedia:Non-admin_closure#AfD as something only admins can perform. Among weak experience in other areas, this backs previous assumptions of small experience and non-complete understanding of Wikipedia policies. Vacation9 22:18, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That speedy delete is a Housekeeping closure(closure of AFD, after the article is deleted under CSD), nothing wrong with it. --Anbu121 (talk me) 22:37, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, I did a lot of those before I was an admin. Mark Arsten (talk) 22:48, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – The above-linked AfD was simply a thread for an article that was already deleted but in which case the one who deleted the article didn't close the thread. There are limited types of closures that non-admins can perform, and I haven't stated anywhere here that I've closed a whole bunch of AfD discussions: I stated in my answer to question #1 that I've made "significant contributions to AfD," as in AfD discussions, and have "performed several non-administrator AfD closures." Hope this helps to clarify matters. Northamerica1000(talk) 22:50, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The guideline specifically says they can't - "Non-admins may not use a "speedy delete" close, but may close a nomination as "speedy keep" if there is no doubt that such action is appropriate." Housekeeping closures do make sense, but since the guideline specifically says otherwise, I would be against it. EDIT: Just remebered this on the page - "Pure housekeeping, such as closing a debate opened in the wrong place, or where the page under discussion has been noncontroversially speedy deleted, yet the debate is not closed." Sorry about the controversy. I also wasn't saying you said you had closed many AfDs, but this is something I would like to see from an RfA candidate. Vacation9 23:06, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. For two reasons. Firstly the copyright concerns have me worried. As these concerns were mainly about not spotting copyright problems they may not have led me to oppose, although they may have stopped me from supporting, but their response to Oppose 5 (Fram's) was enough to make me oppose. Missing a copyright problem like that is a major oversight. I'm not so concerned about them missing it as that's relatively easily done but trying to down play the oversight like that is not something I like to see. My second reason is somewhat related in that I fear they get too defensive when being criticised as is shown in their responses here and in not archiving critical talk page conversations and again this is something that I don't want to see in an admin. Dpmuk (talk) 22:28, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Minor but numerous correctable concerns place me here. Q10 response struck me as WP:ONLYESSAY-esque, and concerning in light of TP's concerns of wikilawyering. The AfD would have been better !voted and left to an admin to close. The closing rationale was long-winded, and overstated GNG's impact, which was only specifically mentioned once by participants. Response to Oppose #9 of "I'm initially leery of immediately changing..." followed by "Please provide suggestions on my User talk page about improvements" seems disingenuous when suggestions were already given. In the response to Q13, I question how he concluded that "most users go directly to this page, rather than to the User page". Nonetheless, it seem poor judgement to burden users who are not interested, especially when he suppressed a table of contents on his talk page.—Bagumba (talk) 22:52, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If the candidate choose to reapply in the future, I will expect at that time that he can provide perspective on how he allowed himself to make 170+ edits to his own RfA.—Bagumba (talk) 06:00, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The answers to questions (the important ones—1, 2 & 3) contain excessive irrelevant waffle. More significantly, the copyright violations are a serious problem. Axl¤[Talk] 00:42, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that the copyright violations were committed by other users in their entries to Articles for creation. I did not add copyrighted material to the submissions. There have been some errors in copyright detection, despite utilizing resources such as Copyvio Detector and taking additional steps to find copyvio violations. I've notified Wikiproject Articles for creation regarding this and other matters presented herein, because policies there regarding the detection of copyvios need to be updated and improved methods for detection need to be stated on the project's assessment page. Northamerica1000(talk) 15:05, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per all of the above. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:50, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand the sentence. Are you saying that the candidate is a "nominator, badgering candidate", or are you saying that you don't trust the nominator AND the candidate is badgering? Or something else entirely?--Bbb23 (talk) 04:33, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I guess it should have been a semicolon instead of a comma, but I still think it was clear what I meant. Keepscases (talk) 04:45, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ha, I thought you opposed because you didn't trust the nominator for badgering the candidate. Hey Keepscases, nice to see you again. Drmies (talk) 16:43, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keepscases, would you mind if I asked why it is that you don't trust AutomaticStrikeout? From what I've seen of him, he has exhibited sound judgment and a very meticulous disposition. I don't always agree with his opinions, but I certainly do trust him. Kurtis (talk) 22:00, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My responses are intended to promote functional discussion, and to address matters. They're not intended to provoke whatsoever. Northamerica1000(talk) 15:26, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose per the ARS issues TParis brought up. --Guerillero | My Talk 06:09, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that TParis left a message on my talk page stating (verbatim), "For the record, I never criticized NA1K for ARS participation; neither here nor on the RFA." Here's the diff page. Northamerica1000(talk) 15:22, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Well-intentioned candidate, valuable contributor to the project, but I agree with WTT and others. I also have concerns about the candidate's ability to communicate clearly (an essential skill for admins, IMHO) - some answers here have required a deal of clarification, some have taken too long to make a simple point, and the talk page issue rasied earlier (though I appreciate that this has now been addressed). — sparklism hey! 08:39, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Candidates need to demonstrate that they have that particular brand of clue that is required of administrators. I don't see evidence of that in the nomination statement, the answers to the questions, or in the supporting comments. Given that I barely visit AfD these days my most common place to cross paths with NA1K is on ANI, and I haven't been left with the same feeling of cluefulness from his contributions there that I did with, say, Dennis Brown. Ordinarily a mere lack of evidence to support would leave me neutral, but there are numerous troubling issues raised in opposition, specifically what seems to be an unfortunate tendency to attempt to rescue copvios and the blanking of his talk page (which is never not a red flag). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:16, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Skinwalker, Dpmuk, and Yunshui (Yes, that last one's a "neutral". Still.). Note, however, that I have no concerns about the use of multiple accounts here. --PhilosopherLet us reason together. 11:46, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - First, a person straight from WP:ARS becoming an admin and closing AfDs? No, that would be a huge detriment to the project; the keep-everything-I-see mentality is bad enough in the user base, we do not need to see it with the power to close deletion discussions. Second, I do to not believe the answer to Q7 is truthful. Tarc (talk) 13:26, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – Actually, I resigned from ARS today. See my comment under the General comments section above. I don't possess the mentality you incorrectly delineate about me above. It's a poor mischaracterization, in my opinion. You're entitled to your opinion, but it seems biased and in part based upon an editor having a (now previous) membership on a WikiProject. Also, please view the User contribution links I provided in my second addendum at question #7. It appears that you didn't bother to do so whatsoever. Cheers, Northamerica1000(talk) 13:33, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, there was a typo there...so if it wasn't clear , it now reads "I do not believe the answer to Q7 is truthful". I find it hard to believe that "Unitedstates1000" was your first account. Tarc (talk) 15:24, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
All other edits prior to the creation of the abandoned User:Unitedstates1000 account were performed as an unregistered user. Please see the General comments section above for more information. Northamerica1000(talk) 11:24, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"I resigned from the the ARS today". You resigned from the ARS in the middle of an RfA that wasn't going your way in part due to the fact that you had been one of the most active keepist ARS members. Interesting coincidence. pbp 19:57, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Coincidence, no. I've been considering resignation from the WikiProject for quite some time. Comments within this RfA that equate competence to use the tools relative to membership in a WikiProject with a specific focus upon article rescue have served as fine grains that have tipped the scale enough for me to move forward upon the resignation. As described in the General comments section above by User:FeydHuxtable, it has been noted in the past that people with intentions to serve as an administrator "would be well advised to leave" the project. Northamerica1000(talk) 11:07, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose (moved from neutral). The examples I found (like this in the "Edit Warring" section forward) had me in the neutral camp as I was concerned with your method of interaction with other editors. Your badgering responses to the Opposes, especially Tarc, above, make me believe you would be ill equipped to deal with conflict as an administrator. QuiteUnusualTalkQu 14:39, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – My responses are never intended to "badger". Sometimes the medium of communicating by text is interpreted by people in different ways. User:Tarc is entitled to their opinion as am I. When people feel they are being unfairly characterized on the basis of their cognition, it's certainly reasonable for one to counter the notion, just as people do in the "real world." Northamerica1000(talk) 14:53, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, but intent and effect are two different things, and I believe the extensive and repeated commentary on virtually every oppose vote is badgering because it is in some cases "pointed" ("It appears that you didn't bother to do so whatsoever") and tinged with emotion. If you are reacting like this to reasonably fair and balanced comments at an RFA, how will you react when your work as an administrator is violently attacked by an editor who disagrees with you? I don't know, but from what I've seen I'm not comfortable you would react coolly and calmly. QuiteUnusualTalkQu 15:29, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As the candidate is reacting with surprising calmness to the opposition comments that are not reasonable, fair or balanced, I think he can be forgiven if he's feeling more than a little cheesed-off right now and if the odd moment of frustration seeps into his edits. After all, Northamerica1000 is only human (one hopes)... BencherliteTalk 16:42, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Given the large number of opinions already received, the candidate should consider withdrawing his candidacy, evaluating the comments, and reapplying at a later time. He can then optionally followup on specific discussions in a less contentious forum than an RFA, avoiding any further accusations of badgering.—Bagumba (talk) 17:18, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - past experience with you at AFDs leads me to question your knowledge of/respect for WP:N. Sorry. GiantSnowman 21:05, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per WormTT and TParis, along with the notability concerns from past AfD nominations. 'Tis likely that there is more good than bad, but not enough good to transcend the bad. Hopefully, I will hopefully won't find reasons to oppose any later RfAs of this user. However, hopefully these things are now in the past, and will not be brought up again - nevermore. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 21:33, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose- in my experience this user doesn't deal well with disagreements. He just talks over the top of people and doesn't listen to them. From links provided by other users in this discussion, I'm not the only one who gets this impression. Although the incidents I'm thinking of were about a year ago, the badgering responses to the opposes in this RfA indicate that the problem is ongoing. ReykYO! 23:24, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's exactly how I feel. I couldn't think of a way to put it, but this demonstrates it. The same things happened at WT:AFD. When we tried to explain notability guidelines, deletion policy, and WP:NOT then he changed his focus to telling others why we were wrong instead of addressing us and discussing it. He doesn't listen. Then when we had the discussion about canvassing at ARS, he was doing the same thing. He didn't want to understand canvassing policy, he wanted to exonerate ARS. This "I want to win" behavior is dangerous to Wikipedia and certainly not helpful in an admin.--v/r - TP 13:28, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that I've commented further at User:TParis' oppose !vote to further address matters there. Northamerica1000(talk) 02:19, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose While I've found NAK to be a courteous, capable editor and don't expect a candidate to be flawless (since much of the training is on-the-job anyway), I value transparency in an admin. Even I manage to auto-archive (rather than blanking) my talk page, and I see a regrettable tendency to overstate contributions here. Miniapolis (talk) 00:55, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I do not believe that NA is a proper reader of consensus. Tparis points out lawyering, canvassing, and not listening, and that is my experience also. In terms of article content, NA has a tendency to stuff articles with everything and the kitchen sink--good for article salvation, bad for the articles. That talk page deletion, that's bothered me ever since I ran into them, and I've commented on it more than once. I had hoped that when pondering running for admin one would realize that this is precisely one of those matters that are important for other editors: not archiving suggests lack of transparency. It certainly makes perusal an absolute bitch. Worse, given that admins are supposed to communicate, it suggests that NA doesn't care about communication. On that same topic, I have found it very, very difficult to communicate with them--and they spread their typical evasive verbosity on one AfD after another. If I remember correctly, they had a standard text, or what seemed like a standard text, that they copied into every AfD they ran into. No, NA should not be an admin and will not be an admin this time, given how this RfA is going; my oppose thus doesn't really matter, but I want to note it nonetheless. I've stayed away from AfD discussions the last few years, but it seems NA hasn't changed his ways: someone who is difficult, nearly impossible to deal with as an editor should never be an administrator. Drmies (talk) 16:40, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You don't give any examples and say that "I've stayed away from AfD discussions the last few years". Are you saying that your opinion was formed years ago? I just looked at the candidate's most recent AFD contribution:
This seems fairly clear. Please give a counter-example, if you can, and tell us how old it is. Warden (talk) 18:20, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Correction: for "stayed away from" read "spent a lot less time than I used to at". Drmies (talk) 21:28, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – Hello Drmies and all. Here's an example where User:Drmies and I were involved in a discussion, regarding the Cinnamon Challenge article: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cinnamon Challenge. Drmies nominated the article for deletion under the rationale that "No doubt the eating of cinnamon for a bet or a sport exists, but there is no such thing as the "Cinnamon Challenge." I countered this notion through the provision of sources in the discussion. Some of the sources I provided were significant coverage, and some were mentions, provided to counter the notion that there's "no such thing" as the challenge. At any rate, the discussion closed as no consensus, and I feel that I performed good work to also improve the article for Wikipedia's readers at the time. It's possible that in some instances when Drmies and I have disagreed about a matter, they may have interpreted this as "not listening," because our views remained apart or dissimilar upon the conclusion of our interaction. I'm actually a very intent listener. This is not intended to disparage Drmies whatsoever, and I appreciate the work they contribute to the encyclopedia, just trying to provide some context. Cheers, Northamerica1000(talk) 01:40, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Again, that's a ton of words for a quick remark. I'm trying to find my comments on your talk page from a year and more ago. The problem is, your talk page has the weirdest history I've ever seen on Wikipedia--I wonder how many edits you have made to your own talk page, and how many of them are tiny or consecutive. I keep running into chunks like this, where you made 27 consecutive edits. Drmies (talk) 22:09, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at September of last year, the one that best typified the attitude that totally turned me off is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Repellor vehicle. All your AfD contributions from that time period suffered from the same thing: verbosity, badgering of nay-sayers using boilerplate material that sounds like it comes out of a robot, persistent accusations (in just about every AfD) that the nominator didn't do BEFORE, comments on AfDs every single time you made an edit to the article, more comments to the closing admin that such edits were made, etc. Then came that long string of Occupy AfDs (which probably better than any set of articles typify our weakness: the relentless reliance of news coverage and the opinion of many that WP = NEWS), which has been pointed out by others. Drmies (talk) 01:59, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In recent AfDs, I see less of that templating, and that's good. As a long-time member/fan of the ARS, I appreciate someone putting up a good fight, sure. But your participation there still outweighs other possible other contributions, and suggests that you aren't so much interested in administering Wikipedia's policies and guidelines as you are in saving articles. I was also somewhat baffled by your edit count, but your contribution history has some explanations to offer. In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pizza cheese, for instance, you have 34 edits. In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Orient Express Cocktail Bar, you have 24. That's not a criticism, but it goes to show that edit counts sometimes don't mean a whole lot: that plethora of edits to AfDs do very little to improve the encyclopedia. Drmies (talk) 02:20, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. TParis and WTT bring up enough reason for me to oppose this candidate. Other opposes don't build up confidence.--Slon02 (talk) 02:43, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I agree with those who point out that the candidate has done some wonderful work while rescuing articles. This has certainly been my experience with him. However, the strong inclusionist tendencies that make him so good at article rescue would make him, in my opinion, a disaster as a closer of AfDs. Those who close AfDs should be neither inclusionist nor deletionist, but middle-of-the-road. I have been involved in a lot of AfDs over the years, and admit to deletionist leanings, but even so, I know that the closing admin must have a sure, unbiased hand, and must be able to read the AfD discussion in the light of policy and make the correct assessment. With this candidate, I fear that a lot of non-notable persons and entities would be preserved on the project, meaning that they would only have to be returned to AfD weeks or months later, thus duplicating the work of countless editors. For these reasons, with all due respect to the candidate for the good work he has done for the project, I must regrettably oppose giving him admin powers. Qworty (talk) 04:49, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Ok, I had to go and do a little real digging, and then stopped as I began to just remember many things as I read more from others. Yes, the Userpage deletion bothers me for someone wishing to be an admin. I do it myself once in a while but go back and archive it when I have time manually (still have some to finish up). NA does not even do this, and at this point it may be a duanting task to accomplish. TP brought up canvassing and I do remember now that is indeed how I first encountered NA last year when OWS became a sticky wicket for Drmies on the Admin board. I also have concerns with deletion. As some OWS articles should be merged and or deleted as part of a clean-up effort I began for the Occupy articles. This became an issue with them and I decided to back away instead of arguing. I think North is a decent editor, I do...but I also know he has some issues. The copyright issue is big, the blanking of the user page is unreasonable for an admin hopeful and the canvassing issue I have first hand experiance with this editor. I am concerned with the amount of AFD votes for keep as this has been an issue I also have seen first hand and with articles. The rescue squadron issue for me, always seemed to be a matter of bias. With OWS he seemed to want to keep all articles regardless of the promotional or copyright issues. I am also concerned about the use of another account brought up in comments. I don't know how many of these issues the editor has addressed and improved on but I feel this is not the right time for now.--Amadscientist (talk) 07:56, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Amadscientist, I noticed your name when I was going through NA's talk page. You and I got into it a bit, didn't we. Anyway, seeing some talk page comments from that time, and now your name and comments, reminded me of that canvassing issue, which NA denied at the time were of substance at all. Drmies (talk) 22:24, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It was our first encounter! LOL! Yeah, we did get into it didn't we. Glad it worked out in the end.--Amadscientist (talk) 05:27, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I went into the history to refresh my memory and it does appear that I left NA a message that his notification about the ANI discussion on my talkpage was innaccurate. The message left to me was in regards to a specific article I had created, but when I went to the discussion it wasn't about what NA had suggested (merger of content from the article I had created) but about the overwhelming amount of OWS articles that were being created within a short period that had begun to concern the community. It appeared that the user was indeed canvassing for positive editors involved with OWS articles.--Amadscientist (talk) 08:01, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Amadscientist. I notified you (diff page) regarding the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive724#Occupy? discussion because it was relevant to the Occupy Sacramento article you created. Upon reviewing the notification, it was neutrally-worded as a simple notification about a discussion. The ANI discussion was about the notion of several Occupy articles being redirected, and since you created the Occupy Sacramento article, it could have affected that article. That said, at the time (over a year ago) I could have worded the notification more exactingly because the discussion wasn't specifically about redirecting only the Occupy Sacramento article, it was a discussion about redirection of several of the Occupy articles that could have affected the Occupy Sacramento article. Upon retrospect, it would have more specific for my notification to you to have been composed such as "There's a discussion occurring regarding a proposal that may affect the article you created..." I notified you in good faith about a discussion that I thought may have been of interest to you, after which you did contribute to that discussion. I certainly didn't advise or suggest to you in my notification what to write or how to respond at the discussion. This was an entirely appropriate notification that simply could have been composed with a change of "that may affect the article you created, Occupy Sacramento..." See WP:CANVASS for more information regarding appropriate notifications. Northamerica1000(talk) 08:39, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I trust your good faith, even then, but thought the notification could be seen as vote stacking, which as an administrator, you would need to recognize. Notifying editors based on the articles they edit and not the specific issue/incident would be percieved as innappropriate. You would need to understand that the best ways to approach a wide range of editors for this would have been to leave messages on the main articles about the discussion and at the projects, even the village pump, but not just aimed at the editors individually that were editing Occupy Wall Street Articles.--Amadscientist (talk) 08:59, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for responding. Since this had the potential to affect the article you created, I notified you about the matter as a courtesy, as it's commonplace for article creators to be notified about discussions that may affect their created entries, such as occurs when articles are nominated for deletion. My only involvement in the discussion itself was a single short comment about how redirect discussions typically occur on the talk pages for articles. You weren't notified based upon the notion that you edited the Occupy Sacramento article, you were notified because you created it. Also, please note that at the time, I did post neutral messages on article talk pages regarding the matter. See this diff page for an example. In the process of doing this, I also advised article creators, because again, it's common practice on Wikipedia to do so. Northamerica1000(talk) 10:02, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Although I like your work at the AfC project, the copyright stuff is a problem; this is a "no-go" for me. Although I don't think you have to be an expert, you should detect copyvios by reading the sources after the article (draft), for the case you don't use any tools. Keep in mind: these are only additional tools and we all want to build a free encyclopedia: improve your skills as mentioned at this RfA and request the tools in some months again! mabdul 20:05, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I am very sorry, but I also get the feeling that something "smells" off here. I almost get a feeling that this is an account that has been groomed for an adminship attempt. I apoligize if this comes off as offensive, I most humbly apoligize, I really do. That's just the feeling I get. I feel at the very least that this person should know that this is a vibe that comes out during a little research, and that this editor should know that. Perhaps if I knew this editor better, and perhaps if I knew this editor more personally, I might have a different opinion, but the merging of accounts seems, on the surface, to have been done to boost the edit count, and the edit count seems (again on the surface) to be the most important aspect of wikipedia to this user. Again, please accept my humble apologies if that was ungentle. The RfA is a terrible process, one that I loathe to ever have to do myself, and I do not wish it on anyone. be well. --Sue Rangell[citation needed] 23:49, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose While Northamerica1000 is certainly incredibly dedicated, I don't believe that he or she is able to adequately judge whether or not a source can provide notability to a subject during an AfD. Additionally, Northamerica1000 demonstrated a troublingly incorrect view of when the use of the old Rescue Squad tag would be canvassing.--Yaksar(let's chat) 03:25, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose due to the previous account issue. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 04:36, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Something's smells fishy with the user and with the Q7 and Q12. First, in my opinion (whether it is a fact or not a fact), one may not edit that high because new users have no special rights immediately and right away. Plus, the one Bzweebl said about notability of a source. TruPepitoMTalk To Me 08:47, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Strongly. Railroaded a bad keep decision [21] and showed extremely questionable judgement, with respect to WP:BIO and WP:NOT, in rewriting Jannik Olander.[22] Also, subsequently ignored the article while it got turned into a promo piece[23] by an editor who is now indefinitely blocked for numerous spam/promo/COI violations.[24] Had NA1000 shown better judgement, the article would not have existed; it would not have degenerated into a platform for spammers/advocates; and WP resources (i.e., other editors' time) would not have been wasted. These examples demonstrate basic deficiencies in editing skill, understanding of guidelines, and stewardship glaring enough to preclude as admin. Rhode Island Red (talk) 22:51, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This is an extremely weak argument for a "strong oppose." That NA1000 "railroaded" it is a misrepresentation for someone who only weakly supported the article and actually took the time to find some decent articles (though by no means perfect). If you have a problem with the keep, perhaps you should talk to the closing admin or go to WP:DRV instead of taking it out on an editor who participated with constructive contributions, which AfDs generally need more of. This example shows absolutely nothing about NA1000 that you call a "deficiency in editing skill" or otherwise. Should he have had some kind of crystal ball to anticipate the resulting promotional editing from another editor? No, that's ridiculous and not at all within any person's control. Plus, articles don't get deleted because they might be the subject of vandalism, spam, or other troublesome editing. I, Jethrobotdrop me a line (note: not a bot!) 01:21, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I beg to differ. I think it’s a very good argument. Only two people commented on that AfD discussion so it would have been appropriate to at least relist it for further comment, but the reality is that the BLP subject was so clearly non-notable that even a weak keep vote showed poor judgment IMO. In fact, since I raised the issue, it’s now been re-nominated for deletion.[25] The article was based on 2 obscure sources, at least one of which didn’t even comply with WP:RS. The rewrite was hamfisted and included grammatically deficient text like “Jannik Olander is the founder of Nialaya. Before he worked for Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger. The company is based in Los Angeles…” Furthermore, when I substantially rewrite articles, I always add them to my favorites list and look in on them from time to time because that’s the responsible thing to do. I don’t hit and run and then let my contributions become a podium for spammers. I expect at least that much stewardship and attention to detail, and maybe a bit more, from anyone who entertains the notion of administering me and other Wikipedians. Other editors have raised the issue that the candidate has a chronic tendency to set too low a bar in AfD discussions and permits the inclusion of non-notable and spammy articles that should don't merit inclusion. My experience based on the evidence above supports those conclusions, so I think adminship would be to WP's detriment. Rhode Island Red (talk) 02:47, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There's no requirement that editors become eternal guardians of the articles they participate on in AfD. With an editing history like NA1000, consider his watchlist-- it would be impossible to maintain vigilance over all of the articles he has been involved in. It's great that you and other editors do, but to hold editors to this requirement as indicator of "how much they care" is excessive. (Also, that article probably should be kept per the comments I've added to that AfD. Had the editors checked Google News Archives that checked for sources much like NA1000 did, they would have actually found something). I, Jethrobotdrop me a line (note: not a bot!) 03:39, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I don't think you can blame NA for that article having been kept the first time around. You could argue that, as the second voter on that first AfD, they carried extra responsibility given that this was a contentious BLP--but that's based on really shaky ground. No, NA did what they felt was appropriate and I can't fault them for it, Rhode Island Red. Drmies (talk) 04:19, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Seeing as his was the deciding vote, there was an extra responsibility to make a prudent decision, as admins are often called to do. I believe the decision was unwise, and it led to grief and wasted resources further down the road. Judging by the comments above, setting a low bar for article inclusion seems to be a chronic problem. That pattern can have negative consequences for WP. My opposition stands. Rhode Island Red (talk) 07:00, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but a. they couldn't have known theirs would be the deciding vote, and considering the AfD it's doubtful that it was deciding (it's a weak keep, with a short note, and hardly a strong endorsement of anything) and b. considering that we don't "vote" in the first place I don't understand how any one vote (even if unmodified by "weak", as in this case) could be called decisive. And I say this as someone who's closed a bunch of RfCs, where numbers and arguments both are weighed. If NA's had to be weighed here it would have much less strength than the other one, which is I believe what they intended. Drmies (talk) 15:54, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose – Per Worm That Turned and TParis. TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 01:32, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose. I very, very rarely oppose any editor at RfA, but I must oppose your nomination. On the plus side, I am sympathetic to your POV and I greatly admire your enthusiasm for the project. The problem is that you don't seem to be able to separate your POV from your contributions, and this has had, IMO, a negative impact on the encyclopedia. My experience with you on UC Davis pepper-spray incident and other Occupy topics led me to abandon them altogether in frustration due to your incessant spamming of "Occupy X has continued to engage in organized meetings, events and actions" when such a statement is often false and based on primary/unreliable sources. Because of this editing behavior, I don't think you really have a grip on the policies and guidelines in a way that I would expect someone to have with access to additional tools so I must oppose. Viriditas (talk) 09:36, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Viriditas. Regarding the UC Davis pepper-spray incident, you and I disagreed about a name change to the article, upon which time I took the initiative to start a discussion on the article's talk page, located here. Please note that editors there have conveyed different notions regarding the article's title, and some have suggested creating a new, separate article titled "Occupy UC Davis." When adding information about the status of Occupy groups to various articles, I also added primary sources to verify this information (see this example diff page), and primary sources are usable on Wikipedia in this manner. This certainly is not spamming, as you suggest above. Rather, it was article updating, which Wikipedia sometimes suffers a lack of in various articles. Also, I find it rather unbelievable that my contributions are the sole reason that you have abandoned articles regarding Occupy topics. Are there any other reasons, or is it just due to my edits? Northamerica1000(talk) 10:17, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There does seem to be a "listening" problem as others have observed above. I did not mention the article title dispute here because it did not concern me. I mentioned the fact that you were spamming the statement "Occupy [insert name here] has continued to engage in organized meetings, events and actions" to many, many articles, and using primary sources to support its inclusion. It's bad editing, poor use of sources, and the only possible reason you were doing it was because you were trying to promote the Occupy movement. Again, I'm sympathetic to your POV and I respect and admire your enthusiasm, but I don't appreciate it when Wikipedia is used this way, no matter what your POV is on the subject. Viriditas (talk) 10:39, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hello again Viriditas. So, you mentioned the UC Davis pepper-spray incident article without providing context, I responded to that mention to provide more context, and you then state that matters regarding the article's title (our primary interaction regarding the article) did not cause you concern. You mentioned it in your oppose !vote above, so I responded, but then you change the subject to matters about listening. You also have a disagreement with the use of primary sources to verify information regarding the status of the various groups, and stated that you considered addition of the content as spamming, so I responded in good faith to that concern as well; this is also listening. You have stated ambiguously about what you perceive as inability to separate contributions from point-of-view, but I disagree; I'm quite objective. Could you please provide further information to better-explain your stance? If the use of secondary sources were used to verify the status of Occupy groups around the world, would you have considered that to be nevertheless evident of spamming? The information was added to update the articles, not to promote any various groups. Importantly, my edits also served to correct some articles. Sometimes the groups were mentioned in past-tense in various articles, while they continued in present-tense (at that time of the edits) to hold regular meetings, events, etc., as evidenced in and verified using primary sources. I don't consider this spamming whatsoever, yet I'm listening to your point-of-view intently. Also, In today's age of infotainment, oftentimes secondary sources discontinue reporting on matters when they are no longer controversial, because controversy equates to higher readership/viewership rates, which is correlated with increased advertising revenues; hence the use of primary sources. In your oppose !vote above, I disagree with the notion of updating articles about present activities being characterized a spamming style of editing. I've had no involvement in the Occupy movement, so what would I have to gain by supposedly promoting it? They were simple article updates to maintain factual accuracy, which is important on Wikipedia. I'm actively listening, and would appreciate your response. Northamerica1000(talk) 12:10, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I'm concerned that you may be misinterpreting what spam is. I noticed in your edit denoted on the diff page located (here) that you removed portal links in the UC Davis pepper-spray incident article under the rationale that the portal links are "spam" and that the template used should be deleted. Portals on Wikipedia certainly are not spam. While some of the portal links may not pertain to the article at this time due to the name change that occurred to it's present title, it appears that you are misinterpreting what spam is. Please read Wikipedia:Spam in entirety regarding what constitutes actual spam on Wikipedia. Northamerica1000(talk) 12:30, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Spam is the inappropriate addition of links or information to Wikipedia with the purpose of promoting an outside organization, individual or idea; it is considered harmful, please do not do it. Is that clear, Northamerica1000? Because, you attempted to promote the Occupy movement on Wikipedia by adding the same content over and over and over again to the dozens of articles located within Category:Occupy movement, including Category:Occupy movement in the United States and Category:Occupy movement in the United Kingdom among others. The spam you added consists of statements like "Occupy Houston has continued to engage in organized meetings, events and actions" and "Occupy St. Louis has continued to engage in organized meetings, events and actions". Because of your spamming, we have close to 100 articles that now contain time-sensitive, out of date statements that are no way supported by reliable sources. It's also dishonest, because you've got "as of" month, day updates you've added to the lead sections. For example, Occupy Melbourne says "As of June 2012, Occupy Melbourne has continued to engage in organised meetings, events and actions." This wording gives the false impression that the movement is actively protesting, which was your original intent. Further, it is sourced to their personal website. This type of spamming behavior is only one of many problems with your editing that you will never acknowledge. Viriditas (talk) 12:57, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Viriditas. Thanks for pointing out the Occupy Melbourne article, which I have updated to read as "As of June 2012, Occupy Melbourne had continued to engage in organised meetings, events and actions." It was simple to make more time-specific by changing "has" to "had." I'll go and update the rest when I have time. I'm not going to repeat myself over-and-over again; the information was added to update the articles. I have no interest in promoting anything "Occupy", nor any involvement in the movement. Many articles were worded in past-tense while events and activities continued to occur. Please keep in mind that "Occupy" was and continues to be a social movement that was realized and still exists globally, and it's important for Wikipedia to accurately represent matters. At any rate, perhaps we may have to agree to disagree, as it appears that we may not reach agreement regarding this matter. Also, you may want to consider contacting Wikipedia:WikiProject OWS regarding this matter, as participants there may be able to provide additional information, or you can start a discussion thread on their talk page. Northamerica1000(talk) 13:55, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've updated all 44 "Occupy" articles and entries that needed corrections to reflect correct grammar tense (per information above). This is contrary to the statement above of "...we have close to 100 articles that now contain time-sensitive, out of date statements." It took me about 15 minutes to make these improvements. Northamerica1000(talk) 16:16, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
NA, if you can't see the problems others (many others) have with your edits to those articles, then you really shouldn't be an admin. In October 2011 and thereabouts you made an enormous amount of boilerplate edits to those articles in an attempt to add body to them, at a time when a bunch of them were at AfD. I think that's when you added those huges "See also" sections (which suggest importance), and that's when you made a ton of edits like this one--adding a book from 1998 about the general ideology of protest movements (I suppose) to a million Occupy articles. I tried to undo every single one of them and hope I got them all. What I see here is some quibbling over grammatical forms, but nowhere do you appear to you acknowledge that your advocacy for some movement or other completely took over any editorial balance you may have (had). It was obvious that consensus was against you then, yet you don't even acknowledge now that it is still against you. Sorry, but an admin at some point just has to zip it and suck it up. Drmies (talk) 04:58, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Drmies. The "Occupy" articles were about a controversial social movement that began in the United States and then spread globally. I certainly noticed the varying opinions and viewpoints about the articles. I simply worked to improve them, because it was an interesting sociological phenomenon. All editors should feel free at any time to make changes to improve them, per WP:BOLD; many of them require updating at this time. Many of them exist in a similar state as they were a year ago (e.g. See also sections, layout, etc.). If “many others” had “problems” with my edits to the articles, and “consensus was against you then," as described above, why haven't the articles been significantly changed or updated? The opposite appears to be the case: if consensus was against the edits I performed, then the changes I made to improve the articles wouldn't be existent in them today. See also links and portals were added to improve them, in part because people may view one article (e.g. regarding their own locale), but not others. You describe this negatively as “boilerplate” edits, but it is quite likely that many readers will be interested in articles based upon matters closer to their own locales. It would be obfuscating to omit highly-relevant internal links because someone might object that the links are present in other articles, and hence therefore deemed as inferior due to this circumstance. I'm acknowledging right now that later consensus after the addition of the book entry you linked above was for the entry to be omitted. Consensus regarding this matter was resolved a year ago. Furthermore, the Occupy events were interesting, but I am neutral regarding the actual movement; I neither advocate nor condone any of it. You suggest otherwise based upon my edits to the articles, but you're absolutely incorrect in your assumption regarding this matter; just working to improve the encyclopedia for Wikipedia's readers. Again feel free to edit the articles at any time! Happy editing, Northamerica1000(talk) 12:40, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
NA, unfortunately I cannot tell from your edits that you were neutral in that regard. Your efforts, as far as I could tell, were only to keep the articles--and you pulled out all the stops including some invalid ones, in my opinion. Admins need to at least be perceived as neutral--besides concise. Drmies (talk) 15:53, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Though I have great respect for the candidate's efforts to improve WP, a general sense of immaturity prompts me to oppose. This is based on reviewing many of the candidate's edits, as well as the answers and comments on this page. Ability to step back from issues is essential. -- Scray (talk) 11:25, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose (moved from neutral) per Viriditas. Editing to counter bias and ensure a neutral POV is one thing. But to read an oppose from someone who is sympathetic to [the candidate's] POV has been enough to topple me over, when considered with the other oppose rationales. Sorry, but perhaps if such issues can be rectified/explained convincingly next time, then I'll end up supporting. Please keep up the good work anyway - see you round at AfD. -- Trevj (talk) 14:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Trevj. The only point-of-view I had when updating the articles was for them to accurately reflect the status of the various "Occupy" groups in Wikipedia articles. An encyclopedia should contain accurate information. Should an article that states information such as "Occupy foo was a collaboration..." when the collaboration was actually still occurring during the time of the edits? Many articles were portraying Occupy groups in past tense while they were continuing to engage in activities, events, etc. Northamerica1000(talk) 14:40, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
North, just to ensure your RfA includes some realistic feedback concerning Occupy, your work there has been outstanding. In fact Id struggle to think of anyone whose made more valuable contributions than your good self, even though the topic attracted several excellent editors. Thanks again for your great work on Occupy articles! FeydHuxtable (talk) 13:15, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Per your resignation from ARS during this RfA. "Pleasing the crowd" mentality is not what I expect from admins. Tijfo098 (talk) 18:47, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Starting with answers to question 1, replies felt very cookie-cutter. Prefer to err on the side of caution here. Samsara (FA • FP) 18:56, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose. While I might consider administratorship if Northamerica had stated that he intended to stay away from XfD, which we know to be his hot-button area, that thought is moot because there's simply no way I'm willing to even consider granting adminship when he states that he fully intends to edit AfD with his admin hat on. I would expect any extreme deletionist or inclusionist admin to be wary of XfD or other deletion-related tasks, since strong emotion is the enemy of a good decision when it comes to keep/delete choices. Refusal to stay away from tasks where one is very prone to emotional/ideological involvement is a dealbreaker, and resigning from the ARS because people think your membership is evidence of poor judgment doesn't actually do anything to fix concerns about that judgment. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 21:36, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I have no problem supporting members of the ARS for adminship (see:MichaelQSchmidt) but IMO this editor does not belong to the tendency of the ARS that is purely interested in saving deserving articles from deletion, as can be seen from their !voting record at AfD, and the examples shown above. And per Reyk, an editor who is pretty much always worth noting. Black Kite (talk) 23:42, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: Tactics as a member of ARS were highly questionable, inluding canvassing and dumping long lists of useless sources which he clearly did not take the time to read or evaluate. Also have problems with his tendency to WP:IDHT. I'm convinced that he lacks the good judgement and impartiality to be entrusted with the responsibilities of being an administrator, in particlular as far as AfDs are concerned. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 00:24, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, chiefly because of the candidate's argumentativeness despite the broader implications of his responses, and despite his own advice in Q3. Given that administrators may receive more pestering than the average editor, I'm concerned that the candidate won't resist diving into the fray when confronted with a differing opinion or a troll. (Make no mistake, I appreciate honest efforts to set the record straight—but preferably with substantial discretion.) As for other reasons, per Worm That Turned and Thumperward, I wonder about the lack of transparency on the user's talk page (why not fix that immediately as a show of good faith?), and I think the answer to Q16 (on his AfD pattern) shows a lack of understanding of his own biases. Similarly, the response to Q1 seems like a brain dump, rather than a deliberative synthesis of ideas. I'm conflicted about the candidate's edit rate to the extent that it represents content (which ought to be deliberate) rather than antivandalism (which ought to be responsive), but admittedly, edit volume is likely a good indicator of familiarity with the inner workings of the project. I'm having a hard time assessing the quality of the candidate's work, but I have no problem accepting the judgments of those more familiar than I that his content contributions are valuable. TheFeds 11:50, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I don't feel I could really trust this user with AFD closes or deletion tools. This one's a never, I'm afraid. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 21:44, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Moved from oppose. As stated above, I can't oppose because of a "gut feeling" about answers to questions, but for the same reason I can't support, and I hate to strike a vote and "disappear" - so it looks like I end up here. Begoontalk 15:51, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral for now. I find that because of your habit of removing contents from your talk page rather than letting it archive it is difficult to assess quickly your interaction with other editors. I've spent several hours and am still working my way through "ancient history" (Q1 / Q2 this year). In there I have found a few examples like this (the "Edit Warring" section forward, sorry, diffs are difficult because of your rapid minor changes meaning it is hard to capture a diff that illustrates my point) which I feel show an unhelpful or evasive attitude that would antagonise other editors - especially if you adopted this manner as an administrator. That is, in this example continually repeating "Please direct comments regarding this image here" eight times despite the comments of other editors is the sort of behaviour that can be hugely frustrating to the other party, regardless of whether you were right or not. I'll reconsider as I examine more. QuiteUnusualTalkQu 17:07, 7 November 2012 (UTC) Moved to Oppose. QuiteUnusualTalkQu 14:39, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Moved from Support per recent corcerns about copyvio --Anbu121 (talk me) 18:14, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutralfor now – I will be watching the questions and any further developments (particularly copyvio and talk page archives) to be brought up before I lean one way. Anonymouse321 (now The Anonymouse) (talk • contribs) 19:09, 7 November 2012 (UTC) I will remain neutral. I think Northamerica1000 is a good editor, but there are a few problems (copyvio, for example) that might need some time to be addressed. The Anonymouse (talk • contribs) 02:44, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
(Moved to Oppose.) Neutral(for now). I've seen some useful sourcing work in AfD discussions. I'll try to spend some time doing my own research, but for the moment there are enough concerns expressed above to make me feel uncomfortable about supporting right now.-- Trevj (talk) 20:41, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I much prefer the more conventional user/talk arrangement (and I see you've updated your sig accordingly). Still need to find time to check a few other things.-- Trevj (talk) 11:42, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
At the moment, neutralSomething just doesn't feel right. I haven't done my typical digging as of yet, and I will, but at the moment, something just doesn't feel quite right, but I can't quite place my hand on it.Addendum: While I don't think he would block Jimbo or delete the mainpage (praise the Lord for that), I tend to agree with Kudpung that he doesn't have enough quality experience in dispute resolution, making tactful statements in disagreements, etc. Therefore, I'm going to remain neutral. GoPhightins! 21:19, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral May or may not move it based on answers, evidence, etc. Regards, — MoeEpsilon 22:30, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate the candidate's work on the Gardening WikiProject, and would like to support, but there are some persuasive comments in the oppose section, so I cannot. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:44, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral moved from to support to here. This is because of the many convincing opposes. You are still a great editor, though. Sorry. TBrandley 23:56, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral for now. based on concerns stated above. Kierzek (talk) 00:13, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
From what I can see from article histories regarding Q12 and weight phobia, it looks like you did in fact create the article at one point, in some incarnation. That makes me wonder why you didn't just say "Yeah I did create it, but the histories have been mangled up through merges and deletions", which appears to be the truth. I don't know if you were trying to hide the criticism you got at the AfD for changing the article topic entirely by starting it as a completely new article mid-AfD or what. It's OK to make mistakes, but you need to own them, not try to hide them. The way you source dump in AfDs leaves a bad taste in my mouth as well, since many times the sources don't contain much more than a passing mention. I don't think you are a bad editor, but you need to consider that every time we keep a poor article based on AfD source dumping, that's basically assigning work to other editors that are going to have to maintain an article that will likely forever remain poorly sourced. Gigs (talk) 01:03, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – Please note that I've addended my response to question #12 above regarding the Weight phobia article. It took more time and energy to further research the matter and convey it here. Could you please provide recent examples in which the sources I have added to AfD discussions don't consist of much more than passing mentions? This will sometimes occur in biography article AfD's per WP:BASIC, wherein it's stated, "If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability; trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability." Northamerica1000(talk) 03:35, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for updating the answer to reflect the history. The histories were a little confusing and mangled, but as an admin that's something you will need to sort out on occasion. I'm not going to get into protracted discussions over specific AfDs and notability standards here. Gigs (talk) 16:46, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral I am aware (as, I believe, are many other editors) of Northamerica1000 primarily for his (generally very constructive) work as part of the Article Rescue Squadron. Whilst I appreciate that this discussion may only have been a partial influence on his decision to withdraw from ARS, it reads to me like a fairly direct response to the the fact that many !voters here disagree with the ARS's activities - I myself have never been a huge fan, although I appreciate the aims of the project and support it in theory at least. Maybe it's the badly-timed implementation of a long-considered intention, but to me, this smacks of an attempt to pander to the anti-ARS crowd - together with the alterations to his talkpage and the sudden interest in talkpage archiving, I get the feeling that Northamerica1000 really wants the bit, and is willing to make any changes necessary to convince the !voters. In itself, that's no bad thing - I appreciate an editor who is willing to adjust to the community - but equally, I appreciate an editor who sticks to his priorities and doesn't try to treat RFA as a popularity contest. Combined with some of the other issues raised (overly hasty editing being the main concern), I don't feel I can continue to support this nomination. Yunshui雲水 11:06, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's sort of a catch-22 don't you think? Gigs (talk) 16:29, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I realise it's a bit of a "dammned if you do..." statement. I haven't expressed myself very well above, and I apologise to Northamerica1000 for that. It's more a gut feeling than anything else; I just don't feel comfortable supporting an editor who appears to abandon one of his primary working areas because the conflicts resulting from his work there seem to be coming back to bite him at an RFA. I think Kudpung expressed it best, below - this was an experience that Northamerica1000 clearly wasn't prepared for; the timing might have been great for RFA, but wasn't so great for the editor involved. I suspect that another run in six months after some considered preparation would likely see my !vote remaining in the Support column; not this time around, however. Yunshui雲水 13:52, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral (edit conflict) Looking through NA1000's contributions I am thoroughly impressed with the editor's demeanor and his approach to conflict in AfD discussions and on their talk page (e.g. this response to encourage stick dropping between himself and another editor before it got out of hand). His content contributions are outstanding, such as to pizza cheese (even if that article ends up elsewhere). Some opposes gave me pause, particularly about the user/talk page clutter, the copyvio issues, and AfC work, but many of these were addressed well: He has fixed his user and talk pages, the previous account does present any real problems, and I imagine that one is bound to miss a few copyvios when you are working on AfC as much as NA1000 is, and they may not even be very obvious. The discussion with Fram regarding the usefulness of automatic edits and empty reference sections does not seem consequential or indicative of anything in particular related to being a decent admin. I am, however, concerned about some of the AfD-related behavior and I also am not particularly happy with the answers to the opening questions. Given the extensive edit history of NA1000, I would have hoped to see the editor discuss their own cases of conflict resolution or a specific article to showcase their work. I am also somewhat disappointed the editor has decided to leave ARS, possibly as a result of this RfA. (Moved to support per NA1000's additions.) I, Jethrobotdrop me a line (note: not a bot!) 11:12, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral If anything, this RfA has hopefully given NA1k a good idea of what is expected in an admin. I wouldn't be surprised to see NA1k back here in 6-18 months, and depending on what he does between now and then, I could see myself in either the support or oppose column. Disassociating himself with the ARS is a good first move, becoming more neutral and unbiased (in terms of inclusionism/deletionism) would be a good next step. Use the oppose votes as a checklist for what to improve upon. ‑Scottywong| express _ 15:01, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral, unfortunately. NorthAmerica 1000 is definitely an asset to WP, and would probably make a good administrator. His dedication to content creation is, in my opinion, admirable. On the other hand, the variety of concerns raised in the oppose section (copyvio, etc) are enough for me not to support his candidacy. I hope he continues his work and will attempt this again in the future. dci | TALK 17:55, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral I am familiar with North. They do good work. I do have some concerns mirrored by others however, not enough to oppose the nomination, but enough to be a little hesitant to support at the moment. I will look further before closing of this AFD.--Amadscientist (talk) 22:08, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral Moving to support owing to the lameness of a couple opposers.i - Resignation from Article Rescue Squadron might impress some opposers (but I doubt it). It has the opposite effect on me. ARS needs to be expanded, not attacked, they've been the subject of deletionist bullying... And no, I'm not a member. And yes, I do support them and their excellent efforts. Carrite (talk) 22:51, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral . Very generally as per Scottywong and without prejudice to a re-run in the not too distant future. Possibly an over enthusiastic nomination that was accepted in good faith by an ill-prepared candidate. There is no doubt that Northamerica1000's experience would put him in the league of admin 'possibles', but more in-depth examination by the nominator, and self examination by the candidate and reading some of the the advice pages beforehand may have been more appropriate. The candidate has handled this RfA particularly well, but has responded to fairly obvious issues that could/should perhaps already have been identified and addressed before RfA. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:00, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral as per Kudpung, TParis, etc. NA1K has definitely done good work for the project, and been a benefit to it as a whole...but issues such as the ones brought up at this RfA make it seem 'incorrect' to support at this time. —Theopolisme 12:07, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, I hate to change my !vote from the support section. I tend to agree with assessments of TParis and WormTT in particular and the issues raised do concern me. However, there is no doubt that I trust the user but I believe that a re-run after an year of awesomeness is all needed here and to re-gain my trust. Somehow, I always agree with what Yunshui says, so neutral per Yunshui, TP and WTT. TheSpecialUserTSU 13:25, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. Of the comments here, I find myself agreeing with many more in the neutral section than the others. The candidate is generally a reasonable person, but that has not been in evidence on this page to the degree that I see it in other edits around the project. Put another way, you know an RFA has failed when the candidate has made 6 edits to the page for every 1 support (120 edits for 21 supports, at the time of this writing). An admin's record and edits should stand on their own merits - and it's a red flag when they do not. I look forward to supporting in the future, if and when. UltraExactZZSaid~ Did 15:21, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've largely had good experiences with this editor, but others have pointed out significant issues. As SW said, I can easily see the issues addressed over the next year or so and me being quite willing to support. Hobit (talk) 21:01, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. Unfortunately due to the large number of opposes from other users. —stay (sic)! 07:05, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral I have seen significant improvement over the time this user has been here and he is becoming more mainstream in his approach to deletion but, frankly, extreme inclusionists who intend to work at AFD are as inappropriate as extreme deletionists. I'll be interested in seeing how he continues to develop and the more mainstream his views become the more plausible a future RFA will become. SpartazHumbug! 11:39, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral - I was considering support, but the oppose arguments are keeping me from wanting to support, so im staying neutral. ZappaOMati 17:45, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. Moral support - while it looks like this RfA is not going to succeed, NA has certainly improved as a contributor to this project and his willingness to try to find sources to demonstrate a subject's validity for inclusion is commendable. I can understand the criticisms of being over-inclusionist and issues with copyvio, however, and perhaps working on these over the next 6-12 months would put him in a better position to get the tools. --Michig (talk) 17:54, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. While adminship is supposed to not be a big deal, I can't say in good faith that I put my confidence in the man who answered the questions above. They seem more like Wikilawyer-ed answers than intuitive answers indicative of understanding or experience. Edit count is a ridiculous metric to support or oppose on, but I for one don't approve of people who drive up edit count by not previewing. It wastes precious memory. I want to morally support, but even that might be a little too much. A good editor, may or may not be ready for the mop. T.I.M(Contact) 18:43, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. It's rare that I find myself firmly in the neutral camp, but I'm in the same boat as most of the above users. NA1000 has always seemed alright to me, and when I saw this RfA I assumed I'd be comfortably supporting. I was surprised by the strong opposition, but I have to defer to it. I think you have potential though and I hope to support you in the future. SwarmX 04:04, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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.