Computer Fizz
- Computer Fizz (talk · contribs · count)
End date: 23:33, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
Hello everyone in simplewiki. After much thought over several months and issues, I'd like to request adminship from the community to help improve the wiki and stop vandals and LTAs. I've been editing here since June 2016, and racked up about 3500 edits. Most of my work here revolves around reverting vandals and LTAs, but I have done some content creation here and know what makes a good quality article.
I've noticed that a lot of the backlogs are getting much longer slowly (QD log is sometimes as high as 37 which is more than ENwiki), and the date-changing LTA who vandalized for eleven days before being blocked. I don't believe this is a situation that can continue, and I'd like to request adminship to help clear these backlogs.
I believe that adminship should be used as access to the "danger buttons", and not to try to control the wiki with it, and my own opinion shouldn't be automatically more important than editors without admin. When new users contact me asking me why I reverted their edit, I'll always try to be as nice as possible (but clear!) and give them advice for future editing / ask for furthur questions.
I don't ever claim to be perfect, admit I've made a few mistakes in policy before, just that I "have a clue" and could use admin to benefit the wiki in a way it seems to require. I'm always open to hearing if people think I'm doing something wrong, or if there's something I didn't know, as humans are never perfect.
Computer Fizz (talk) 23:33, 6 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Candidate's acceptance: Self-nomination
Support
Oppose
- Very Strong Oppose Not sure I can make this one worded strongly enough. There isn't an editor on this wiki who is a regular who I can think of who is less qualified to be an admin. Often does not understand policies here, and very frequently takes actions without thinking about the consequences of said actions. Has frequently made very bad comments to users such as this one. His actions quite frankly on a number of occasions have come very close to causing him to be blocked. Severely lacking in any sort of clue. -DJSasso (talk) 11:58, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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- @Djsasso: Could you please link to these incidents of sockpuppetry and block evasion? Computer Fizz (talk) 17:31, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Here is block log for some of it. And here is the block log for the multiple blocks that lead to the community ban here. -DJSasso (talk) 17:50, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- @Djsasso: I see. While it should be noted that all I did was edit my own talk page (i.e. not evading anything), but I'd appreciate if you followed the ENwiki guideline of only looking at things in the past 12 months, as I haven't done anything like this in about five years (and have no plans on starting again). Thanks for being clear about your motives / answering questions I asked, though :) Computer Fizz (talk) 18:16, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- For roles like adminship, your entire history is up for evaluation. Just because something happened X number of years ago doesn't mean you are given a free pass. It still reflects on your character. Especially something like creating a second account to get around a block. While something small like making a bad edit or two can be overlooked sometimes. Socking and community banning are actually very big deals which generally are bad enough that a person should never be given the mop. (even en.wiki doesn't ignore stuff like that even if it was more than 12 months ago.) That being said, even if I ignored both of those things, the first comment I made is bad enough that you should not be anywhere near admin tools. -DJSasso (talk) 18:22, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Oppose - similarly to what I mentioned in another RfA early last year, I think Computer Fizz's participation in the Project namespace is a bit too low for my liking. For most of 2018 and the first half of 2019, there has been minimal substantial contributions to discussions in Project namespace. I am also not comfortable with the apparent confusion of (some) policy intent. There is one example in this very RfA (regarding en:WP:REMOVED), in (now deleted) User:Computer Fizz/How to effectively deal with vandalism without being an admin, as well as a rather strange example at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#gender_for_transgender_people. Chenzw Talk 13:33, 8 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Addendum: because of the circumstances leading to this particular RfA, I felt that I should talk a bit about RfAs in general. This is a small wiki with a very slow uptake of new, regular editors, so as a consequence the administrator to active editor ratio is higher compared to EN. However this in itself does not mean that every editor eventually gets administrator, or that sustained and substantial editing experience on this wiki will guarantee a chance at administrator. Late last year on ST I mentioned that there is no advancement path from rollbacker to administrator. The essay en:Wikipedia:What adminship is not also pretty much sums up what I would like to emphasise. Chenzw Talk 13:33, 8 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks so much for serving, I know the vandal situation is getting worse. Couple of questions? Will you commit to more content creation as 7 pages created with 1 deleted seems quite little. Do you intend / have been regularly on IRC. Such undos may be a little odd, can you explain your rationale for just undoing someone else rollback without seeing what is going on? Will vote after answers. All the best. --Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 09:04, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- @Camouflaged Mirage: Hey there, thanks for the questions. My pages that I've created is a higher number than you'll see with automated tools, because often what I will do is take some sort of vandalism page (i.e.
Grape
created with the text i love grapes!!
, which I then replace with A '''grape''' is a type of [[fruit]] that grows....
) I don't always do this though, only sometimes. I'm very active on IRC, the two other people I see the most on there are Vermont and Bsadowski1 (both of which are already admins). I suppose the reason you're asking is so I can respond to the admin call if needed. I reverted that edit because non-admins aren't usually allowed to remove unblock requests. And I didn't paste the warnings back per en:WP:DRRC (which applies here per WP:ENWIKI). Hope this answers your questions, if you have any more let me know :) Computer Fizz (talk) 17:14, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- I agree such approach is good, usually this will prevent recreation of test / vandalism pages, I do so too. Thanks for commitment to IRC, I did only once admin ping, otherwise I will typically ping the admins personally. For the issue with the talkpage, yes, there is no question that non-admins cannot remove block request (even admins will just decline not remove typically), the issue is the warnings are removed. Yes, we typically follow enwiki, not here but rest of the projects as well as enwp have the most comprehensive guidelines. Locally, we have Wikipedia:Talk page which states that don't remove but archive discussions. Warnings should be discussions too, and the removal of warnings for users is still considered acceptable, but for IP which these messages can be shared message, isn't. I will prefer them to be still there for admins to be able to see a trend of disruption easier and then give the appropriate response. Thanks for the answers and thank you for standing. --Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 18:41, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- @Camouflaged Mirage: That's true, and after that I've been restoring several editors who have removed their warnings (i.e. that the situation's fixed and I'm open to listening to the community). Let me know if you have anything else you want to ask me :) Computer Fizz (talk) 19:07, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- I think there has been some misunderstanding on both sides here - warnings are not discussions in the context of Wikipedia:Talk page. The intention of the "do not delete discussions" guideline is to discourage editors from removing discussions which other have also commented on, but personally disagree with. I also want to point out that archival is not mandatory. In fact, I know of some registered editors in the past who simply prefer to blank their talk page (as part of the "archival" process) and leave the discussions in the page history. In other cases, en:WP:REMOVED applies, which states that any user may remove warnings/comments from their own talk page. For shared IPs, only notices about the fact that it's a shared IP may not be removed. Chenzw Talk 02:15, 8 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Sorry, I misunderstood the guidelines, thanks Chenzw for clarification. Apologies to Computer Fizz too.
- As to the vote, I think I'll be neutral in this. In the past 1 year of editing, Computer Fizz is largely unproblematic (at least not that bad per the previous accounts), however, if they can disclose their previous accounts will be much more useful (at least a disclosure, and explanation, rather than it being uncovered by an oppose vote). --Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 07:23, 8 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- @Camouflaged Mirage: The only other account that I have ever used to edit the Simple English Wikipedia with is Krett12. I switched to this account on June 12th, 2016. I have had accounts before Krett12 as well, but none have ever edited this wiki. Computer Fizz (talk) 07:29, 8 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Thank you, but if this can come before DJSasso comments it will be much better. Best, --Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 07:33, 8 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Just a very quick observation: Of the roughly 3.500 edits of yours (most of which were last year), only about a third are to the 'Main namespace'. Vandal-fighting, reverting pages, and warning users is laudable, but you do not need an Admin flag to do that. What would the 'Admin flag' allow you do, for the benefit of the community, that you can't do now? (We currently have 15 admins, half of them active)? --Eptalon (talk) 18:02, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- @Eptalon: It would make sense that most of my edits were last year, since we're only a week into this one. I'm going to use the admin flag to clear backlogs that aren't always cleared by admins, and block vandals who aren't being blocked by the existing admins, as sometimes the wait time can be dangerously long as seen in my opening statement. Computer Fizz (talk) 18:13, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- I think you misunderstood; Eptalon means that you've only been active less than a year. Also, please remember to indent your replies. Thank you, Vermont (talk) 18:49, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Given DJSasso's comment above, I would appreciate a short explanation of what that happened. My main question is this: was it a 2016-issue, or has it been continued after that? I've seen users, some have been glocked for crosswiki abuse, and they are established users now with admin rights, so I think a second chance is always appreciated, and that people can change dramatically. Can you please explain a little bit about it? Thanks. Ahmadtalk 20:50, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- @Ahmad252: I didn't really want to elaborate much on it to avoid giving the vibe that I refuse to take no for an answer. But almost all of the issues Djsasso is mentioned were between December 2015 and June 2016, and mostly nothing there has happened since then. The only one that's happened more recently is the comment I made to Chenzw which was misinterepted, but I immediately clarified when I saw this and it's also the only time I think this has happened, notice how he made exactly one link. A lot of the time, you can see me actually being pretty kind to new editors: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. But if something comes off as too aggressive, I may clarify or edit it, like I've even done in this very RfA.
- Of course, humans are never perfect, and if I do make a mistake you're always welcome to let me know. But the data he's gathered from 2016 isn't really an applicable outlook on me anymore. Let me know if this answers your questions about his statement, Ahmad :) Computer Fizz (talk) 21:23, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks for the response. Yes, I think it was convincing enough, at least for me, since I'm not concerned about it anymore. If that's fine, I think I might ask a couple of in-practice questions later. That's, to my experience, a usual thing in RfAs. Ahmadtalk 21:49, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- @Ahmad252: It used to be, but it seems to have stopped in late years on this wiki. Of course, I'm still open to answering your questions. Computer Fizz (talk) 22:21, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- As a note, the "11 days" that Computer Fizz refers to is actually for a date-changing subtle vandalism LTA that was blocked 5 days after it began editing (a few days after release from the previous block), and one day after it was reported to VIP. Vermont (talk) 02:52, 8 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]