requests For Bureaucratship/Durin

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

Durin (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) -

Introduction: I have been a Wikipedia editor for two years, and an administrator for 1.5 years. As many of you know, I have been an avid follower of WP:RFA for most of that time. I have long thought of the possibility of my being a bureaucrat, and began more seriously considering it a few months ago at the behest of another editor. I believe I am ready to take on the extra responsibilities of being a bureaucrat and look forward to continuing to aid this project through my volunteer efforts in this realm.

RfA/RfB related activity:

• Activity at requests for adminship: I first came to WP:RFA in July of 2005. Since that time I have been heavily involved in discussions at Wiki talk:Requests for adminship, in fact I have been the most active contributor at WT:RFA ever . I have closed out 240 RfAs during this time, in most cases correcting closes made by other (of course well meaning) contributors. Across all RfA/RfB related pages, I have made approximately 2000 edits. I was responsible for creating Wiki: Requests for adminship/Nomination data. In support of that, I have been keeping track of all RfAs (failed and successful) since June of 2005, and have been working on collecting data on all past RfAs since RfA began on 14 June 2003. From this and other data I have created a significant number of graphs to contribute to discussions at WT:RFA which may be viewed here. Another outcome of this data can be seen at Wiki_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_82#2006_RfA_In_Review. I was also recently responsible for the creation of {{RfA Navigation}} which is now transcluded to the top of a dozen RfA related pages. I have regularly managed the archives of WT:RFA, having created 11 of the last 20 archives listed at Wiki talk:Requests for adminship/Archives and recently conducting a restructure of that page to break up the long list of archives into yearly breakdowns . I was also the original creator of Wiki: Guide to requests for adminship.

• Activity at Wiki: Changing username: I first began contributing there in September of 2006. I was active there up until recently when Essjay and I had a disagreement which we resolved amicably. I would like to note that my every effort there has been intended to help in all ways that I could. Essjay and at least one clerk felt my contributions there were not needed and were considered unhelpful. I thus withdrew from contributing there but would of course return there if made a bureaucrat. If anyone has any questions regarding this interchange, I would be happy to answer them. I have been keeping data on this area for some time now as well.

• Activity at Wiki: Changing username/Usurpations: This is a relatively new process, having been established in January of this year. I have had this on my watchlist since that time. I have not contributed there during that time because it has ably been managed, most particularly by User:Luna Santin. I have kept data on this area.

• Activity at Wiki: Bots/Requests for approval: Though I do not contribute extensively to this area, I have had it on my watchlist for many months.

Activity as an administrator: I became an administrator in October of 2005 , nearly 1.5 years ago. Since that time I have conducted 41 protections/unprotections, 183 blocks/unblocks and 2455 deletions/undeletions. I've been involved as an administrator across a broad variety of areas.

Activity as an editor: I have created three dozen articles in the mainspace, and contributed more than 4000 edits to the mainspace. Outside of user talk, it is by far my most active area. As many of you know, I have been involved in policing violations of Wiki: Fair use criteria, where most of my work has been on removing fair use images from templates. My philosophy and approach on this may be viewed at User:Durin/Removal of fair use images. I have contributed more than 300 images to the project, some from my own work with most coming from other free license resources. A mostly complete overview of my contributions as an editor is available at User:Durin/Contributions. For those interested in edit counts, I have made more than 19,000 edits, averaging more than a thousand edits per month over the last six months.

Activity elsewhere: I have accounts on Wikinews, Commons, Wikimania, Wikia, and Meta. My most active non en.wikipedia area of contribution has been Commons, where I first began contributing in April of 2006. My focus has been the English Wikipedia and will remain so.

Bureaucrat philosophy:

• On RfAs: I do not believe it is appropriate for a bureaucrat to close RfA nominations that they have participated in. This has created controversy in the past, and there is no need for it. Other bureaucrats are quite capable of closing RfAs without having to resort to a bureaucrat who was involved in that particular RfA.
• On RfBs: As a bureaucrat, I would at a minimum not close any RfB that I was involved in. Additionally, I do not think a bureaucrat should be involved in any RfB. Such an involvement creates stamps of approval/disapproval for bureaucrat candidates that can have the seeming effect of making the bureaucrat pool off limits to only those approved by the existing bureaucrats.

On RfA reform: A number of contributors at WT:RFA might come to the conclusion that I am opposed to RfA reform in any form. This is not the case. What I am in favor of is reform that is based on a reasoned, thoughtful development process. RfA has remained largely unchanged since inception. A dizzying array of reforms have been suggested, with few gaining any significant traction and virtually none of significance being implemented. I've been reviewing the WT:RFA talk archives with an eye towards many things, including reform. The output of this so far can be seen at User:Durin/Admin_miscellany#Reform_proposals. At this point in time, due to the size of RfA I doubt any reform proposal will be able to gain enough traction to see implementation. My thoughts on this can be seen at Wiki: Bureaucrats'_noticeboard/archive5#Redesigning_adminship:_the_issue_of_scale. With that in mind, I believe the only reform that has a chance of success is one that has a strong premise and support in findings of fact, constructed with the goals of RfA in mind, a strong understanding of the failures of RfA intended to be addressed by the new system, and an open development process.

On conflict: I have work towards amicable resolutions to any disputes such that those resolutions work towards the best purposes and goals of the project. My activities as an administrator have brought me in contact with editors who disagreed with my actions on a number of occasions. At every opportunity, I have attempted to educate users based on policies and guidelines, keep matters as cool as possible and stay focused on outcome rather than who is 'right' or 'wrong'. I am not perfect, and do not claim to be. When I am in error, I make every effort to correct those errors and make amends as appropriate.

Need for more bureaucrats: A frequent stance of opposition to new bureaucrats is the feeling that we do not need more bureaucrats. This seems obviated by the recent resignation. However, there are other reasons that I feel we need more bureaucrats, regardless of the recent resignation:

• Single point failure processes. It is quite true, as has been maintained by others here, that RfA suffers no backlogs of any significance and has not done so for quite sometime. RfA though is not the only bureaucrat responsibility. Wiki: Changing username suffered backlogs on a routine basis whenever Essjay was temporarily absent. No process on Wikipedia should be so dependent on a single person that it becomes immediately backlogged if that person steps away.
• Related to this, some regard WP:CHU as having little significance; Wikipedia will continue on just fine if it happens to be backlogged for a couple of weeks. There's truth to its impact on Wikipedia, at least in the short term. However, there's another aspect to this. A significant number of users who come to WP:CHU do so with the intent of protecting their privacy. Frequently, they begin editing under their real name or a well known (off Wikipedia) pseudonym and decide that this potentially exposes them to privacy violations. These users are rightfully concerned about their privacy. To not respond to their requests in a timely manner leaves them exposed and has the potential for turning users away from Wikipedia who otherwise might be fantastic contributors. This devolves into a customer service issue; if we have WP:CHU, we should keep up to date on it.
• The last time we promoted a bureaucrat was in June of 2006. Since that time, the number of accepted/rejected RfAs per month has nearly doubled going from an average of 36 for April/May/June 2006 to 68 for November/December/January 2006/07 . WP:CHU has also nearly doubled in activity, going from an average of 122 per month for the former period to 211 for the latter. We have also added Wiki: Changing username/Usurpations which in its first full month of operation (February 2007) saw 50 new requests.

The recent resignation does leave a vacuum; we are now down to effectively two bureaucrats at RfA (Redux and Taxman), who are the only bureaucrats who have performed more than three RfA promotions in the last three months. Over the last three months Essjay was responsible for 18% of the RfA promotions and 39% of all renames . Further, WP:CHU routinely became backlogged whenever Essjay stepped away. I will note Wiki: Bots/Requests for approval was not a major area of contribution for Essjay, where Taxman conducts 2/3rds of the bot flagging, and Essjay was responsible for only five over the last five months. However, the other areas of bureaucrat responsibility have lost a very significant portion of their active bureaucrats with the Essjay resignation. I believe the most important element here is this; if, in the event of a potentially controversial promotion, a bureaucrat needs to consult with another bureaucrat prior to making a decision, having just two bureaucrats active at RfA creates a problematic situation.

Philosophy on contentious RfAs: For nearly as long as RfA has existed, there has been dispute about where, exactly, the cut off line (in %) for successful RfAs exists. Many other language Wikipedias have established clear cut off lines. On en.wikipedia, the reality is there isn't a line that is absolute. We abide by consensus of course, though we quite often have discussions on the cut off line. The generally held principle is that the cut off is 75% for promotion for most (2/3rds at 75-80 pass), with 80% being guaranteed. Past practice has shown that from June 2005 forward, promotion has been granted for every nominee with >80% raw support. For less than 75%, there have been promotions though they have been very few and far between. In practice any promotion at less than 75% raw support creates controversy and usually creates enough uproar that one or more users decide to leave the project over the matter. I do not believe that at any time we are so desperately in need of admins that we must promote a nominee when that promotion offers the very real possibility of heavy controversy. Further, any nominee who does not succeed at the current RfA is welcome to reapply at a later date. The nominee may feel quite put off at failing an RfA; it has happened before and will happen again. Yes, we should be sensitive to that nominee and we should be sensitive to the likely outcome of promoting RfAs below 75% raw support. Both need to be taken into consideration with the primary focus not being the needs of any one editor but the needs of the project as a whole. All this said, our primary focus is consensus, not particular cut off lines. We need to stay focused on consensus while acknowledging the expectations and past responses of the community at large.

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: Accepted. --Durin 17:45, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia in this capacity. Please take the time to answer a few generic questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. Have you read the discussions on when to promote and not promote? What do you understand the criteria for promotion to be?
A. The criteria for promotion is consensus among editors at RfA. In practice, any nominee that garners >80% raw support is promoted. Almost any nominee with less than 75% is not promoted. 2/3rds of nominees with 75%-79.99% raw support are promoted. See my commentary above in the section "Philosophy on contentious RfAs".
2. How would you deal with contentious nominations where a decision to promote or not promote might be criticized?
A. Openly discuss with other bureaucrats the best course of action to take. My general philosophy on contentious promotions is outlined as noted above. If the other bureaucrats disagree with my position and there is consensus to take action in a particular direction, then that consensus prevails.
3. Wikipedians expect bureaucrats to adhere to high standards of fairness, knowledge of policy and the ability to engage others in the community. Why do you feel you meet those standards?
A. When there is a disputed subject, I take great pains to explain myself in detail. An example of this is my closure of Wiki: Articles for deletion/International Institute of Management and the rationale I presented for closing as delete which may be seen at Wiki talk:Articles for deletion/International Institute of Management. You can not satisfy everyone with such efforts. However, if you are clear and open in your rationale, it helps to resolve disputes based on the decision. I make very significant attempts to communicate to users as much as possible; they are our greatest asset here. Much of my feeling on fairness with respect to users can be summed up by my philosophy on editors here; all good faith editors, from the first time editor to Jimbo, deserve our respect and all are equal in almost all cases (one of the exceptions being decisions handed down by Jimbo or ArbCom in his stead). In fairness on RfAs; see my notes above. In particular, we need to remain focused on the goals of the project. That is our purpose here. In knowledge of policy; I once did a study that showed that 1/3rd of all policies are undergoing frequent change. No editor can in fact remain up to date on all policies. My approach on this is that when I find reason to invoke a policy that I am not quite familiar with, I review that policy and see how it has recently been applied, before taking any action with respect to that policy.
4. If you become a bureaucrat, will you pledge not to discuss promotion or non-promotion of potential admins on any other forum during the course of nominations and especially when making a decision? And to discuss issues of promotion or non-promotion only with other bureaucrats, in their talk, or at the Bureaucrats' noticeboard where such discussion would be transparent?
A. This very question is under discussion at Wiki_talk:Requests_for_adminship#Deleting_one.27s_RfB. I believe consulting other bureaucrats on potentially contentious closures of RfA is important, and pledge to do so. I further pledge that I will do so in on-wiki forums unless there arises a clear case where the best needs of the project are better served by an off-wiki discussion. Such a case would be rare indeed. I do not think it is wise to exclude someone from a discussion if they have a valid point and they do not happen to be a bureaucrat. All good faith editors are equal.
5. Do you have the time and do you have the desire to visit WP:RFA, WP:B/RFA, and/or WP:CHU on a regular basis to attend to those requests?
A. As demonstrated by my long track record at WP:RFA and WP:CHU, yes I will be very active in those areas. WP:B/RFA is largely managed by Taxman at this time. As noted above, I have had that page watchlisted for many months and will of course help out there as needed.

Answering questions from recent prior RfBs (where the questions were abstract, not to the particular RfB nominee):

6. Have you ever nominated anyone to become an administrator? If so, who and why did you choose them, and if not why not?
Yes. I have nominated 9 people for administrator, beginning in October of 2005, and the most recent being in February of 2007. All have been successful. I chose them based on my guidelines at User:Durin/My guidelines for admin nomination.
7. Why should you be a bureaucrat? Make your publicity plug here.
Should be mostly answered above by my prior comments. I believe I have the experience and knowledge to be a bureaucrat, and can contribute extensively as one.
8. I think it would be helpful to understand more of what exactly you intend to do with bureaucrat status. Do you intend to focus on anything in particular? Do you feel that there is a need for more help in requests for changing username or in granting bot status, for example?
My primary areas of focus would be WP:RFA, WP:CHU, and WP:CHU/U. As noted above, WP:B/RFA is managed largely by Taxman. I will of course help out as needed there. As for need, see above comments above at "Need for more bureaucrats"
9. When I read question 4, I immediately remember Taxman's RfB promise, for which he was bashed and even asked to resign. Now, I am not asking you if you are going to resign for not respecting any of these points, but instead, what would make you resign from your bureaucratship? What would you consider a grave fault to resign, by yourself and with nobody asking you to do so, from your condition?
If it became apparent that the community had lost faith in my ability as a bureaucrat, I would of course step down without a direct request to do so. I serve at the leisure of the project in all regards. I believe it is important for all people to understand that no one person is so categorically important to the project that we can not do without them. 20 years from now, I may not be here at Wiki English. If that is the case, it is likely nobody will remember me. What each of us does here is insignificant to the overall project. This applies to anyone. We are all ants working towards the common goal. Nobody remembers any one ant. If it became obvious to me that my work as a bureaucrat ant was counter to our efforts as a project, I would step down. I am always open to criticism, and have repeatedly adjusted by behaviors in response to such input.
10. Acting as a bureaucrat often means making controversial decisions in cases where consensus is not always clear. How do you approach such situations? How would you address the matter in such a way that all "sides" of the matter feel that they have been considered? How would you determine consensus in such a matter?
Consensus in abstract definition is something that RfA no longer really achieves. We do not, as a group, agree on a particular RfA when there are two or more camps in disagreement over a particular nominee. Wikipedia defines consensus as something where people have "unanimous approval" Merriam-Webster defines consensus as "unanimity" . On contentious nominations, we never have unanimity. I will go back to what I have said above; we must remain focused on the best purposes and goals of the entire project. On potentially contentious RfAs, I would give an extensive review of why I took my actions on the RfA's talk page, and would attempt to address all concerns there.
11. One of the activities of a bureaucrat is changing usernames upon request. Oftentimes this is a fairly clearcut activity, but sometimes it is not. Such is the case with username usurpations, when a user requests a change to a name that is already taken, but has made few or no edits. Assume for a moment that you must take action on such a request - how would you handle such a situation?
Usurpation policy is not to usurp an account with any edits. Similarly, change username policy prevents changing to an existing username. The non-clear cut cases exist not at WP:CHU/U but at WP:CHU where changing to another username may create confusion among two usernames. In such cases where that may happen and the other user with whom there may be confusion has contributed, I would either discuss the matter with other bureaucrats, discuss the matter with the user with whom the new name may be confused, or both.
12. Do you pledge never to promote a person you are affiliated with or to discuss their RfA with them in a bureaucratic sense?
I pledge never to close an RfA or RfB on which I have contributed. I would never close an RfA or RfB where such closure would create an apparent conflict of interest, such as an editor with whom I have had a significant disagreement.
13. Determining consensus is a crucial part of Wikipedia, more-so to our bureaucrats as they have a lot of trust placed in them. Have a look at this RfA, then please give an idea as to what you believe the consensus is there and if you'd of promoted the user. Matthew 08:24, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Much of my prior comments in this RfB should serve to answer this question. In general, no I would not have promoted this RfA. It is likely I would have taken it under advisement with other bureaucrats. Regardless, I would have explained my actions in closing whatever direction it went.
14. What do you think about whether a bureaucrat should have privilege of de-sysoping of an admin or not? Explain the reason behind your ideas. Shyam ^(T/C) 19:32, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Though bureaucrats are expected to have good judgment, they are not the Arbitration Committee. Any admins that have been forcibly de-adminned have been so by decision of ArbCom or by decision of Jimbo. The cases have been few and far between, and are certainly an insignificant burden to the dozens of stewards we have at Meta to handle these tasks. Bureaucrats were originally created at en.wikipedia to delegate the task of adding sysop status as needed on this project. If there were a significant enough need for bureaucrats to have the ability to de-admin people on each project, I'm sure they would raise the issue. At this point, I can't see there being a need. Since the inception of the project, we've had less than 100 such cases.

References