Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Liz: Difference between revisions
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#::The problem arises when someone who does not have a clue about content creation or creators, and who said this: {{tq|I'd make editing at places like the Help desk, the reference desks, DRN or the Teahouse just as important as writing an FA.}}, [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard&diff=prev&oldid=662833953 here]. I'm sorry, while those are important, they are nowhere near as important as our featured content, and to claim otherwise indicates that she just doesn't get it. <span style="border:1px solid #900;padding:2px;background:#fffff4">[[User:GregJackP|<span style="color:#900;font-size:110%;font-family:Mistral">GregJackP</span>]] [[User talk:GregJackP|<span style="color:#900;font-size:60%">Boomer!</span>]]</span> 19:45, 2 August 2015 (UTC) |
#::The problem arises when someone who does not have a clue about content creation or creators, and who said this: {{tq|I'd make editing at places like the Help desk, the reference desks, DRN or the Teahouse just as important as writing an FA.}}, [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard&diff=prev&oldid=662833953 here]. I'm sorry, while those are important, they are nowhere near as important as our featured content, and to claim otherwise indicates that she just doesn't get it. <span style="border:1px solid #900;padding:2px;background:#fffff4">[[User:GregJackP|<span style="color:#900;font-size:110%;font-family:Mistral">GregJackP</span>]] [[User talk:GregJackP|<span style="color:#900;font-size:60%">Boomer!</span>]]</span> 19:45, 2 August 2015 (UTC) |
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#:::How about instead of 'important' we talk about 'crucial.' Editing at administrative noticeboards, etc., is just as <i>crucial</s>? Because without those we have chaos, and no one can find or trust the featured content. [[User:Valereee|valereee]] ([[User talk:Valereee|talk]]) 20:22, 2 August 2015 (UTC) |
#:::How about instead of 'important' we talk about 'crucial.' Editing at administrative noticeboards, etc., is just as <i>crucial</s>? Because without those we have chaos, and no one can find or trust the featured content. [[User:Valereee|valereee]] ([[User talk:Valereee|talk]]) 20:22, 2 August 2015 (UTC) |
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#::::No, it is not crucial, it is currently where people go to hound content creators. The problem is that non-content creators have a mistaken idea that they are as valuable to the project as those who create content. The purpose of admins should be to keep the riff-raff away from the content creators. That's why we need admins who have created content, not those who view this as a social media experiment. <span style="border:1px solid #900;padding:2px;background:#fffff4">[[User:GregJackP|<span style="color:#900;font-size:110%;font-family:Mistral">GregJackP</span>]] [[User talk:GregJackP|<span style="color:#900;font-size:60%">Boomer!</span>]]</span> 20:31, 2 August 2015 (UTC) |
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#:::I have a hard time swallowing the idea that having an obsessive knowledge of hurricanes or video games, which are what a disproportionate number of our featured articles seem to be about, makes or breaks being a decent administrator. I handle a lot of AE issues, a lot of unreferenced BLPs, and did my fair share of untangling nastiness in Indian caste disputes; I have no writing experience in any of those areas on Wikipedia, though I do in my personal life, and I have yet to have it raised as a serious issue in one of my administrative decisions. Besides, even if you think they're not the most important areas someone still has to do it; after all, business executives generally have secretaries without whom they would never be able to do the best at their jobs. Their secretaries may have no real grasp of business management, but they're still essential to the functioning of the company. [[User:The Blade of the Northern Lights|The Blade of the Northern Lights]] ([[User talk:The Blade of the Northern Lights|<font face="MS Mincho" color="black">話して下さい</font>]]) 19:59, 2 August 2015 (UTC) |
#:::I have a hard time swallowing the idea that having an obsessive knowledge of hurricanes or video games, which are what a disproportionate number of our featured articles seem to be about, makes or breaks being a decent administrator. I handle a lot of AE issues, a lot of unreferenced BLPs, and did my fair share of untangling nastiness in Indian caste disputes; I have no writing experience in any of those areas on Wikipedia, though I do in my personal life, and I have yet to have it raised as a serious issue in one of my administrative decisions. Besides, even if you think they're not the most important areas someone still has to do it; after all, business executives generally have secretaries without whom they would never be able to do the best at their jobs. Their secretaries may have no real grasp of business management, but they're still essential to the functioning of the company. [[User:The Blade of the Northern Lights|The Blade of the Northern Lights]] ([[User talk:The Blade of the Northern Lights|<font face="MS Mincho" color="black">話して下さい</font>]]) 19:59, 2 August 2015 (UTC) |
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#'''Oppose''' (Moved from Support) - First off I sincerely apologize for saying "''Good luck although you probably won't need it as you'll sail through this''" - At the time I didn't think there would be any issues but in hindsight I shouldn't of said that, Anyway the opposes raise some valid concerns and If I'm being totally honest it's been on mind for quite a few days, Whilst I'm not too bothered with content creations I am concerned with the constant ANI drama, As others have noted it seems you spend less time on articles and more at ANI & other noticeboard which isn't the way to go. –[[User:Davey2010|<span style="color: blue;">'''Davey'''</span><span style="color: orange;">'''2010'''</span>]]<sup>[[User talk:Davey2010|<span style="color: navy;">'''Talk'''</span>]]</sup> 16:24, 2 August 2015 (UTC) |
#'''Oppose''' (Moved from Support) - First off I sincerely apologize for saying "''Good luck although you probably won't need it as you'll sail through this''" - At the time I didn't think there would be any issues but in hindsight I shouldn't of said that, Anyway the opposes raise some valid concerns and If I'm being totally honest it's been on mind for quite a few days, Whilst I'm not too bothered with content creations I am concerned with the constant ANI drama, As others have noted it seems you spend less time on articles and more at ANI & other noticeboard which isn't the way to go. –[[User:Davey2010|<span style="color: blue;">'''Davey'''</span><span style="color: orange;">'''2010'''</span>]]<sup>[[User talk:Davey2010|<span style="color: navy;">'''Talk'''</span>]]</sup> 16:24, 2 August 2015 (UTC) |
Revision as of 20:31, 2 August 2015
Voice your opinion on this candidate (talk page) (158/43/7); Scheduled to end 10:38, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
Nomination
Liz (talk · contribs) – Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to present to you an outstanding candidate for adminship, Liz. Liz has been around on Wikipedia for a couple of years, but I can't remember a time without seeing her name in conversations. I'm pleased to say that whenever I look, she's the one talking sense! A quick look at her talk page will show you how helpful she is and how much of a difference she makes. Liz is active at the Teahouse, helping out new users, helps out at places like BLP noticeboard and does an exceptional job dealing with difficult users as an arbitration committee clerk. Her diplomatic skills are exemplary and she has managed to remain a calm and sensible voice in our more contentious areas. When she's not doing that, she's gnoming away categories, making sure the encyclopedia is organised.
I do always have a concern when a candidate does not have significant content work - it makes it harder for them to empathise with those editors who do and lack of empathy leads to a significant portion of admin problems. Liz, however, has demonstrated empathy, understanding and helpfulness. That certainly allays my fears there.
Overall, we're left with a candidate who ticks the right boxes. When it comes down to it, I trust her to be an excellent administrator, and that's all I could ask for. WormTT(talk) 06:28, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
Co-nomination
I've been aware of Liz primarily through her work as an ArbCom clerk, and the way she approaches this role has convinced me that she would be an excellent candidate for admin rights. Liz has two major points in her favour: firstly, she's proved to be a model of diplomacy and discretion when dealing with complex, heated issues; and secondly, she's never been afraid to ask for help and advice when unsure of something. I'm absolutely confident that, if handed the tools, she would be one of our most cautious and circumspect administrators.
The spectre of content creation (or lack thereof) will undoubtedly raise it's head during this discussion; my position is that content creators are at the heart of Wikipedia, and that those who don't deal in content have the primary duty of supporting those who do. Liz already provides this support - how much more effective would she be with administrative rights as well? Yunshui 雲水 07:51, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
Another conomination
It is my great pleasure to conominate Liz for adminship. It's not often that one encounters such a versatile candidate, somebody who can work both in extremely out-of-the-way places and tackle issues in the most high-profile parts of Wikipedia, and Liz does both. For better or for worse CfD is about as backwater a place as it gets, and she has been invaluable to the process and keeping it from falling into total disarray. At the same time, whenever I see her username come up during an ANI dispute or during an arbitration request there is always a helpful and thoughtful comment attached to it. She has clearly demonstrated excellent knowledge of Wikipedia's myriad policies and forums, and giving her some extra administrative tools to carry out her work will make Wikipedia that much better a place for both our readers and editors. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:29, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
- Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I gratefully accept. Thank you to my Worm That Turned, Yunshui and The Blade of the Northern Lights for the nomination. Liz Read! Talk! 10:28, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
Questions for the candidate
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. Please answer these questions to provide guidance for participants:
- 1. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?
- A: I intend to work in areas I'm familiar with, specifically, in my clerk duties for ArbCom and also in WP:CFD discussions. I'm becoming more familiar with deletion discussions and would start off cautiously with areas like WP:EXPROD, WP:EXPRODBLP, CAT:EMPTY,Category:Expired editnotices and CAT:G13. I'd also like to help out on noticeboards like WP:RFPP and WP:UAA. Aside from working in backlogged administrative areas, I also want to spend time discussing with new editors problems that might occur regarding appropriate usernames and user page issues like WP:NOTWEBHOST and WP:NOTDIRECTORY
- 2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
- A: I'm primarily a wikignome and I do a lot of work with categories and categorization. I think the biggest project I took on was categorizing all 3,916 Signpost articles that were issued over its 10 1/2 year run. Aside from some of the articles covering WikiProject reports which Ottawahitech categorized a few years ago, the vast majority of articles were uncategorized and the archives were very incomplete. I view the Signpost as an invaluable resource in understanding how Wikipedia, Wikipedia's editors and policies have evolved after 2005 and the archives are available to both editors and researchers who are interested in seeing, for example, how Wikipedia has been portrayed in the media, how the arbitration process has changed and how new technology has been introduced to the project. I know that I learned an awful lot about the Wikipedia editing community when I went through all of the articles. I should mention that there is an additional indexing/tagging project that is starting at the Signpost but I still believe that, aside from the search tool, categories are the primary and most basic way to find information and that having the articles correctly categorized will facilitate that project.
- The other large project I undertook was in March 2014, I went through 1,174 WikiProjects (along with their task forces), reviewed their status (active, inactive, defunct or semi-active) and updated their tagging and categorization. In some cases, editing a dormant WikiProject caused a conversation with a member as the page unexpectedly popped up on their Watchlist. I was able to see the incredible diversity in WikiProjects that have been created and how activity levels have changed over the years. Also, in the past, I spent a lot of time on noticeboards and I like to think that I helped the discussions there stay on topic.
- 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: Unless one edits in a rarely visited topical area of Wikipedia, editing will sometimes involve conflict. Editors have different levels of editing experience, work with different knowledge bases and bring their own point of view. Well-intentioned people can disagree when they collaborate. But conflict isn't always destructive and full of animosity, sometimes lively discussion about an article can lead to improvement. I know there are several editors I greatly respect now but my first encounter with them was not initially a positive experience. I try not to take criticism personally and look for the kernel of truth amid cautions and warnings I've received. I also find it helpful not to edit when I'm tired because when one is sleep-deprived, one can get sloppy or be overly sarcastic or bitey towards other editors.
- When I think of serious conflicts I've had on Wikipedia, they haven't been about editing, they have been about my choice to defend some editors that I thought, at that time, were being bullied. I believed that every editor deserved to have their say and thought these editors were getting shouted down. My defense of these editors made me unpopular among regular editors in this subject area (biographies that were related to pseudoscience). This didn't cause me stress because at the time I truly believed what I was doing was helping reach a consensus. In hindsight, I see that I shouldn't have participated in divisive arguments without knowing the more of the details of the articles in contention along with their history. Also, while many new editors are simply unfamiliar with the editing and consensus processes at Wikipedia and they have the potential to get clue, other newbies are extremely persistent, unwilling to drop the stick and are here to right great wrongs. I've learned to be more circumspect when entering areas that have become a battleground. I'm careful when editing an article that falls under discretionary sanctions because there is a reason why the sanctions exist, because the discussion surrounding the subject has been contentious.
- Additional question from Northamerica1000
- 4. How do you perceive the overall present state of AfD on Wikipedia?
- A: Although I first nominated an article for deletion right after I started this account (which was kept), I consider myself a newcomer at AfD. I'm hesitant to pass judgment on an area of Wikipedia where there are regular editors and admins who devote a lot of time to discussion and determining notability while I have limited experience there. But I think, like many areas of Wikipedia, AfD could benefit from wider participation of a larger pool of contributors. I've been looking through a lot of AfD nominations lately and there are many which have one or no other editors weighing in other than the nominator. And sometimes articles get deleted based on an AfD nomination and one other editor arguing for deletion which seems like a low bar for deletion of content. Relisting can help but it doesn't always draw in fresh eyes.
- But having participated a lot at CfD and a bit at MfD, I can say that there is often a small group of regulars who actively prevent backlogs from occurring. Editors who participate in focused areas like reviewing GAs, FAs or at AfC might have the same lament of needing more editors to help out a core group of regulars. On Wikipedia, editors tend to specialize in certain activities but I believe it helps the project if editors with a variety of different perspectives and experience participate in deletion discussions.
- Additional question from Nsk92
- 5. Could you give some examples of articles you created or substantially improved?
- A: No, I can't. In article space, I generally perform wikignomish tasks like copyediting, formatting (there are lots of problems with tables) and fixing references which are bare URLs or are incomplete. As you can tell if you look at my edit count, I haven't spent a lot of time focused on specific articles and have breadth, rather than depth.
- If I can just make a comment here though because I knew this question might come up. When I started seriously editing Wikipedia, I had left a long stint in graduate school where I wrote dozens of referenced papers for courses, conferences and a few publications (including one printed encyclopedia). I was exhausted by the end and, coming to Wikipedia, I wanted a break from that especially since my area of study (sociology of race, gender, religion), is full of conflict on Wikipedia. I focused on organization, that is, categories, and small editing fixes rather than content creation. But the sociology articles on Wikipedia could use some improvement and I feel like I should making a contribution there. So I hope this can change in the near future and, after educating myself on the differences between academic writing and creating content on Wikipedia, I can work on expanding Wikipedia's coverage of sociological topics, literature and scholars.
- Additional question from Brustopher
- 6. Jimmy Wales descends from the heavens and gives you the magical power to ignore all rules and salt and delete any one Wikipedia page of your choice. Which page do you choose to salt and delete, and why?
- A: That's easy, it's was just deleted last month but I would salt Wikipedia:Don't be a pussy. That essay existed on the project too long, long after Wikipedia:Don't be a dick became a redirect to Wikipedia:Don't be a jerk. I hope that page would never be recreated but I'd salt it just to be sure.
- Additional question from Brustopher
- 7. If given the mop, do you have any plans to get involved in discretionary sanctions enforcement? If so, what approach will you take towards sanctions enforcement?
- A: Yes, I think enforcing discretionary sanctions comes with the territory. Of course, if I pass this RfA, I would never take action in a subject in which I am involved. The only area covered by DS that I consider myself involved is Gamergate.
- Additional questions from User:DESiegel
- 8. What is your view of Process is important?
- A: My view is highly favorable. Although to an individual editor, processes on Wikipedia can be frustrating, there is a reason why specific processes are proposed, created and developed over time...to standardize how important decisions are made rather than making their outcome variable and arbitrary. Decisions based on processes like deletion discussions or RfAs involve determining the consensus of those editors participating rather than having one editor acting on what they believe to be true or right. An important element of Wikipedia processes is when an editor questions why their contribution has been deleted or their article failed a Good Article review, they can be told policy-based answers that will hopefully lead to content improvement rather than being told "I didn't like it."
- While acting out of process and taking shortcuts can be tempting to impatient editors or admins, doing so can lead to sanctions, blocks and even desysopping. While all Wikipedia processes can be imperfect in execution, they are a safeguard against unfairness and editors need to know that there are certain conditions that result in an article, category or template being deleted, disputes getting resolved or an editor becoming an admin, bureaucrat or arbitrator.
- 9. How strictly should the literal wording of the speedy deletion criteria be applied?
- A: Very strictly because a speedy delete tagging can have an immediate impact. If there is any question about whether the SD criteria apply or if there is significance to the subject, a PROD or AFD nomination is warranted. If the reviewing editor believes that there are specific problems with an article involving issues like COI, NPOV or inadequate referencing, they can fix it themselves, tag the article or post a notice to the article creator outlining ways the article can be improved.
- 10. What is the place of WP:IAR in carrying out administrative actions?
- A: I think it is an important pillar but should be invoked sparingly. Sometimes, as when an editor indulges in wikilawyering, they can argue for a technical interpretation of policies or guidelines that goes against their intent or purpose. So, IAR acknowledges that breaking a rule is possible if it is preventing one from improving the project. But in all cases of IAR, an editor or admin must be prepared to explain their action and supply justifications for why a specific technical reading of policy is not in keeping with the spirit of the policy. In the case of administrative actions, I believe that explaining an IAR action is part of administrator accountability.
- 11. An admin is often expected or requested to help others, particularly new users, and to aid in calming disputes, either resolving them or pointing the participants to proper venues for resolution. How do you see yourself in this aspect of an Admin's role?
- A: I think this is an important role for both editors and administrators. While many people focus on the tools an administrator has at their disposal, an less appreciated skill is the ability to communicate with editors, particularly ones that are unfamiliar with Wikipedia's many guidelines. When I moved from being a casual editor to a regular one, I was pretty frustrated, finding myself corrected for not following so many rules I didn't even know existed. Calm explanations from editors and admins, like Redrose64, made the difference between me learning the ropes here or leaving embittered. I believe in a revised version of Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by ignorance and I appreciate the editors and admins who take the time to explain procedures before chastising new editors for not following them. I aspire to follow their example.
- Additional question from Ritchie333
- 12. A brand new user creates an article. Its entire content is : "Wings Place is a house in sussex". What do you do?
- A: Initially, this looks like a CSD A1 but doing a search quickly provides information on the ‘Anne of Cleves House’. I find that Anne of Cleves House already exists on Wikipedia but I'd have to do a bit more sleuthing to see if the two houses are one and the same since I'm not familiar with Sussex. If they are the same house, I would change the Wings Place page to a redirect to the Anne of Cleves House and notify the creator that their article duplicates an existing topic. If they aren't the same house, well, I'd use whatever information I found to provide referencing to this newly created article.
- Additional question from Ritchie333
- 13. An IP removes a paragraph from Moors Murders. An experienced and popular editor who helped get the article through FAC reverts with a summary "not an improvement". The two editors revert each other again. The IP adds a note to to the talk page and reverts. The experienced editor reverts again with an edit summary "have you got shit for brains or what?" An uninvolved third party posts a note to WP:AN3. As an admin, what do you do?
- A: I don't know the span of time over which these reverts happened (a day? weeks?) but assuming it is over 24 hours, they haven't gone over 3 reverts. But this is clear edit-warring. I'd post a warning notice to both the IP and the experienced editor and encourage them to discuss the proposed changes on the article talk page. I think the IP would need to make an exceptionally strong case to justify the wholesale removal of a paragraph from a Featured Article. I'd also make sure that Moors Murders is on my Watchlist so I could see if there was further disruption to the article.
- Additional question from Hawkeye7
- 14 A Wikipedian sneaks into a portaloo at Wikimania and removes the contents left by Jimbo Wales. A home canning outfit is then used, and the results are sold on EBay as "Jimbo Wales's canned shit." This attracts mainstream media attention. Can an article be created about the product? Which of our policies and guidelines apply here?
- A: @Hawkeye7:, points for originality. First, I doubt that a story about anyone's canned excrement on EBay would be covered by reliable sources (WP:V) but since this is a hypothetical case, let's assume that the New York Times and the BBC publish a story about "Jimbo Wales's canned shit" rather than the incident being covered by tabloid sources (WP:BLPSOURCES) which would not be considered reliable. An article can be created on any subject but this one would be deleted due to violations of WP:BLP policy, specifically, "biographies of living persons ('BLPs') must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy." While an argument could be made based on Wales being a public figure, BLP policy states that a negative allegation or incident can be mentioned in an article if it is "noteworthy, relevant, and well documented". In this case, I would argue that this incident isn't noteworthy or relevant when considering the entire biography of Wales and is a trivial incident that has little to no influence on his life, career or impact on culture.
- Comment Artist's Shit - context is everything. Bazj (talk) 15:09, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- I wasn't quizzing on knowledge of art. It's about our policies and guides. Liz demonstrates a good understanding of WP:BLP. She did not consider whether it falls under WP:NPA. I find the characterisation would be deleted unsatisfying. Does an article about a product fall under WP:BLP? Is the quoted policy grounds for deletion? What is the deletion process? Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:24, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- The first sentence of WP:BLP reads: "Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page." (Emphasis in original.) WP:NPA is solely regarding fellow editors, not Wikipedia articles or article subjects. WP:BLP covers attack pages, etc. Softlavender (talk) 03:21, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- (1) That's what BLP says, but does it not usually require removal of the offending material rather than deletion of the entire article concerned? (2) Isn't Jimbo Wales a fellow editor? Hawkeye7 (talk) 12:32, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Your question was about an entire article, not just isolated offending material within an article. Whether someone mentioned in a Wikipedia article is a Wikipedia editor is immaterial; two separate policies apply: one for articles and persons mentioned in them, and one for Wikipedia editors. Softlavender (talk) 23:59, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- NPA is not "solely regarding fellow editors"; read it again. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 22:46, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Yes, SM, it is. Read it again. I don't see the value of prolonging this discussion(s) on Liz's RfA, so if it is to be discussed further, it should probably move to the Talk page. Softlavender (talk) 23:59, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- (1) That's what BLP says, but does it not usually require removal of the offending material rather than deletion of the entire article concerned? (2) Isn't Jimbo Wales a fellow editor? Hawkeye7 (talk) 12:32, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- The first sentence of WP:BLP reads: "Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page." (Emphasis in original.) WP:NPA is solely regarding fellow editors, not Wikipedia articles or article subjects. WP:BLP covers attack pages, etc. Softlavender (talk) 03:21, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- I wasn't quizzing on knowledge of art. It's about our policies and guides. Liz demonstrates a good understanding of WP:BLP. She did not consider whether it falls under WP:NPA. I find the characterisation would be deleted unsatisfying. Does an article about a product fall under WP:BLP? Is the quoted policy grounds for deletion? What is the deletion process? Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:24, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Comment Artist's Shit - context is everything. Bazj (talk) 15:09, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- A: @Hawkeye7:, points for originality. First, I doubt that a story about anyone's canned excrement on EBay would be covered by reliable sources (WP:V) but since this is a hypothetical case, let's assume that the New York Times and the BBC publish a story about "Jimbo Wales's canned shit" rather than the incident being covered by tabloid sources (WP:BLPSOURCES) which would not be considered reliable. An article can be created on any subject but this one would be deleted due to violations of WP:BLP policy, specifically, "biographies of living persons ('BLPs') must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy." While an argument could be made based on Wales being a public figure, BLP policy states that a negative allegation or incident can be mentioned in an article if it is "noteworthy, relevant, and well documented". In this case, I would argue that this incident isn't noteworthy or relevant when considering the entire biography of Wales and is a trivial incident that has little to no influence on his life, career or impact on culture.
- Additional question from Bishonen
- 15 Liz, I note your response to question 3 above, where you mention your "choice to defend some editors that I thought, at that time, were being bullied" and that you would have acted more circumspectly today. I hope you don't mind if I ask a little more specifically about your choices now. What are your present ideas wrt WP:FRINGE and fringe POV-pushers? A year or two ago, I thought them dubious, indeed to be absolutely frank I regarded you as something of an enabler of fringe editors. Strong words, I know, and I totally know you act differently now. You're a tactful clerk on arb pages, you're helpful all over the place, and I don't really know if you edit wrt to fringe editors at all these days. (Your gnoming edits are very helpful, Liz, but the sheer copiousness of them means your contribs are hard to parse.)
- Your input on the Tumbleman SPI was deplorable IMO. But it's from a year and a half ago, and so Wikipedia's "it was ages ago, AGF that the candidate has learned better since" principle kicks in, and Manul removes his question. But I would like you yourself (not so much your supporters), if you would, to state whether or not you think differently now. I think your emphasis on popularity and circumspection above may not do you justice, and, well, I'd like to feel able to support without misgivings. A few examples: do you have any opinion today about the campaign that drove IRWolfie off Wikipedia? I'm not suggesting you took active part in any campaign, but I noted your post (diplomatically speaking of "certain editors" but chiefly meaning Wolfie) in this thread (the thread is important context). That's not a huge deal on your part, just one edit and just something I happened to be aware of, since Wolfie asked me twice for long self-requested blocks, and I know how those unreelenting attacks affected him. Somewhat bigger examples: Do you feel any differently today about your support of Askahrc or Tumbleman[1]? BTW, I would ignore Hawkeye's question just above if I were you, maybe remove it. It's a troll. Oh, I see you already replied, while I was fiddling with this post. Up to you, but it's still a troll. I'd have removed it. Bishonen | talk 18:35, 30 July 2015 (UTC).
- A: Thank you, Bishonen, for providing me with such nuanced feedback. I don't want to write a wall of text in response and I feel like no matter how much I write, you might find the answer incomplete. But I'll do my best.
- I was a casual editor of Wikipedia until July 2013 when I began editing more intensively. From July-October 2013, I was rather zealous, idealistic and prone to want to right great wrongs. I am a strong believer in assuming good faith and, until the sockpuppet investigation indicated that the Tumbleman had used a number of accounts, I believed in giving the editor the benefit of the doubt. I didn't view his commentary on the Rupert Sheldrake talk page as disruptive, I thought he was just presenting a different point of view than the editors who were actively working on this article. But it was a battleground at that time. I was not aware of IRWolfie being driven off of Wikipedia as, the way I view it, he was very successful it bringing editors to AE when he thought they were violating pseudoscience discretionary sanctions. I wasn't aware of unrelenting attacks against him but as there are blog entries discussing me, using my real life identity, because of comments I've made on Gamergate, I can sympathize with him if he was a target of off-wiki maligning. It is disheartening and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
- As for the area of pseudoscience, I give it a wide berth. I haven't edited any pseudoscience articles, I never received a notice about pseudoscience discretionary sanctions, my comments regarding editors working in this area (not the subjects themselves) were in project space, user talk pages and article talk pages. What my issue has always been is with labeling people as being "fringe". I know that fringe POV pushers, trolls, socks and otherwise disruptive editors exist and that they consistently cause damage to Wikipedia. But I also see that these are labels that once given to editors, especially new editors, are impossible to shake or overcome. Being called "fringe" by an editor is basically a sign to others that this individual is here to cause trouble and should be given the boot. I think there should be evidence that an editor is here to promote a point of view contrary to mainstream science and I don't think talk page comments hold the same weight as edits that shape articles on sensitive subjects.
- As for how I would act differently now, well, when a number of well-established editors criticize an editor as being disruptive, I don't dismiss their concerns, I view the situation objectively rather than as a battleground between editors with different levels of influence which is how I viewed it two years ago. But, to be honest, since I returned to Wikipedia after a wikibreak, I spend little time on noticeboards, especially compared to my past behavior, and I'm no longer drawn into controversy. The one exception I see is Gamergate where I keep a limited presence on the talk page as I think it is important for at least one female editor to participate there.
- I don't know if these answers will reassure you, or anyone else, or whether it tilts your vote in one direction or the other. But you asked me valid questions and I think editors participating here should know where I used to stand and where I stand now. Please let me know if you have additional questions you'd like me to address if this answer is insufficient.
- Additional question from SNUGGUMS
- 16. You come across and block a new user named "Fuckmyass69" who posts nothing but spam, including on their own pages. How likely are you to revoke talk page access?
- A: The default for blocks is to allow talk page access for blocked editors so that they can request an unblock. If this editor continues to post spam on their user talk page after they are blocked, then it is appropriate to disable this because of continued abuse of their talk page.
- I'd just like to point out the imporbablity of this scenario. An editor with a name like this would be blocked within minutes of registering this username, if the filters even allowed it in the first place. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:05, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- It is improbable indeed, Beeblebrox, though I did once come across a user named "Bigtits82" who managed to get in several inappropriate article talk page posts before being blocked for that and the username issue. The user requested a name change before being confirmed as a sock puppet and having talk page access revoked. Snuggums (talk / edits) 23:00, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- I'd just like to point out the imporbablity of this scenario. An editor with a name like this would be blocked within minutes of registering this username, if the filters even allowed it in the first place. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:05, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- A: The default for blocks is to allow talk page access for blocked editors so that they can request an unblock. If this editor continues to post spam on their user talk page after they are blocked, then it is appropriate to disable this because of continued abuse of their talk page.
- Additional question from IHTS
- 17. Explain please why you feel it is more important to keep your username physically larger than 99.9% of other users' user signatures, instead of shinking it sufficiently such that it doesn't perpetually throw off line spacing where ever your posts might be read. (It's a constant minor irritant that never goes away, since it's 99.9% unexpected, since is so unusual. Why is your personal signature size worth messing with line spacing for all readers where you might ever post? Each time it causes a flashed thought of missing a user post causing a paragraph break, a user forgot to sign in the previous paragraph, "is something wrong with my computer", etc. etc. These "flash-thoughts" are involuntary BTW, just like if I say "cow" you can't not flash-think of that animal. You never got this feedback from me, do you think I'm alone? Would it cause you to cry to shrink your username to not throw off vertical line-spacing? Vertical line spacing has meaning on WP, which other than images is all about text, sentences, paragraphs. If you think your username distorting vertical line spacing is "not disallowed", I'm not interested in hearing that because that isn't the point.) IHTS (talk) 00:46, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- I don't want insert myself too much, but this is ridiculous. Either ask a question or don't, and spare us the invective. If you feel the need to go on a petulant rant about the candidate, you can add it to the petulant rant you already posted. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:46, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- My Q isn't "about the candidate", it's clear I'm asking if she will do something about the size of her sig, and let her know clearly my issue w/ it. And don't go pretending your comment is face-value, you've been consistently harassing me at community boards when given the chance, ever since I posted to your Talk over three years ago [2]. (Meanwhile, I have consistently left you alone/never initiated anything with you.) Are you an admin?? (Very impressive.) IHTS (talk) 07:37, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- A: I have to be honest, Ihardlythinkso, this is the first complaint I've received about my signature. My signature used to be in a cursive font and a standard size but, for some reason, that font is no longer available. I saw another user's signature I liked and borrowed this font from them. I'm sorry you find it so distracting. I will search for a font that is less oversized but still distinctive so you might see changes to it in the near future.
- Thanks for being responsive to my Q, which of course was sincere. p.s. Looks like you've already collected an admin willing to be your "attack dog" (i.e. Blade). Have seen that before. He s/ get off my case. (Take a look at my Oppose. Nothing there other !voters have not also mentioned, no undue length, nothing unprofessional. Yet he characterizes as "petulant rant". [Do you see what snide *shit* admins are capable of!? In spite of "behavior at a higher standard"!? When you get the tools, warn him for me, then block his arse if he does again.]) Thanks again, and best of luck in your new role as admin. IHTS (talk) 12:56, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Liz, it isn't necessary to change your preferred font, just change the size parm 4 → 2, ala [3]. IHTS (talk) 22:29, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Ihardlythinkso, I think your way of asking this question was asinine, but given your well-known dislike of almost all admins it was to be expected. Liz, this was not the first time: see Begoon's question to you at User_talk:Drmies/Archive_84, where you complied, at least for the length of the thread. While I agree with the general point, that your signature is a bit problematic, one can hardly take that as a signal that you're unfit to be an administrator. Drmies (talk) 17:26, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- You have a better memory than I do, Drmies.
- As I was pinged, a response - Liz will make a fine administrator - she has common sense in abundance, and enormous commitment. Signatures which bugger up line spacing annoy me. They seem to say "look at me". It's no huge thing, just a personal preference. Good luck. Begoon talk 18:17, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Drmies, okay my Q could have been presented better, but I'm not the diplomat, you are. (Perhaps because this section requires items to be couched in form of questions, and mine was really a request, helped trip me up, too.) BTW, it was a simple request, not in any way an implication "unfit for admin". (As far as I knew, she was unaware. So I included some detail.) ¶ Re "disliking almost all admins", how about putting a plug in your penchant to stereotype/defame. (I always base views on anyone on one-on-one experience with them - admin or not has nothing to do with. I've noticed many really smart minds do this [e.g. Eric Corbett, George Carlin, etc.], they see individuals, only individuals, and hold behavior accountable, if appropriate, at that level. I try to emulate those role models. [If you think I've failed, then enter a discussion page you & me and we'll get to the bottom of it. Instead of throwing mud then skipping Dodge.]) IHTS (talk) 21:28, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Additional question from Go Phightins!
- 18. I hate to pile on with another question, but do have one: What do you make of all the oppose votes concerning your lack of content creation? Is that an area you will explore in the future, regardless of whether this request passes? (I saw you alluded to this above, but wanted to give you a chance to expound.) Thanks.
- A: At this point, I see this as a friendly question, Go Phightins!. I appreciate it. I knew that my lack of content creation would be an issue, but I didn't expect anything like this response at an RfA. I was just looking at your user page and remembering in April 2015, I was named Editor of the Week! That seems like a long time ago.
- As I responded to Nsk92, I do hope to do more content creation in the future. I'd link to my master's thesis and the first draft of my dissertation as proof that I can write referenced work but they aren't online. I know academic writing is different from writing articles on Wikipedia but I did write some entries for the Encyclopedia of African-American Religions so I have some experience writing for an encyclopedia. As I said, I was in graduate school for a long time and when I started editing Wikipedia, I wanted a break from writing papers. But I do feel like I should be contributing more content-wise, I have an awful lot of reference books that are not being taken full advantage of, and I hope to write more content in the future. I'm not sure what else I can say, I'm a little speechless at this point in this RfA.
- Additional question from Godsy
- 19. A follow-up to Question 6.- Why would you choose that particular page to delete (if it still existed)? In other words:
what would your rationale be for its deletion or[as the question this is following was a WP:IAR hypothetical, striking part of this] why didn't you care for it? Under the conditions of the first question that this one is a follow-up to, it's reasonable if you simply didn't care for it. I'm unfamiliar with the page and what it contained, so a bit of context may be helpful as well. Respectfully, —Godsy(TALKCONT) 21:01, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Additional question from SMcCandlish
- 20. Can you explain what you mean by something you said in answer to a previous question:
In the case of administrative actions, I believe that explaining an IAR action is part of administrator accountability.
Do you have examples of where you think WP:IAR is properly applicable in an administrative action in particular (not a regular editing action by someone who happens to be an admin)? — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 22:46, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
General comments
- Links for Liz: Liz (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
- Edit summary usage for Liz can be found here.
Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review their contributions before commenting.
Discussion
- If I could vote, I would support. In the time - honoured phrase, "I thought you were". 86.134.217.46 (talk) 18:46, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Comment After reading through the opposes, I have a comment for those concerned that Liz's lack of content creation means she won't be able to empathize with the problems and pressures facing content creators. I do understand this concern, and it's not an invalid one. But my feeling is that content creators are very well represented within admin, and perhaps those who don't create a lot of content deserve to have people who understand them in admin roles, too. I appreciate these people. I think it's sad that anyone who is contributing constructively but not creating content would be seen as WP:NOTHERE. If this many heavy creators of content feel this way, even some very well-respected ones, then I think it's even more important that there be at least a few of these folks among admin. valereee (talk) 10:11, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Just in case anyone didn't spot it, while the RfA has been going on, Liz has contributed a significant amount to Nokuse Plantation, so I'm happy she is taking oppose comments on board and trying out some in-depth content work herself. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:40, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
Support
- Support as co-nom. Yunshui 雲水 10:32, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 10:33, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support as co-nom. WormTT(talk) 10:35, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support. Don't see why not. -- haminoon (talk) 10:39, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Absolutely qualified for the tools. Sam Walton (talk) 10:44, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Yep, seems a good editor. Looking at her talkpage I am satisfied for her becoming an admin --EurovisionNim (talk to me)(see my edits) 10:46, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support No brainer. Bazj (talk) 11:00, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support — MShabazz Talk/Stalk 11:08, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Trust me, I was waiting for this nomination for months. She is an excellent editor, I have worked with her in ArbCom related thingy and I always thought why on earth is this editor not admin. From dealing with difficult editors to helping newbies, she has proved herself to be one of the best. I bet, you can't bring up a single red flag. Jim Carter 11:10, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Patient, involved editor. No issues. Kuru (talk) 11:16, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Highly deserved. - Kautilya3 (talk) 11:17, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support This is a no-brainer. Jianhui67 T★C 11:18, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Obvious support as conom. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 11:23, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support, one of the best, most level-headed editors I've come across, will definitely be a benefit to the project. ansh666 11:36, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support. Looks good to me. Deb (talk) 11:52, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support The editor has done some amazing work, and I really thought she was an admin already. She seems like she would be a great help in admin areas that don't really seem to be patrolled that often, so that's an added bonus. BenLinus1214talk 11:55, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support precious inquiring mind, + I appreciate openly saying when a discussion is over, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:21, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Liz is someone on whom we can all always count to approach any situation with knowledge, tact, and "cautious decisiveness" (the best of both). She will be an excellent administrator. Go Phightins! 12:40, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Easy support - I've been anticipating this nomination. The candidate is well-qualified and someone that we can readily trust.- MrX 13:03, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support As close to a no-brainer as I've seen. Fine temperament for adminship and plenty of clue. Miniapolis 13:05, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support,
I do not see any issues.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:50, 28 July 2015 (UTC) A bad answer to Q16 is alarming, but insufficient for me to move to neutral.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:08, 31 July 2015 (UTC) - Support, at the risk of making the rest of us admins look bad in comparison. ;) ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 13:51, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support, a shoo-in. Guy (Help!) 14:11, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Thought she was an admin already. ~EDDY (talk/contribs)~ 15:03, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support with pleasure and without hesitation. (One note to Liz: try your best not to allow your edits to articles, already a little low, to drop lower as an admin.) I know you'll do a great job. BMK (talk) 15:31, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support. I considered nominating Liz for adminship a while ago - I'm glad to see she's running now. She's an excellent editor and I'm sure she will do well with the mop. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 15:38, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Of course support – from what I know, she should have been an Admin long ago. She'd already be in the top 10% of Admins in terms of what she knows about all the ins-and-outs of Adminship. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:07, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
Support - As proven a million and one times here you don't need to create articles to be an admin and I personally don't think it should matter but hey ho, Anyway excellent candidate, No issues!, Good luck although you probably won't need it as you'll sail through this :) –Davey2010Talk 16:49, 28 July 2015 (UTC)(Moved to Oppose. –Davey2010Talk 16:23, 2 August 2015 (UTC))
- Support. This is a no-brainer. Calidum T|C 16:51, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support, Worm was right with the "always talking sense" part; I can confirm that from all my interactions with Liz. Huon (talk) 17:00, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Whenever I have seen Liz around I have thought she should be an admin. Davewild (talk) 17:05, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support. It might seem lazy, but I'm simply supporting because she seems like a good candidate and my procedural checks didn't turn up any serious reason to oppose. Good luck! --Biblioworm 17:17, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Absolutely. I have not come across another editor who is as cautious and truly open to learning and understanding the ways of Wikipedia than Liz. If she applies even a portion of the common sense she has shown to date to admin duties then the encyclopedia will benefit substantially.--Jezebel's Ponyobons mots 17:25, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - no issues at all, and the fact that the best the opposers can muster up is "no content creation" says it all. No content creation = no big deal. GiantSnowman 17:44, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - Her article work is not the strongest, but Liz is so level-headed I'm glad to support her for admin anyway. Would definitely be a net positive. Altamel (talk) 17:45, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support. As for many other editors above, this is an easy decision for me, having in particular seen the candidate's work on behalf of ArbCom. Strong nominations and good answers to questions, the latter sufficiently articulate to put to rest any concerns about the ability to write or the ability to interact intelligently and thoughtfully with editors who are heavily involved with content creation. I looked at the diff in the first oppose comment, and frankly I see it as reflecting well, not as reflecting badly. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:02, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- I entered my support fairly early in this RfA, and I would like to follow up on what I said, in that my support remains strong. I've looked carefully at the opposes and at the RfA talk page, and tracked down a fairly large number of the discussions that have been linked to. In particular, Bishonen, Casliber, and Drmies are three of the people whom I hold in the very highest regard on Wikipedia, and so I've looked at what they have said most carefully. And I just am not seeing what they say they see. With respect to what Bishonen brings up, I myself am quite vocal in not liking WP:FRINGE edits (especially as regards science), as a quick look at my user page will confirm. I spent some time reading the SPI and some related discussions, and what I'm seeing is not a problem for me. I'm seeing an attitude that I might characterize as "first, do no harm" in the SPI, that I think would not be a bad thing in the administrator corps, and the recent user talk page replies do not strike me as passive-aggressive – under the circumstances, I'd be disinclined to reply to that e-mail myself. Drmies did not provide links, but listed archive numbers of ANI archives, which I have to say made it very difficult for me to see for myself. At least one archive number either does not have the indicated discussion, or I failed to find it after spending an awful lot of time. But consider for instance Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive887#Editor removing commas at random, where Drmies felt that Liz was too quick to recommend SPI. Really? That hardly seems to me to be a reason to oppose an RfA. As I said, I respect these editors very, very much. But nothing I'm seeing there has made me question my support in this RfA. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:02, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Tryptofish, the feeling is mutual--thanks. That SPI comment by itself isn't much, of course, though I think that someone with that many edits to ANI should know better (if that stupid tools thing wasn't down again I'd tell you how many). It is also indicative, in my opinion, of someone who is spending a lot of time on ANI, making quick comments and closing easy threads--the positive look on that is to say that someone is doing a yeoman's job, the negative look is that someone is making a lot of easy contributions to ANI (which require little judgment or knowledge of policy) to prepare for RfA. I didn't provide links because my time was limited and I got the information from looking through the archives; getting the diffs would have cost me another hour. I guess I could have given bluelinks for the sections, but visually and rhetorically that would really come across as a kind of badgering, so I chose to be economical. My apologies if that added to your labor. Drmies (talk) 21:46, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I won't entirely disagree with your observation of "a lot of easy contributions", but I also observed that the contributions were pretty evenly split between defending editors and not defending, so that does not seem to me to support the concern expressed by other opposers about being too prone to defend editors who should not be defended. Also, about "easy", one can read that instead as not wanting to overreach (a good quality), and perhaps also as a realistic appraisal of what results in opposes at RfA; in any case, what I saw was consistent with the "clue" that is requisite for learning over time how to deal with the less "easy" cases. Thanks again. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:18, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- I really find that characterization quite unfair. You can actually learn a lot of policy at ANI by reading ANI. I can tell you I've learned a lot by looking around there (and AN, and VP) the last few months. And probably most of what I learned didn't come from the "easy thread closings" (though properly closing even those can get you to poke around in places, and learn things, that you most likely wouldn't have otherwise...). So implying that someone like Liz isn't "learning" anything and is doing "easy closes" at ANI simply for "careerist" purposes is really quite unfair, bordering on objectionable. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 02:56, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Tryptofish, the feeling is mutual--thanks. That SPI comment by itself isn't much, of course, though I think that someone with that many edits to ANI should know better (if that stupid tools thing wasn't down again I'd tell you how many). It is also indicative, in my opinion, of someone who is spending a lot of time on ANI, making quick comments and closing easy threads--the positive look on that is to say that someone is doing a yeoman's job, the negative look is that someone is making a lot of easy contributions to ANI (which require little judgment or knowledge of policy) to prepare for RfA. I didn't provide links because my time was limited and I got the information from looking through the archives; getting the diffs would have cost me another hour. I guess I could have given bluelinks for the sections, but visually and rhetorically that would really come across as a kind of badgering, so I chose to be economical. My apologies if that added to your labor. Drmies (talk) 21:46, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- I entered my support fairly early in this RfA, and I would like to follow up on what I said, in that my support remains strong. I've looked carefully at the opposes and at the RfA talk page, and tracked down a fairly large number of the discussions that have been linked to. In particular, Bishonen, Casliber, and Drmies are three of the people whom I hold in the very highest regard on Wikipedia, and so I've looked at what they have said most carefully. And I just am not seeing what they say they see. With respect to what Bishonen brings up, I myself am quite vocal in not liking WP:FRINGE edits (especially as regards science), as a quick look at my user page will confirm. I spent some time reading the SPI and some related discussions, and what I'm seeing is not a problem for me. I'm seeing an attitude that I might characterize as "first, do no harm" in the SPI, that I think would not be a bad thing in the administrator corps, and the recent user talk page replies do not strike me as passive-aggressive – under the circumstances, I'd be disinclined to reply to that e-mail myself. Drmies did not provide links, but listed archive numbers of ANI archives, which I have to say made it very difficult for me to see for myself. At least one archive number either does not have the indicated discussion, or I failed to find it after spending an awful lot of time. But consider for instance Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive887#Editor removing commas at random, where Drmies felt that Liz was too quick to recommend SPI. Really? That hardly seems to me to be a reason to oppose an RfA. As I said, I respect these editors very, very much. But nothing I'm seeing there has made me question my support in this RfA. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:02, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Support. Gamaliel (talk) 19:06, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support, with some advice. There's no doubt Liz is diplomatic, even-tempered, patient, and receptive to criticism, and her unusual profile of interests on wikipedia would be valuable as an admin. I do want to reiterate some of what I said in this thread last month, about approaches to "civility" and the general sense of a project space/content creator dichotomy; I guess I never did get back to that thread, but there's more to the question than "why can't people just be civil?" and I hope that's reflected in Liz's admin decision-making. Opabinia regalis (talk) 19:27, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support courteous and clear when it comes to policies and guidelines as far as I can tell. Content creation is now secondary as far as admins are concerned, indeed admins who create content are treated worse than those who just make sysop edits. Liz is a great candidate, and in time when editors like her are hard to come by, we should jump at the chance of allowing her to continue to improve Wikipedia. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:48, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - Incredibly qualified for the tools, level-headed and has an eye for doing right when needed. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 21:01, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Of course. Ticks all the boxes. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 21:28, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support per nigh superhuman diplomacy skills. Brustopher (talk) 21:43, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support No concerns. Widr (talk) 21:45, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Nothing to add that hasn't already been said more eloquently than I could manage. —Cryptic 22:16, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Absolutely and with pleasure. §FreeRangeFrogcroak 22:40, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Easy decision. Liz has the kind of experience and temperament I'd want in an admin. ~Adjwilley (talk) 23:02, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Well qualified, no significant issues, asks good and sensible questions to inform herself. Looking forward to having another woman on the admin team. Risker (talk) 23:10, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support, subject to change based on responses to questions and further investigations. My several interactions with Liz and the times I had noticed him or her editing were all positive. Indeed I had thought that he or she was already an admin, and a good one. DES (talk) 23:14, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - Knows policy well. Works many areas. Friendly and helpful. Best of all, great AfD numbers. Plus, great nominators who do their research. She could be half as good as she is and I'd still support. She is deep into "of course!" territory. Unless skeletons pop out of closets, like some old, massive copyvio spree, Liz has my full support. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:15, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support I have found nothing that would lead me to believe this individual would abuse the tools. They pass my checks and would be an excellent addition to the team, I think. Good luck. --ceradon (talk • contribs) 23:19, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Seems like a good candidate. I don't view content creation as the only critical criteria, and a small army of useful gnome-admins would benefit the project greatly. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 23:27, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support. Fully qualified candidate. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:39, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- This easily could have happened a while ago. Courcelles (talk) 23:41, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support: everytime I've seen Liz in action, she seems reasonable and able to keep her cool. She puts in a huge amount of effort and is not likely to cause any major issues or drama. Content creation concern is overrated: it takes all sorts to keep Wikipedia running. Give her the mop already. —Tom Morris (talk) 23:44, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support. It's about time this was posted. People have been trying to convince Liz to run for what seems like ages. Great temperament, experience, and knowledge of policy. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 23:48, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Good candidates like Liz don't come along all that often. A valuable contributor to the project, whose history indicates she will be a thoughtful admin. Moriori (talk) 23:49, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support I am not a content creation hawk, but I normally like to see some, and there really isn't any here. That said, her record is otherwise so strong that I think we can overlook that admitted shortcoming. -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:51, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - Liz has been a great contributor to the project, especially in her work as a clerk at ArbCom. For an admin candidate who wants to do work in deletion, her PROD logs and AfD logs look good. There are a couple handfuls of blue links in her CSD log, but a lot of them are for articles that have since been recreated or were reasonable to tag in the state that they were in when she tagged them, so I have no concerns there. Everything else so far looks good, and the answers to the questions have been satisfactory. Inks.LWC (talk) 00:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support wikignomes often make good admins , if they;'re aware of content problems, and the difficulties contributors have. I think she understand both of them. DGG ( talk ) 00:57, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Excellent candidate; I am happy to support. -- Diannaa (talk) 01:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support embodies the spirit of Wikipedia. Jytdog (talk) 01:11, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
Support - yes, yes. Wasn't sure I was going to take a side in this one, but I just noticed something you did to greatly encourage an editor (a small critter...). I have sometimes encountered stormy weather here on English and taken my cat alter-ego into hiding for a bit, but I know I have a few admins in my corner because they are kind and helpful and encouraging. To me, for the work of anyone who volunteers to take on the duties of an admin, temperament rules way above any other qualification. Many best wishes. Fylbecatulous talk 01:16, 29 July 2015 (UTC)Sadly, withdrawing support. In light of all the deep concerns that have been uncovered and are now in the light of day that is this RfA, truly I did choose to support for what is now a superficial reason. Will make comment in neutral section. Fylbecatulous talk 19:31, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Support – No concerns. A voice of common sense. EdJohnston (talk) 01:19, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support. Generally clueful. I have no problem with your sabbatical from writing, sounds like you've more than earned it. - Dank (push to talk) 02:22, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - Good temperament, helpful, knows policy, good analyst of deletion candidates and issues. Experience and willingness to work in the "backwaters", with a good record, is a plus. Gnomish work is good experience for much of the administrative work that needs to be done. Has clue which mitigates content creation concerns. Great candidate. Donner60 (talk) 02:56, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - user seems sensible and strongly suited to adminship, which is a rare enough trait that a shortage of content creation shouldn't be disqualifying in this case. Diffs show that maybe a year ago they didn't know much about certain procedures, but seems to learn quickly. Geogene (talk) 03:23, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support I have agreed with about 99% of everything I have seen Liz say here on Wikipedia. Yes, I wish that she had created more content, since this is after all a project to build an encyclopedia. But we need "support staff" and everything I have seen about her indicates that she is an excellent candidate for administrator. As for her comment on Eric's talk page, we all know that he is very far from the typical content creator. He is an outlier and he is "special". Cullen328 Let's discuss it 03:32, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- [Nomad to Kirk, concerning Spock] "This unit is different. It is well-ordered." ("The Changeling", 1967) IHTS (talk) 23:19, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - I love the nominations that I don't even have to do research on. No concerns whatsoever. Carrite (talk) 03:59, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - I have only positive impressions of her contributions to discussions and demonstrated understanding of community norms. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 04:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support no reason to think this user would abuse the tools. --rogerd (talk) 04:10, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support – A clueful candidate, well-versed in policy. gobonobo + c 06:43, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - Whenever I have seen Liz's signature in a discussion at WP:ANI, it has always been preceded by an intelligent, diplomatic, and helpful comment. So I am completely confident she has the required skill and judgement to assist productive editors' collaboration in an admin capacity. Burninthruthesky (talk) 06:58, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - "duh". In more explanatory terms, candidate is trusted, versed in policy, and a pleasure to work with as an arbitration clerk. No reason to oppose. Certainly will be a net positive. L235 (t / c / ping in reply) 07:12, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support, of course. Graham87 08:21, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - Level-headed and hard-working. I've been watching Liz' edits from the sidelines for a few months now. This RfA was an inevitability and I'll gladly give my support. -Thibbs (talk) 10:40, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support: Meets my baselines with their activity in arbitration matters, and rumour has it that AE needs more admin attention, so that would be a good reason for seeking the mop besides. While some of their AfD votes/nominations are sort of weak, it's not enough of an issue to justify an "oppose". Behaviour and experience also seem to fit the mold. Putting some work in article writing would be good, but not enough of an issue to justify an "oppose" from me either. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:14, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support. Rzuwig► 11:37, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - echoing Opabinia. Alakzi (talk) 12:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - We need *more* pro-civility admins, as the current admin pool have turned one of the five pillars into a joke that is occasionally nodded at depending on their personal relationship to the subject. Since its practically impossible to remove admins for failing to uphold standards, the only other option is to promote admins who will. I would prefer more experience in resolving content disputes/mediation between editors however and I feel the oppose's below have merit (for similar reasons) Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:24, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support- it seems to have become fashionable lately to heap contempt on wikignomes. I don't know what's sillier, the idea that one cannot behave responsibly towards people who do some task if you haven't done that task yourself, or the notion that wikignoming isn't content work. I have seen nothing from this candidate to suggest she would be a bad admin. Quite the opposite, in fact. Reyk YO! 13:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support. Level-headed, civil, knows policies, experienced. That's all I need to see. More than qualified for adminship. Useight's Public Sock (talk) 14:16, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support, as Liz is a mire than qualified editor. Epic Genius (talk) 14:29, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Liz is exactly the type of person we need in our admin corps. Thanks for running! RO(talk) 15:04, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support She should have been an admin long ago. Her work with new users is amazing and shows she will never become an abusive admin. Her work as a ArbCom clerk shows good knowledge of policy. Happy Squirrel (talk) 15:35, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Usually, I want to see some content work from candidates. This is mostly because I would like an admin candidate to have a feel for how conflicts may arise from our content policies and guidelines. However, I'll make an exception when I see someone who has demonstrated an strong understanding of how WP works in their comments. Liz has done that. Liz also exemplifies a de-escalation approach to disputes, which is sorely needed at venues like ANI. She seems to focus on underlying issues, and tries to defuse interpersonal tensions. I have never seen an intemperate comment from her, despite the fact that she gets involved in some very heated areas of dispute. The Interior (Talk) 16:35, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Liz is asked below what she is here for, if not for creating content. I can't answer for her, but I came here specifically to remove some rubbish, and have been doing it for over seven years now. I've come across Liz here several times, and wondered why she didn't have a mop. Looks like a good candidate to me. Peridon (talk) 17:07, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support I am disgusted with the apparent growing attitude that people must be content creators otherwise they're just not here to build the encyclopedia. Therefore, they are something bad. Good lord open your eyes. This project requires an ENORMOUS amount of work that does NOT entail content creation. Some people just aren't content creators, and never will be. If this were not the case, we would only have authors, and every editor position in the world would be vacant. Just because you aren't a content creator doesn't mean you somehow can't be trusted with the tools. This nominee's mainspace edits comprise more than 1/4th of their edits. As a percentage, this is higher than half of ArbCom. I guess ArbCom can't be trusted either, huh? Afterall, they are not here to build the encyclopedia. <facepalm>. Can anyone...ANYONE...come up with anything actually BAD this editor has EVER done? Come on...just one thing. ANYONE??? What, no takers? I'm waiting... --Hammersoft (talk) 17:22, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- A quick pop onto your user page certainly gives me the impression you prefer to start fights than write an encyclopedia! Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:38, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
Just because you aren't a content creator doesn't mean you somehow can't be trusted with the tools.
Not everyone believes as you do. It's that anti-hive mind problem that content creators tend to have. The fact that her mainspace edits are higher than ArbCom is an indictment of ArbCom, not a positive for her. Finally, for something bad she's done? Look at the diffs (below) showing her poor attitude towards content creators. That's BAD. Satisfied? GregJackP Boomer! 19:24, 30 July 2015 (UTC)- I know not everyone believes as I do. Vive la différence. Doesn't mean I can't find fault with it. The point of comparing to ArbCom is that ArbCom's time is taken up performing a huge amount of work on dispute resolution. It is not an indictment of them at all to note they don't edit mainspace as much as some would like. Rather, it's more like applause for doing the work they do. Of course they would spend less time in mainspace! Yes, I've looked at the diffs. Nothing leaps out to me. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:16, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- A quick pop onto your user page certainly gives me the impression you prefer to start fights than write an encyclopedia! Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:38, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Frequently appears to be the most levelheaded person in a given conversation, and is clearly well versed in policy. Those are prime admin qualifications.-- Elmidae (talk) 18:35, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support. No problem! Malinaccier (talk) 18:49, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- If I was able to pick any editor to be an admin, it would've been Liz hands down. And, as a side-note, if admins had to be content creators we'd have next to no good admins and Wikipedia would slowly descend into a hell of vandals and chaos. Just my two cents. Kharkiv07 (T) 19:07, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support I forgot that she wasn't already an admin because of the way that handles the work as ArbCom clerk. And while I like to encourage everyone to add content, some people find doing other types of volunteer work for Wikipedia to be their primary focus, and that is fine. Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥ 19:21, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support only caution is lack of featured content. But that is more than made up for all the work done in helping the smooth running of the project. With admins we need people who do administrative tasks. Go New Jersey Liz! --Jules (Mrjulesd) 19:25, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support, suitable candidate, I see no reason to oppose. I have always seen featured content as more of a nice to have, rather than a mandate for administrative candidates. --kelapstick(bainuu) 19:28, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support: candidate has a very positive reputation (which is well-deserved) and gave good answers to the questions. Spot checks turn up nothing bad. Others are entitled to their opinions on whether content creation is important for an admin but I don't consider it crucial or necessary in this case. I agree with Liz's statement, "it helps the project if editors with a variety of different perspectives and experience participate in deletion discussions" and think it's implied that these editors should be well-versed in policy or at the very least know what they're talking about. It seems like a comment in the same vein as if I were to say "I wish there were more female admins": it means I want the gender gap to lessen, not that I want to promote underqualified users solely because they are female. The SPI comments were a while ago and I don't really consider them to be an issue in the first place; anyway, I'd rather have an admin that has too much AGF than too much BITE. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 21:05, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support I have seen her around, and have interacted with her on several occasions. I am confident that she will be a good admin. --Anthony Bradbury"talk" 21:54, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support, I´m a content creator (mainly), but I highly appreciate those folks who do the "rest" of the work here, and Liz seems definitely sensible enough to trust with the tools, Huldra (talk) 22:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Liz's contributions have overall been excellent, and exactly what Wikipedia needs in an admin. Gnomes are the editors who can make good use of the tools, content creation is irrelevant in RfA. The fact that Liz isn't an admin already is a testament to the failure of this process. Winner 42 Talk to me! 22:11, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support per Worm That Turned's nomination.-gadfium 22:41, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support absolutely. KrakatoaKatie 22:55, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support based primarily on previous observations of the editor. WP:RFX100. --j⚛e deckertalk 23:18, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support I think is an excellent move...Modernist (talk) 23:31, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support. I understand concerns about minimal content creation. At the same time, she is a highly experienced user with a great reputation, and holds positions requiring reliability and trust. Wikipedia needs users to create content, but it also needs users who will work to maintain that content. North of Eden (talk) 00:18, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support. Saw her in the Recent Changes a lot, and all I've seen of her has been constructive. Dakar (talk) 00:30, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support because I see no good reason not to. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:06, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
Support - While I agree with GregJackP that it's good to have some GAs and FAs under your belt, you have done some incredible maintenance work on this site, including as an ArbCom clerk. With that, I believe that you can be trusted with the tools. Sportsguy17 (T • C) 01:36, 30 July 2015 (UTC)Some of what's been brought up in oppose is making me reconsider, so moving to Neutral for right now.
- Support. She has a lot of experience. As an SPI Clerk, I met her at some sockpuppet investigations. She was very helpful. Vanjagenije (talk) 02:03, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support, no major issues. Nakon 02:34, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Liz is already a great member of the administrative team here and has been for quite some time. I think formally granting her the tools will allow her to be even more helpful around here and I look forward to having her on the team! I also wholeheartedly endorse Hammersoft's comments above. While content writers are the lifeblood of the encyclopedia, the non-content writers that keep the project running are its backbone. Swarm we ♥ our hive 03:10, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- I have little to add that hasn't already been said, so I'll just say that Reyk, Swarm, and Hammersoft nailed it. --Dylan620 (I'm all ears) 03:51, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - Seems an ideal candidate. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:42, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support – I've never interacted with her, but looking through her contribs, she's a great editor who would make a great admin. --A guy saved by Jesus (talk) 05:55, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- I'll support, because I think that Liz will make a good admin, but there are some wise words in the 'oppose' and 'neutral' sections below - I think it would be a good idea for the candidate to pay heed to them. Good luck! — sparklism hey! 07:26, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Strong on policy, brings a valuable perspective. Techtacular (talk) 11:20, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - a sensible and experienced editor.—Anne Delong (talk) 13:50, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - Liz is one of those people who isn't ashamed to ask for advice when necessary, sometimes on my own talk page. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:13, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Obvious support - I have been seeing Liz around at ANI and AFD (and maybe AN3 as well?) and all I have to say is that they do a good job. --TL22 (talk) 15:19, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Of course support - I've come across Liz here and there and she has always been a level-headed voice of reason (and policy where required) in places that attract drama. I was really tempted to oppose because I was really sure you were already an admin, and seeing your name in the RfA list made me spill my coffee. I really needed that coffee today. Winner 42 hits the nail on the head - that you're not already an admin shows the failure of this forum and the community at promoting the good candidates to administrative duties. You'll be a fine admin, I have no doubt. Good luck! Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 15:29, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Long overdue. It's an honour to have the opportunity to support this candidate. Kurtis (talk) 16:53, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - Myopic complaints about the candidate lacking article creation don't cut it for me. Adminship isn't an elite club for academics, it's a trust position. I trust Liz with der toolz for being a helpful and level-headed gnome. Her adminship will free up more time for the editors who were born with FA writing talents. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 17:06, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Absolutely. I am not usually comfortable supporting those without large content contributions, but Liz' track record is phenomenal, and I have no concerns whatsoever. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:07, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - Per all above.--Infinite0694 (Talk) 17:17, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support The "Oppose because no content creation" !votes do not convince me. Administrators have nothing to do with content creation, and their tools have to do with site maintenance and fighting vandalism. To oppose someone for the mop because they do things that could use the mop is ridiculous. If Wikipedia had nothing but content creators, Wikipedia would fall. Think about it. --I am k6ka Talk to me! See what I have done 20:42, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Per k6. Datbubblegumdoe (talk) 20:47, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - She left a friendly welcome on my page when I started editing here, which was also useful to my editing here. Haqua121 (talk) 23:28, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support – She'll definitely be a net positive as an admin. I might have opposed if the concerns raised by the opposition were more recent, but they're not. People can change, and I'm convinced she has. Spaghetti07205 (talk) 00:54, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - wait, she isn't one already? Weird. Good answer to Q12. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 02:03, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support - Entirely on principle. Most of the opposes centered around the entirely irrelevant point of "no content creation", the argument given when you really want to oppose a candidate but there is a complete lack of real reasons to do so. You don't need to be an admin to create content, so it strikes me as bizarre that people use that as a reason. —Frosty ☃ 05:07, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- SupportChristopheT (talk) 06:49, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support, largely echoing Yunshui's nomination statement. I've had many good interactions with Liz in her role as an arbcom clerk, and some before that and she's never been afraid to ask for clarification or assistance when necessary - exactly what we want from an administrator. The lack of content creation is irrelevant - article writing requires different skills to admin work, with very little overlap. The argument that you need a GA/FA to understand what content creators face is equivalent to saying that you need to be an arbitrator to understand what admins do - that logic would allow only arbitrators to vote at RFA (something I sincerely hope never happens). Thryduulf (talk) 08:10, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support. Has all the attributes needed for a good admin. While I can understand the concerns some have over her lack of major content contributions, they aren't really what we need admins for. AndyTheGrump (talk) 09:26, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support. An admin happy to do noncreative work is a blessing. There's a lot of it to be done and not all that many people who want to do it. I've had to practically beg for admin help on multiple occasions, and knowing there's someone who actively welcomes such requests for assistance is very useful. valereee (talk) 11:34, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support sounds good to me. Mark Arsten (talk) 16:21, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Well-rounded, will make a good admin. SpencerT♦C 17:15, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Tough decision as there are a lot of people I respect in both the support and oppose collumns. I do recall the era Liz alludes to when she was constantly trying to "right great wrongs" with poorly-conceived policy changes and so forth, but I have also noticed that she seems to have become more thoughtful in her approach to such issues. And frankly some of the opposes (If you're not here to build content, what are you doing, for example) are just stupid. Look at it the other way, we won't be losing a good content creator, because she hasn't been one. She's been working with all the other, less rewarding crap that needs to be dealt with here. Why not let her do that instead of trying to force her to create a GA first? In truth, no admin knows what the hell they are doing until they actually get the mop, and probably not even then, but I am convinced Liz can pick up the job and do decent admin work. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:02, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
"In truth, no admin knows what the hell they are doing until they actually get the mop..."
Yes, and truth be known, that is one of my biggest problems with this whole process... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 18:19, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support I deeply respect the opinions of the nominators and many of the supporters above. I also respect the views of the many of the opposers below, especially the detailed analyses of Drmies and Bishonen. Some of the points they make are good but dated. Others I interpret more favorably. The answer to question 5 reduces my content creation concerns. --I am One of Many (talk) 19:33, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support: I believe that Liz will be a net benefit to the encyclopedia as an admin. I understand that there are some concerns about a lack of content creation, but I am not particularly concerned by this (I say this as someone who is primarily a content creator) as I feel that we need editors who have skills in many different areas to make this place work. Thank you, Liz, for taking a chance and volunteering once again. Good luck. AustralianRupert (talk) 22:32, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Support Answers to the questions above show good understanding of what Wikipedia is and does, and also shows level-headed decision-making. Etamni | ✉ 01:55, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Support Liz has helped me at the Teahouse many times, and I think the answers to the questions are great as well as participation in many admin areas. MrWooHoo (talk)
- Support Well qualified and has a good temperament. -- Shudde talk 04:43, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Support I think you'll go far. Way to go! ShyGuy8 talk 04:56, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Weak support. I don't like Liz's supporting of problem editors and weighing into discussions (sometimes bringing more heat than light, IMO), but I hope that Liz is sensible enough to take account of the feedback this RFA provides on her edits. This [4] edit from February (which was reverted 12 minutes later) was bad in several ways (e.g. the edit summary of "ME"). And this [5] did nothing but cause watchlist noise and add to Liz's edit count, but we all make mistakes sometimes. That Liz mostly performs administrative/wikignoming roles rather than content-building shouldn't (IMO) be a bar to adminship; many (perhaps most) admin tasks (e.g. WP:UAA) have no direct connection to content-building. An analogy: in a theatre the actors may be the most important staff, but front of house and backstage staff also have important roles; if the person who cleans the toilets at the end of the evening is the last person to leave the building (and they can be trusted) then they need the keys (whether or not they have ever appeared on the stage). DexDor (talk) 06:14, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Support. Content creation is lacking, but otherwise good contributions. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:53, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Support Should spend some more time writing content agree, but do not see it as a deal breaker. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:47, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Weak support Some opposers have legitimate reservations (e.g. Drmies or Bishonen) but I still believe that giving Liz the bit will be a net positive. Pichpich (talk) 15:13, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Support - Liz wants the job. She is competent, committed, and enthusiastic. These are good things. I've had the impression she might want the job a lot. This is not, on reflection, a disqualifying factor. She'll do well. Begoon talk 18:24, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Support. Overall shows well balanced judgement, calm temperament and considerable drive. Buistr (talk) 20:16, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Support. Thanks for taking this on. --Djembayz (talk) 20:24, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Concerns brought up by Gamergaters &c are wholly irrelevant. Liz has integrity and exhibits good judgment, and lack of content creation alone does not merit an oppose. Cloudchased (talk) 21:18, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Support Liz is a well qualified editor and will be a net benefit as others have said. Gizza (t)(c) 23:57, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Support. Liz takes far too much time to be civil and evenhanded. Won't fit in at all. --Elvey(t•c) 00:03, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Support, mostly per Hammersoft.Hal peridol (talk) 00:22, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Support on the grounds that it is statistically highly probable that this candidate's contributions will continue to be a very strong net positive in all areas of activity in, on, and for this encyclopedia. – Athaenara ✉ 02:06, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Support The worries about the lack of content creation are well-founded, but I think on the whole content creation doesn't significantly affect how future admins behave. Conifer (talk) 08:21, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Support From opposition !votes I was expecting to see a duck egg for article space edits. 12k+ edits in main space is more than enough. So what if they aren't of the classic "content creator"-type edits? We love gnomes too. Lots of stuff in categories. Nice work there. Kind of light on article talk but I didn't see anything that worried me. Nothing that would make me think this person would abuse the tools and lots to suggest they will be used well. Good luck to you, --Tóraí (talk) 10:36, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- "Support" Many excellent qualities. No editor has every ability or experience or does a human being for that matter. Liz will make a good admi, and we need good, honest, fair admins. She is running for a Wikipedia admin position not president of a small country. Finally, what she doesn't know she will learn as she has shown. I've been watching her for awhile and am impressed.(Littleolive oil (talk) 13:09, 2 August 2015 (UTC))
- Support. Well-qualified candidate. Kirill [talk] 13:51, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Support I see no good reason to oppose this candidate. Those complaining about lack of content contribution are asking a janitor to be a great writer, it is silly. Those who are upset that she thinks that great content creators should *gasp* follow the same rules as others have been unconvincing in their arguments. We need an even hand here. Chillum 15:27, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Strong support How were you not already an admin? I'm travelling overseas right now and I found an internet cafe just to login and put down my support. Mkdwtalk 15:30, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- You did? That begs the question of how you heard of the RfA. - Sitush (talk) 16:16, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- We are allowed to keep WP:RFA in our watchlist. Aero Slicer 17:51, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Sitush actually raises a very good question. If Mkdw didn't have an internet connection to !vote, how did he/she hear about the RfA without an internet connection? --Tóraí (talk) 18:17, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Mkdw is a very regular RfA commenter. Their Wikipedia space contribs show comments to six different RfA's since June 30th. The Interior (Talk) 18:29, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Mkdw did not say that they had no internet connection but rather that they were traveling overseas. My good faith assumption is that they were reading Wikipedia on some sort of mobile device and chose to find an internet cafe to log in and vote. Questioning an experienced editor on this point seems pointless to me. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 19:46, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Support. Is Liz the 100% perfect can-do-no-wrong admin candidate? No, of course not, because nobody is. I think Liz will be a good administrator, and from what I've seen on here, she's willing to learn from others' concerns. That's all I can ask for. I think the folks voting oppose have valid problems, but I also know that there are plenty of current admins who struggle with the same kinds of issues, and I don't think that makes them bad admins. agtx 17:54, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Support. "Not enough content creation" opposes should be discounted. Frood 18:51, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- As you are very old user, we expect a good reason. "Not enough content creation" is actually a valid point, even though in case of Liz we want a leniency due to her contribution to other areas. Aero Slicer 19:01, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Support. I would have liked to see some more substantive content creation experience, but ultimately different editors have different strengths, and Liz' contributions in gnomish work, work with categories, and in being an arbcom clerk are valuable and substantial. In fact, being an arbcom clerk is a particularly thankless job, since no matter what you do there, you will piss some people off. Arbitration is an extremely contentious venue and many people come there prepared to be outraged and offended by just about anything. Being retired, I originally did not plan to !vote in this RfA. But there is too much ugliness and nastiness on display in the oppose section (including some really bizarre conspiracy theories put forward at the talk page) and I feel the need to counterbalance them at least to some extent by a support !vote. Nsk92 (talk) 19:12, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
Oppose
- Oppose I don't frequent this board and thought this editor was already an admin. She has no content writing experience to speak of and per this diff appears to have little understanding of the pressures some content editors endure. Most of the heated stuff starts about content but you only discover that when you've actually written something. J3Mrs (talk) 15:25, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose, no content creation. Has only created 2 articles (one since deleted), and, as far as I can tell, no GA/FA content. GregJackP Boomer! 17:37, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- GregJackP, can you clarify why you believe that would make Liz unsuitable for an administrator role? Thank you. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 23:01, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Lack of content creation is often cited as an oppose reason, possibly because people want admins who understand content creators and are in tune with Wikipedia's overall mission. ~Adjwilley (talk) 23:04, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- See User:GregJackP/Admin criteria. Too many admins are not content creators, as are too many arbs. The diff provided by J3Mrs explains my position perfectly. She has no clue about what content creators put up with. GregJackP Boomer! 01:11, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- It is my view that content creation is not a major part of an admin's job as an admin, and in particular by the time an article gets close to GA/FA, Admin intervention should be little needed. I have never done serious work on a FA, nor been the major person getting an article to GA level -- I usually stop about B-class or lower. But I think i've been a pretty good admin over the years. I don't see why the same shouldn't apply to others. DES (talk) 23:06, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- You're the exception to the rule. GregJackP Boomer! 01:11, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- By that reasoning, a large number of active admins are "exceptions to the rule" -- many of us would not consider ourselves GA/FA/creators of article content... so I have a hard time of thinking of us as "exceptions". ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 03:16, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- You're making an assumption that I was placing DES in a class of many other admins. My comment was directed towards him individually. I know his admin work. I don't know yours, so I'm not making a comment on you, but a great majority of the admins do not under content creation. GregJackP Boomer! 04:07, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- As another of those "exceptions to the rule" admins let me say GregJack's opinion is not Wikipedia expectation. Our article Wikipedia Administrators -- a Wikipedia policy -- does not even mention article content, let alone demand it. Moriori (talk) 03:40, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- I will point out a second time that my exception to the rule comment was directed at DES individually. I don't know you or your admin work, so I'm not making a comment on whether you are an exception or not. As to the duties of being a admin including content creation, I never said that it did. I said that I would not support someone for admin who did not understand content creation. Whether they ever create another quality bit of content after they become an admin is not material nor relevant to my grounds for supporting or not supporting their candidacy. Look, I get that admins without a background in content creation don't like my position, but it is my position, and I should not be ganged up on every time I express my opinion at an RfA—unless only a hive mentality is allowed at WP. GregJackP Boomer! 04:07, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- You never said you “would not support someone for admin who did not understand content creation.” You unambiguously wrote “no content creation” in your No 2 oppose above, and that's what I commented on, saying it is not Wikipedia expectation. Agreed, you have a position and you are perfectly entitled to do so, but it is at odds with the nearly 100 people (so far) who have supported this RfA for Liz. Consider that maybe it is you who is out of step here with the hive mind which includes “collective consciousness or collective intelligence”. Moriori (talk) 22:49, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Do you understand that being part of a "hive mentality" was not meant to be a good thing for Wikipedia? That you think it is a good thing is not something I would be proud of. In any event, I don't care that 100 others have supported her, nor 1000. Unless she knows how to create content, she should not be an admin, in my opinion. Finally, if you want to comment further on it, do so elsewhere. I really don't care what your position on my criteria are. GregJackP Boomer! 01:07, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- You never said you “would not support someone for admin who did not understand content creation.” You unambiguously wrote “no content creation” in your No 2 oppose above, and that's what I commented on, saying it is not Wikipedia expectation. Agreed, you have a position and you are perfectly entitled to do so, but it is at odds with the nearly 100 people (so far) who have supported this RfA for Liz. Consider that maybe it is you who is out of step here with the hive mind which includes “collective consciousness or collective intelligence”. Moriori (talk) 22:49, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- I will point out a second time that my exception to the rule comment was directed at DES individually. I don't know you or your admin work, so I'm not making a comment on whether you are an exception or not. As to the duties of being a admin including content creation, I never said that it did. I said that I would not support someone for admin who did not understand content creation. Whether they ever create another quality bit of content after they become an admin is not material nor relevant to my grounds for supporting or not supporting their candidacy. Look, I get that admins without a background in content creation don't like my position, but it is my position, and I should not be ganged up on every time I express my opinion at an RfA—unless only a hive mentality is allowed at WP. GregJackP Boomer! 04:07, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Comment: GregJackP: I understand where you are coming from, I am basically a content-creator myself. However, being a target of this joker for the last 5 years, I *so* do appreciate vandal-fighters and all those who do the "mopping-up" around here. I would not be around here any more if it were not for them, Cheers, Huldra (talk) 23:57, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- By that reasoning, a large number of active admins are "exceptions to the rule" -- many of us would not consider ourselves GA/FA/creators of article content... so I have a hard time of thinking of us as "exceptions". ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 03:16, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- You're the exception to the rule. GregJackP Boomer! 01:11, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Lack of content creation is often cited as an oppose reason, possibly because people want admins who understand content creators and are in tune with Wikipedia's overall mission. ~Adjwilley (talk) 23:04, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- GregJackP, can you clarify why you believe that would make Liz unsuitable for an administrator role? Thank you. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 23:01, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose I have to agree with GregJackP. If you are not creating content, then why are you here? Too many admins are not content creators, and even one arb who is not here to work on the encyclopaedia is one too many. The idea that GA is anywhere near FA is also kind of disturbing. So if you want to be an admin, I say, learn. I hate voting against someone, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Hawkeye7 (talk) 12:05, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- We are here to make sure good content stays that way. Or did you want to spend your time dealing with vandalism, spammers, editors who are here to push a viewpoint, editors who have no interest in following content guidelines, etc? --NeilN talk to me 16:25, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Well, of course I would. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:29, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- I look forward to your increased participation in these areas. --NeilN talk to me 23:07, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Well, of course I would. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:29, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, I tried to ignore this comment, but I find it so utterly ridiculous that I just can't. "If you are not creating content, then why are you here?" I absolutely cannot in good faith believe that you've looked at Liz's 45,000 edits and came to the conclusion that she is somehow not here to build an encyclopedia. You decided that all 45000 edits were not helpful and Wikipedia would be just as fine without them? While content creation should be the primary concern of the Wikipedia community as a whole, belittling someone who primarily carries out important behind the scenes work that ensures the smooth running of the site is absurd. Sam Walton (talk) 10:35, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- At first I thought you were talking about Neil's comment about increased participation. It was never my intention to belittle Liz's contributions. I came to no such conclusion. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:47, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- We are here to make sure good content stays that way. Or did you want to spend your time dealing with vandalism, spammers, editors who are here to push a viewpoint, editors who have no interest in following content guidelines, etc? --NeilN talk to me 16:25, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose Mainly per GregJackP. Clearly this one's going to pass, but I think it's important that the candidate understand that people do have concerns about their lack of content creation. I also remember seeing the comment highlighted by J3Mrs and cringing. Intothatdarkness 13:56, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose - Largely per GregJackP. I'm not even asking for an FA. All I want to see is one single GA-quality article put together at least in majority by the candidate. Reaper Eternal (talk) 16:14, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose. Liz has shown qualities that one hopes to avoid in admins: strong partisanship and a disinterest in examining evidence.
- At this SPI, Liz came in with the preformed notion that the accused sockpuppeteer was being unfairly treated, and defended him on those grounds. She did not show an understanding of the actual evidence of sockpuppetry, nor did that appear to be a priority. The sockpuppeteer in question would later become a dedicated off-wiki harasser and serial sockpuppeteer, and would enshrine Liz's uninformed comments clearing him of sockpuppetry. I eventually wrote this supplement for those who (like Liz) somehow failed to process the (really quite obvious) evidence.
- Liz similarly weighed in on another SPI case, defending the accused sockpuppeteer without looking at the evidence, even casting aspersions on the filer (me). Despite two admins affirming the sockpuppetry, and despite the sockpuppeteer being "strongly admonished for using an IP address to harass other users and waste the community's time",[6] Liz continued to defend him, claiming that he "has not abused sockpuppets".[7] She indicated no understanding of the level of disruption outlined in the SPI. (The sockpuppeteer had been bullying users through sockpuppets as a pretext for bringing an arbitration case on bullying, and later cited the same evidence in an ANI he brought.)
- Liz's conclusions in these SPIs are starkly at odds with those of admins. While having a diversity of perspectives across administrators might be valued, not understanding and/or not looking at evidence isn't a "perspective" we should seek. Though I have not come across Liz much this past year, it would surprising for these problems to be corrected so quickly. (I did notice this no-explanation revert from April which seems suggestive of the partisanship of old.) In the now-likely event that Liz gains adminship, I hope she will recognize these problems and aim to do better.
- Manul ~ talk 17:02, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Whoa, whoa, whoa. Defending people who you think are being treated unfairly is exactly what an admin should be doing. Even if it turns out that you're wrong and the user was socking, it's far better to give them a fair ear and find out they abused your trust than to follow the Banning Kulture and "hang 'em all, and let the devil sort them out"! Reaper Eternal (talk) 17:21, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Reaper, the above was trimmed considerably from what it was, and stuff got lost in translation. Of course an initial stance of AGF is always correct. That's not the problem, here or ever. At some point one has to examine and apprehend the evidence, and that never happened, and that is the problem. It is the combination of partisanship and ongoing (not simply initial AGF) credulity that turned toxic in this case, with Liz supporting the harassing activities of this individual, applauding his polemics that attacked Wikipedia editors[8] and rationalizing his personal attacks.[9] While Liz is otherwise eager to denounce partisanship, she maintained extreme partisan stances that are contrary to the evidence. Those harassing polemics are rooted in the demonstrably false claim that this guy was not sockpuppeting. Manul ~ talk 18:24, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Again, this is for something that happened 18+ months ago... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 17:32, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- The diff (above) depreciating the persecution of content creators was this month. GregJackP Boomer! 17:49, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Well, the main point here is that that's not the main thrust of Manul's "oppose", which is instead the kerfuffles at SPI a year-and-a-half(-plus) ago. As to Liz's other comment that you are alluding to, I will leave it to other editors to draw their own conclusions... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 17:54, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- The diff (above) depreciating the persecution of content creators was this month. GregJackP Boomer! 17:49, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Whoa, whoa, whoa. Defending people who you think are being treated unfairly is exactly what an admin should be doing. Even if it turns out that you're wrong and the user was socking, it's far better to give them a fair ear and find out they abused your trust than to follow the Banning Kulture and "hang 'em all, and let the devil sort them out"! Reaper Eternal (talk) 17:21, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose. I can't support this one based on my experiences with Liz, and that's a shame because we need more women admins. Unfortunately, she seems to spend her time on various talk pages and noticeboards, while content creation is minimal. I'm not a great believer in an admin having to have voluminous content creation, but there must be some working knowledge, and Liz seems to actively avoid the task: I've noticed a tendency on her part to put comments on article talk pages pointing out edits others should make, but only rarely does she simply make needed changes herself. She talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk, and that's not acceptable for an admin. --Drmargi (talk) 00:47, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- With over 12,000 mainspace edits do you really think that is fair? --Jules (Mrjulesd) 07:21, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose. Sharing reasons already elucidated by others. This user seems to comment nearly everywhere, what is the point or value of that beyond ladder climbing? In areas where I've had concerns the candidate's shallow analyses have routinely disappointed. (Another admin added to the ranks ill-positioned to empathize w/ content creators' experiences?! Good going, folks.) IHTS (talk) 01:57, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose. I find disturbing most of Liz's answers to the questions, which show bias, insufficient logical thinking, short attention span, lacunae in knowledge of some typical situations during the editing gruntwork, and misconceptions of some roles of an admin. Clearly Liz knows all buzzwords about adminship, but I have serious doubts as to abilities to rein the ropes. (I do know that admins are live people and may err, but not that much.) I do have solid reasons for my opinion and will readily present them, if it can influence the vote balance. Otherwise I don't want to waste anyone's time. -M.Altenmann >t 05:52, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
This is surely going to pass, but I can't support this. I appreciate WTT's description of Liz's "empathy, understanding and helpfulness", but I've not seen any evidence of these qualities; I don't think I've ever seen Liz in any context other than hanging around contentious areas trying to pick fights. I also agree with the lack-of-content opposes (7.05% of her edits this year are to mainspace); to re-use a comment I made many years ago, I don't think editors who haven't had the experience of putting large amounts of work into an article, and/or defending their work against well-intentioned but wrong "improvements" or especially AFD, are in a position to empathise with quite why editors get so angry when their work's deleted and/or The Wrong Version gets protected, and I don't support users who don't add content to the mainspace being given powers to overrule those who do. – iridescent 09:07, 30 July 2015 (UTC)- Unopposing per comments here. – iridescent 10:02, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Sorry. It's a marginal oppose from me. Were the numbers closer I might land elsewhere. The nominator says "I can't remember a time without seeing her name in conversations." That's not praise; it is an indictment. It is borne out by the lack of meaningful content contributions. And further borne out by weak AfD !votes - many of which are turning a 5-0 AfD into a 6-0 AfD or just plainly off the mark ([10]). I'm also annoyed by the nominators' disguising of the fact that the candidate has only been actively editing for about 15 months once you exclude wikibreaks (not "two years") and is currently only six months back from a long break. Comparatively that's not much experience: I'd be prepared to vote for someone with that level of experience but only with evidence of high competence. The evidence falls a bit short here. In this case I'd have wanted to see that short period be spent on activities that gain my confidence: content creation, more thoughtful AfD contributions, etc. --Mkativerata (talk) 09:10, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose - Not an easy call to make, given the numerous supporters, many of whom I have interacted with for years and deeply respect. And the candidate is also worthy of respect, having a reasonably even temperament− and has accomplished a fair amount in her time here. I find myself in agreement with her often in discussions, and in the philosophy of the encyclopedia. For me the objection is that the candidate simply does not have enough time here to be granted a lifetime adminship. I'd like to see another year before the extra buttons are granted. That said, I thank the candidate for service to date, and barring a dramatic turn in the consensus here, my congratulations and best wishes. Jusdafax 18:09, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Adminship is not granted for "a lifetime". Please see my post of 11:02, 4 July 2015 (UTC) at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship#Clarifying adminship. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:47, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose After reading a few more diffs, I had to realise that the comment I alluded to earlier was not a slip, but that Liz seems to have a "thing" about content editors, some kind of resentment/agenda - the relevant diffs are [11] and [12]. Added to that, there has been no direct response to the criticism in two days, which reflects very poorly in an RfA. I'm extremely sorry that I'm having to change my opinion about her on this basis, but we can't have someone working as sysop who has a vendetta against content creators. She absolutely must re-think her stance on this matter to be a positive asset as sysop. Samsara 19:05, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Samsara, I don't have a thing against content editors but I stand by this comment in the diff you shared:
Undoubtedly, they contribute a lot to the project but admins shouldn't have different sets of standards, one for content contributors and one for everyone else.
I do think that the policies and guidelines on Wikipedia should apply equally to everyone, whether they are creating articles, fighting vandalism, participating in deletion discussions or answering questions at the Teahouse. - As for the comment on Eric Corbett's talk page, that was unnecessary needling on my part which I should have refrained from. That was not a typical talk page edit for me. But what I was highlighting was not ill feelings towards content creators but rebutting the viewpoint that they are singled out and persecuted. Content creators are highly valued on Wikipedia as can be seen by those who oppose my candidacy on the grounds that I've not created articles but have edited in other ways in main space.
- As for not providing a direct response to people who oppose, I knew that there would be editors who would oppose this RfA based on the editor experience and qualifications they value in administrator candidates. If anyone has a specific question for me, they can ask it in the question section above. I am only replying to your comment because of your complaint that I haven't responded. All I can say is that I have nothing but admiration for content creators, I'm just against having a hierarchy of value among editors where some are more equal than others. Liz Read! Talk! 19:30, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Samsara, I don't have a thing against content editors but I stand by this comment in the diff you shared:
- Eric Corbett (to whom that thread refers to) is not exactly the poster boy for the type of content creator we should be swaddling in love and kisses. I'd be more impressed if you had produced a diff where Liz had a "thing" (whatever that is) for someone who has been slightly less of a massive emotional drain on the project over the years. I find it disingenuous that this is all you could come up with. Also, we tell candidates not to engage oppose !votes whenever possible to avoid drama, and yet you want her to respond to the criticisms? As in "please tell us why don't you love Eric Corbett"? The only thing a candidate should be responding to are the questions above. §FreeRangeFrogcroak 19:25, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Samsara's first diff is the one I was reacting to in the talk page thread I linked to above, in which Liz shows, at least, willingness to consider other perspectives on the matter. On this idea of treating people "equally", it's a slippery concept - much too easy to fall into the trap of thinking that superficially symmetrical treatment is "equal" and thus "fair" (and conversely, that asymmetrical reactions or sanctions mean someone is being treated unfairly). I'd like to think that someone whose sympathies tend to gravitate toward the less-powerful would, if taking admin action in a real situation, be aware of these issues. Opabinia regalis (talk) 20:59, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose while having FAs or GAs is not a requirement to be a good admin, user has questionable judgement in AFDs as noted by Mkativerata, making me pessimistic about how she grasps the nuances and requirements of notability criteria (especially if closing such discussions). Snuggums (talk / edits) 19:16, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose mainly per Mkativerata in this section and Kraxler in the neutrals. There are some really, really questionable contributions at AfD that makes me question the wisdom of giving her the tools to delete articles. Frequent participation at the drama boards? Not a bonus. If she had stronger content I would support, but she's weak there too. AniMate 19:27, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose. "Admins ideally should refrain from taking cheap shots." Indeed they should, and Liz seems unable or unwilling to do that. Eric Corbett 21:28, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose per the situation Bishonen lays out in her question, and Liz's completely unsatisfactory answer to it. "I don't think talk page comments hold the same weight as edits that shape articles on sensitive subjects" is absolutely not the attitude I want in an admin; talk page comments, especially passive aggresiveness and tag-teaming, can be far worse than any behavior in articles. In her answer, I'm getting the sense that she would do the same thing to others of our extremely important anti-fringe editors who form WP's backbone, and this is not what I want in an admin. Sorry, but I believe that your viewpoint of WP:FRINGE needs to dramatically change before I would support. StringTheory11 (t • c) 04:57, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose. While Liz has shown herself to be well versed in policy and tactful in arbitration matters, I cannot endorse giving the delete and block buttons to someone with so little experience in the content area. Yes, I know we need people to deal with the vandals and to carry out housekeeping tasks but those are adjuncts to the primary business of building an Encyclopedia, which involves content creation and improvement. I'm not talking about FAs and GAs, just run of the mill stuff, of which I see little evidence. I also found this WP:PROD while checking Liz's edit history. A quick Google book search gave me two reliable sources, which immediately invalidated the PROD. I'm uncomfortable giving someone a mop when they fail to carry out such basic due dilligence. Philg88 ♦talk 05:49, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Liz's edit is this[13] and the relevant policy is WP:BLPPROD. It may not be a good prod, but it's not as bad as implied by the above comment. DexDor (talk) 06:49, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- coincidentally, your diff shows deficiencies of liz i had in mind: the article did have a reference. despite all high buzz about helpful to newbies, etc etc she decided to slap-tag rather to really help there out by formatting the embedded ext-link into a ref. and a troutslap to dextor: you do know how policies match tags, but in order to match tags to articles you have to have enough attention span (or patience) to actually read the article and not base the decision solely on the absence of "References" section. -M.Altenmann >t 07:15, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Liz's edit is this[13] and the relevant policy is WP:BLPPROD. It may not be a good prod, but it's not as bad as implied by the above comment. DexDor (talk) 06:49, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose. I really can't build any enthusiasm for this. I have watched Liz edit and it has all appeared to be geared for climbing the social ladder here. I even suggested to her once (or twice? I don't recall) to actually do some content creation and was either fobbed off or ignored...I don't recall. I'm reading your story about why you don't do content and I find it hard to believe that you don't edit anything ever from your field of expertise. I'm a doctor and I don't generally like to edit medical stuff too much (bit too much like work!) but I do from time to time. So rather than an encyclopedia you seem to be treating this as some sort of MMORPG or social experiment and I think that if that is the case, then there is a big problem. It boils down to "can this person be trusted with the tools" and I really have my doubts. I hope I am wrong and I would love to be proven wrong, I really would. So please do so. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:16, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose - It would be easy to jump on the support bandwagon, but I really can't. I find Liz generally likable, but some of her comments do indicate a disdain for content focused writers, and that simply makes no sense. Admin are here to here to create and support those that create, and nothing else. I think Liz simply lacks the experience and empathy and I would be afraid of seeing her with the delete and block buttons at this time. In the future? Very likely, but I think she has focused too much on meta and politics and too little on the actual reason we are all here, to create articles. That said, I think she means well, wants to do good things and give of herself, but if you are focused on the wrong things, then even good people can do very bad things and I just don't like the risk here. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 12:22, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose No content work to speak of and, despite the claims above, it seemed like she made a lot of fiddly mistakes during recent ArbCom cases in which I was involved (I acknowledge that they are inherently fiddly things). In addition, her interventions are not always of the type described by Blade - she certainly got completely the wrong end of the stick in one recent episode involving me. A fair few of the interventions that I have seen seemed almost unnecessary and I did wonder whether they were being made simply to raise a profile for a run at RfA. - Sitush (talk) 15:14, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose Been looking at this for several days and while I doubt Liz would abuse the tools, I really cannot grasp why she doesn't even participate in GAN as a reviewer or collaborate on a GA or FA effort. Should this change, I would gladly support in six months.--MONGO 16:34, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose, regrettably. Like Dennis, I think Liz is generally likeable enough, but that's not a necessary quality for an admin, and it's certainly not the only one. But not everything is likeable; comments re: Eric are borderline baiting. If J3Mrs thought Liz was already an admin, perhaps it was because of the many ANI comments, and perusing ANI archives is what I did yesterday for an hour or two, trying to find out whether I should oppose or support. Liz had a few months where any one archived ANI page has up to 50 mentions of her name; for a while she did a lot of closes of ANI discussions--but they were the "easy" ones, like "indefblocked per admin X." I did not see assessments of consensus in the...let's see, ten pages of ANI archives I looked at. I did see a number of helpful comments, but many of the helpful comments are of the "can you please provide diffs" variety and other practical tips. That's helpful, but one doesn't need to be an admin for it, nor does it prove one is admin material.As for adminning at ANI, I didn't see much of it (in terms of good proposals to create solutions or cut through Gordian knots), but I saw a number of errors, or instances of lack of judgment. I do not wish to enumerate here with diffs and explanations (but I'll list ANI archive numbers), but I saw instances of AGF gone too far, such as the case of an editor who removed Jews and gays from articles, which Liz called nothing worse than "a strange POV" (890), or the suggestion to a plaintiff that they discuss something on the talk page of a troll who was subsequently indefblocked (888); an instance of serious misunderstanding of what promotional editing is (891); the misguided business of the "attention-getting block" (888); another case of pro bono advocacy of seriously disruptive editor, misguided, as consensus indicated, and possibly motivated by a certain...dislike...of a certain "content editor" (887); an overly picky reading of what ANI is, in the form of a "This isn't SPI", though frequently it is and it's not a law that socks can only be reported via SPI (887); another misreading of ANI and its purposes and what gets admin attention (886); a serious error in judgment when it comes to admins taking action for off-wiki harassment that spills over on-wiki, and a refusal to drop that stick after two admins countered, causing a third admin to counter (885); a misreading ("vandalism" for "misrepresentation of sources in article edits") in the case of an ArbCom-sanctioned editor (884); and a misinterpretation of NLT (884). For the record, let me add that it's not all negative: Liz made the best ANI comment ever, and it's found in 889.I wouldn't have compiled this long list if Liz weren't such a prolific editor; one may mistake my comment here for blackballing, but if I had no faith in Liz, and no respect for her, I would have let a one-liner suffice. I think that Liz can develop the right judgment, and can improve her understanding of policy (I do not believe, as some have said, that she knows it like the back of her hand). I can't judge the work she's done as a clerk--but again, that kind of work doesn't necessarily show us she's ready for adminning. And the content stuff remains. I'm trying hard not to think too much about the incidental apparent sneer toward content editors, or at least about the perceived carte blanche given to content editors, but that combined with a lack of actual editing experience gives me pause as well. Admins should at least know what it's like to write content, to work hard at improving articles, and to have it deleted, edited, messed with, etc. That creates one of the most important kinds of empathy I think admins need.Liz, I'm sorry for opposing, and I'm sorry if this looks like piling on--it's not meant to be. If this passes, good for you. If it doesn't, there will be a next time, if you will. Drmies (talk) 17:01, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- If you don't mind me saying so Drmies I don't think you have accurately represented some of Liz's comments.
- RE: the first link you say that she called nothing worse than a "strange POV". Actually, she said, "These edits definitely are imposing a strange POV where some people are just erased from the public record."
- RE: the second link, you say that she suggested that the plaintif "discuss something on the talk page of a troll who was subsequently indefblocked". Of course we routinely ask plantiffs to discuss issues with the other disputants before taking them to ANI. Also, the editor was blocked for WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior, not trolling.
- RE: the third link, you say that "serious misunderstanding of what promotional editing is". Her her response to Stemoc's unqualified accusation that Calibrador is using Wikipedia for personal financial gain shows a good understanding of policy and nuanced approach to calming disputes. The overall discussion shows that there was no consensus of promotional editing, or that sanctions for such should be levied.
- RE: the fifth link you characterize her comments as "pro bono advocacy of seriously disruptive editor,". Many others in that discussion could also be accused of providing pro bono advocacy of a seriously disruptive editor, just not the same one.
- - MrX 15:36, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks MrX for your comments: a brief response. "Nothing worse" is my choice of words, obviously. Battleground behavior is trolling, as far as I'm concerned; in this case, I think the suggestion to talk it out was patronizing and unrealistic. In the case of promotional editing, Liz focused on the very narrow issue of financially beneficial edits--what an admin could have done, also in order to deescalate, was point out that promotional editing is much broader than "selling pictures"; the abuse of Wikipedia in order to promote one's own images is actually a serious and frequent issue. And in the RussianDewey case, I don't think there's any doubt as to who should have been, and was, blocked for being disruptive. Drmies (talk) 17:52, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- If you don't mind me saying so Drmies I don't think you have accurately represented some of Liz's comments.
- Oppose. Liz, thank you for replying at some length to my question above (question 15), but no, I'm still not happy. I wanted to know how you now feel about your former partisan defense of fringe editors. And you do write about that defense with a certain criticism, but unfortunately it sounds like you're speaking of peccadilloes, even rather loveable ones. It's sort of admirable to be "zealous, idealistic and prone to want to right great wrongs", "a strong believer in assuming good faith" and believing in "giving the editor the benefit of the doubt", isn't it? And that's how you describe the 2013 Liz. I don't see any insight into the fact that defending one side amounted to attacking the other, i e the side of, as StringTheory puts it above (Oppose no 16), "our extremely important anti-fringe editors". They're actual people, too, and not clad in iron armour. From an admin, I look for some empathy for both sides. For instance, you seem quite oblivious to Manul's distress — in this thread on your page, you respond to him in a superficially civil way but a rather passive-aggressive tone —"out of the blue, you post on my RfA", etc — and point out with what sounds like satisfaction that you haven't responded to his email nor to his question at this RfA. Responding to his concerns here at the RFA, (which you obviously saw at some point though he removed them) wouldn't have killed you, surely. Nor would going more deeply into the problems on your page, instead of brushing them off. On your page, Manul ends up thanking you for at least acknowledging that your defense of Tumbleman at the SPI was misguided — right — yes, I'm glad you did, too — I just think "misguided" is a weak word, that's all. I called it "deplorable" in my question. I'm sorry, but your development into greater understanding of these issues still seems shallow to me. Bishonen | talk 18:11, 31 July 2015 (UTC).
- Oppose. Two diffs provided by Samsara, thorough analysis by Drmies and a number of other opposes confirm my earlier impressions about Liz as someone more interested in management than in encycolopedic content. While I do not dubt her good intentions, I think she needs to gather more experience and, in particular, more perspective. And, if possible, less hanging on drama boards. No such user (talk) 19:27, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Essentially the same reason as No such user. There are already plenty of admins keeping the drama boards entertaining. Townlake (talk) 02:06, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- I appreciate that, Townlake. Drmies (talk) 13:17, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose -- Nothing against the candidate, whom I know very little about, but how on earth can someone assume an administrative role when they have little or no experience in creating content? Bit rewarding based on the fact that they do a lot of the donkey work at ANI should cease immediately. CassiantoTalk 09:23, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose. I believe this is only the third time I have felt strongly enough to vote in an RfA but I have several concerns about this candidate. Sparse content experience, the problems highlighted by Drmies, the diffs supplied by Samsara, J3Mrs and others, the list of - albeit minor - errors given by Iridescent and the inappropriate PROD; couple all these with her "unnecessary needling" (that's using her own words from above) together with baiting and other instances of poor judgement in heated situations, do not give me any faith in her overall suitability. SagaciousPhil - Chat 10:38, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose - Per lack of content contributions and per Samsara's diffs. It's one thing to not write lots and lots of FAs, but the diffs show that the user doesn't get why we're here. If there isn't content - there's no need for admins. Until you've dealt with having content you sweated to build up ripped apart by trolls, you won't get why regular users will get upset. The diff shows the user doesn't get it at all, and thus I can't approve of them getting admin tools. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:36, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose -- a difficult call, especially as there are a large number of editors, admin and not, whom i admire and whose judgement i trust in the support section. In the end, there are too many questions and difficulties in this candidature for me. While i admire the candidate's general assumption of good faith, her judgement seems, on some occasions, to have been compromised by it; i couldn't care less about FA or GA articles, and being a gnomic contributor is no bar to the requested status as far as i'm concerned; the length of service is perhaps a little on the low side; the attraction to the drama boards is a little worrying; some of the work done seems to be oriented towards this Request. All in all, my concerns are similar to many mentioned above, again by many editors whom i respect and who have laid it all out far better than i. Cheers, LindsayHello 14:20, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose -- Too little content creation, too much involvement in drama. -Starke Hathaway (talk) 18:25, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose -- Per Drmies and Bishonen. Lack of content creation and partisanship are both worrying for any administrator. Aparslet (talk) 18:49, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Sigh. First, thanks for your contributions. I do not like being in this column. I second LinsayH and embrace the neutrals below. There are just too many things that are out of balance. I haven't been too demanding for content, but I'm leaning more in that direction. Content is not only good in itself, but it also shows skills that most admins need: research, clarity, argument. I don't need GA or FA content, but I want the basic skills. Content has not been a deal killer, but I usually want to see Mainspace+Talk above 50%; here it's 30%. That stat can be skewed; editors working in AfC will have skewed distributions; maybe that has happened here. The stats do not show extensive editing on single articles: top page has 29 edits and next page only has 15; see also Q5. Usually 3,000 mainspace edits and a six-month tenure is sufficient, but there's a caveat: there should be some strong examples of clue. I'm not getting that here. Instead there's a history of misfires. It's OK to make mistakes and acknowledging them is good, but where is the follow-on reformation? Where is conflict well handled? Where is the research for the application of policy to argument? (e.g., Mkativerata's Touchsuite (no apparent research for WP:CORP esp. § WP:INHERITORG) and "more thoughtful AfD contributions"; Philg88's WP:BEFORE.) The Qs are basically good, but there are some unsatisfying bends in them. In Q1, for example, one does not need the bit to discuss something. Q5's subtext announces an aversion for research or referencing (but kudos for Q12). Glrx (talk) 19:32, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Not just yet. I see a dedicated, well intentioned and principled candidate and god knows this site needs adminning. Several people have mentioned how she has progressed over the years but has a small distance to travel yet. I have concrens about a wide but shallow footprint, and a seeming unwillingness to engage in even basic research, though it seems that this is less pronounced in more recent contribs. I dont care about the lack of content in Liz's case; for her to go and do a few GAs in the next 6 months would be tokenistic, and any community is interdependant on the gathering of people of differing interests and skills. My overall impression is of a well respected editor who will soon be a fine admin but needs a little refining and seems willing to take advice on-board; ie along the normal path of progression. In other words I think if this nom fails and there is introspection, we will have a finer candidate. Once again I agree with Drmies, and look forward to an eventual support. Ceoil (talk) 00:23, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose :: I would prefer seeing more content creation and content that rises to FA or GA worthiness/quality. Further, I cannot support someone who seems to enjoy being a part of the ANI drama mess—being a junkie for that is specifically what makes ANI a cesspool and emboldens certain types of admins and admin-wannabes we can't get rid of when they abuse content creators. Sorry Liz. I just can't enable that. JackTheVicar (talk) 05:49, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose In addition to content creation, she appears to be unaware of why we are here. This isn't a Social Justice forum and content trumps ideology. I have little faith that use of tools will further project goals above ideological goals. --DHeyward (talk) 07:13, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose. This is difficult for me because not only do I appreciate the energy and enthusuasm Liz displays, but the nominators are among the handful or so of admins for whom I have the greatest respect, know personally, and over many years have come to regard as very good friends. Their rationales and indeed those of many of the supporters are of course totally beyond reproach but there is a possibility that they may not be quite as familiar with the candidate as some of those in this oppose section who are also wrestling with their conscience for being down here. Although concern has been raised about the lack of solid content work, that's not why I am here. Because I am quite active in a fairly broad spectrum of Wikipedia's front line areas and deletions, before there was even a breath of rumour that Liz would be running for adminship, I mentally noted some issues that were giving me pause. Those same concerns have been accurately identified by Manul, Drmargi, Altenmann, and as Mkativerata points out, referring to a nominators totaly inadvertant asteism, Liz appears to dash from door to door in all the corridors of Wikipedia making comments that are often only a shallow analysis of the situation, and are wont to make make me call from my office door and say 'Hey, Liz, what's the hurry? Come in, pull up a chair and let's see how we can address all these issues you feel so strongly about, less often but in more depth and more accurately.' Dennis Brown, Casliber, and Sitush save me having to repeat my own observations, but Bishonen and Drmies say best what I have been sensing for a long time. And Liz, my bark is worse than my bite, and my 'office' is always open, in fact chances are that I have just put the kettle on... Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:11, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose - While Liz is a likable Wikipedian, I have to agree with GregJackP with lack of creation or improvement of articles to at least GA of FA. Adminship isn't about absolute power and control over Wikipedia, but to use extra tools to help with others contributing. Racer-Ωmegα 11:32, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose, exactly per Kudpung. It is very difficult to oppose a candidate who is so likable and well-intentioned, and who received such a glowing wave of nominations and early supporters. At the same time, exactly as Kudpung, I have and have had an uneasy feeling deep within of a lack of in-depth cracker-jack knowledge and analysis, and a general unfitness and definite current unreadiness for the responsibility of admin tools. I feel the ArbCom members are rightfully well-disposed towards Liz because of her excellent and alacritous clerking work therein; however clerking (even ArbCom clerking) is not, and does not resemble, admin work. I agree with all of Kudpung's points and would like to add my own: In terms of content work, I think it is a ridiculous absurdity to require, expect, or ask an admin candidate to have submitted, or to submit, FA or even GA article(s). I am also willing to view some of her comments about content work on Eric's talk page as her viewpoint of that particular situation through the lens of being an ArbCom clerk and understandably siding with a strict interpretation of ArbCom rulings. That said, the lack of content work issue still preys on me when I read this in the Q&A above (in #5): "after educating myself on the differences between academic writing and creating content on Wikipedia, I can ...", which shows such a self-imposed and self-selected ignorance and lack of understanding of Wikipedia content or content creation (which in fact is all that Wikipedia is in the end: content) that I cannot in good conscience support this nomination. I wish the candidate all the best, and appreciate her uplifting and caring presence here. Softlavender (talk) 12:17, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- I am very sorry. My first reaction was = But of course. But I waited some days, because didn't had the time to check throug edits. The thing that worried me that so many editors I do trust; were opposing this nomination, like Dennis Brown. Now, if there is a person who has a good sound judgment - that's him. I trust Dennis Brown's judgments very much. Yet, he was still opposing it. Weird. Having now checked some diffs and the issues highlighted by Dennis Brown, Ceoil, Drmargi and several others, coupled with the reasoning of the other opposes and evidence supplied, I migh oppose this nomination, although I think Liz is a very pleasant and lovely person, but as it stands now - maybe not experienced enough yet... - Although - but she still might turn out to be a good one, so it's a week oppose, but still an oppose. One of the problems that I found was that while admins are supposed to work to calm the situations, unfortunately I have noticed examples that what she did was having the opposite effect. Also that joke on Eric's talk page that others have mentioned in the oppose votes also an example of doing the opposite of calming things down. I didn't wanted to say anything without any diffs though. Some of the things I was thinking about, that some of the decisions might be rushed. Many supports say she is approaching any situation with knowledge and caution. Not all that there yet, though. Here - she told someone of not notifying the person they are bringing to AN/I, when they had notified them; there is at least one more like this example. - An other diff here, this is not showing good fait, - after not really reading the report ( actually assuming bad faith on the part of the reporting editor, when it is not the case.) An other thing is - at the Administrators Noticeboard (not at the ANI-incidents), she was expressing the idea of desysopping admins who don't log enough administrative actions - on the discussion of admin inactivity, this is something that I think of as a too hard judgment on - good admins that lrt's say spend times working on calming down situations, resolving them, or doing other things that are not visible this way. Being an admin is not always a police job. About the next issue, - I am not happy about splitting parts on Wiki, identifying the sides with men/women. I would like this to be toned down not amplified or exagerated even more. I really don't want to split Wikipedia into women and men editors that fight with each other because of gender issues. This diff, here, including stating that she thought she was the only woman participating in a talk page argument: it is a kind of partisan argument. - Last diff, this is two years old and under the first or the old account/name, caled the New Jersey Liz :- she is here involved, somebody protests, and she is sarcastic. The problem many point out, not having edited enough articles, no GA or FA, it would be good if she tried to do at least one or two GA and FA. Just to experience how that works. No requirement to succed, just try one or two. One has to understand how that works. Unsuccessful GA and FA is fine too! Well, I think that is this I wanted to add... things to be more careful about, to think about. Whatever will happen, good luck to you, though. --Hafspajen (talk) 15:07, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose The candidate may not have a complete, 100% well-rounded understanding of all the inner workings and policies, but she is inquisitive when unsure which scores big points. My real concern is she appears to be focused on the more controversial and social aspects of the project, which for an aspiring administrator rubs me the wrong way. A stronger dedication to our core efforts would speak volumes. This doesn't have to be content creation, but that certainly would be the best example. Categorization is trivial work in my mind and either way I don't see how adminship would play an integral role in that regard, and this is what she claims as her best contributions. Despite her fidelity on such noticeboards, her allure to contentious areas and apparent eagerness to play a role in them seems too strong for me to offer my full support. — MusikAnimal talk 16:02, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Well someone needs to deal with these controversial parts of Wikipedia, so what's the downside to adding someone who's actually willing to do it? As much as I agree with the OWB points in general, I'm not on board with the idea that the community should actively avoid giving adminship to people who express a desire to take on the role; or, for that matter, the idea that the best attitude of a candidate is "I don't really actually want to do administrative work, but since I'm being pressed I guess I'll reluctantly do this with the understanding that I'll stick to the most boring and mindless admin tasks (did I forget to mention that I don't really want to do this?)..." The latter seems to be the the tone of successful RfAs of late, the former—that is, people who openly demonstrate some enthusiasm—should be what the community is looking for. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:17, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- The problem arises when someone who does not have a clue about content creation or creators, and who said this:
I'd make editing at places like the Help desk, the reference desks, DRN or the Teahouse just as important as writing an FA.
, here. I'm sorry, while those are important, they are nowhere near as important as our featured content, and to claim otherwise indicates that she just doesn't get it. GregJackP Boomer! 19:45, 2 August 2015 (UTC)- How about instead of 'important' we talk about 'crucial.' Editing at administrative noticeboards, etc., is just as crucial? Because without those we have chaos, and no one can find or trust the featured content. valereee (talk) 20:22, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- No, it is not crucial, it is currently where people go to hound content creators. The problem is that non-content creators have a mistaken idea that they are as valuable to the project as those who create content. The purpose of admins should be to keep the riff-raff away from the content creators. That's why we need admins who have created content, not those who view this as a social media experiment. GregJackP Boomer! 20:31, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- I have a hard time swallowing the idea that having an obsessive knowledge of hurricanes or video games, which are what a disproportionate number of our featured articles seem to be about, makes or breaks being a decent administrator. I handle a lot of AE issues, a lot of unreferenced BLPs, and did my fair share of untangling nastiness in Indian caste disputes; I have no writing experience in any of those areas on Wikipedia, though I do in my personal life, and I have yet to have it raised as a serious issue in one of my administrative decisions. Besides, even if you think they're not the most important areas someone still has to do it; after all, business executives generally have secretaries without whom they would never be able to do the best at their jobs. Their secretaries may have no real grasp of business management, but they're still essential to the functioning of the company. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:59, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- How about instead of 'important' we talk about 'crucial.' Editing at administrative noticeboards, etc., is just as crucial? Because without those we have chaos, and no one can find or trust the featured content. valereee (talk) 20:22, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- The problem arises when someone who does not have a clue about content creation or creators, and who said this:
- Well someone needs to deal with these controversial parts of Wikipedia, so what's the downside to adding someone who's actually willing to do it? As much as I agree with the OWB points in general, I'm not on board with the idea that the community should actively avoid giving adminship to people who express a desire to take on the role; or, for that matter, the idea that the best attitude of a candidate is "I don't really actually want to do administrative work, but since I'm being pressed I guess I'll reluctantly do this with the understanding that I'll stick to the most boring and mindless admin tasks (did I forget to mention that I don't really want to do this?)..." The latter seems to be the the tone of successful RfAs of late, the former—that is, people who openly demonstrate some enthusiasm—should be what the community is looking for. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:17, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose (Moved from Support) - First off I sincerely apologize for saying "Good luck although you probably won't need it as you'll sail through this" - At the time I didn't think there would be any issues but in hindsight I shouldn't of said that, Anyway the opposes raise some valid concerns and If I'm being totally honest it's been on mind for quite a few days, Whilst I'm not too bothered with content creations I am concerned with the constant ANI drama, As others have noted it seems you spend less time on articles and more at ANI & other noticeboard which isn't the way to go. –Davey2010Talk 16:24, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose (moved from neutral) my thinking is basically the same as described in the neutral section, but User_talk:Sitush/Archive_21#you_are_again_removing_content confirms my fears and I'm now firmly in the oppose camp. --Stfg (talk) 19:44, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose - candidate is somewhat hostile to content creators and has been entrenched in a number of controversial areas. Minor4th 20:23, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
Neutral
Neutral. I generally don't like going neutral on RfAs because I prefer to come to a judgment one way or the other no matter how weak it is, but I can't make up my mind on this one. On one hand, Liz seems to be a very conscientious editor and seems to know policy like the back of her hand. On the other hand, I get the sense of a "civility police" attitude from the candidate, which I feel is one of the biggest problems currently with Wikipedia. The diff by J3Mrs is also concerning to me. I can't support because of this, but I can't oppose either, so hence I find myself here. StringTheory11 (t • c) 00:31, 29 July 2015 (UTC)moved to oppose. StringTheory11 (t • c) 04:57, 31 July 2015 (UTC)- Civility is one of the WP:FIVEPILLARS. Are you suggesting it should not be enforced? Burninthruthesky (talk) 06:55, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- If Wikipedia were an equitable community, civility violations would've been few and far between. When people feel like they're being treated unfairly or in a domineering way on a systematic basis, they become agitated and act erratically. The civility police only serve to exacerbate the situation. It is usually to everybody's interest to examine what it is that made an editor behave in a certain way than punish them for it. There are - of course - exceptions, such as threats of violence, which we can simply not tolerate. My 2p. Alakzi (talk) 11:53, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Civility is one of the WP:FIVEPILLARS. Are you suggesting it should not be enforced? Burninthruthesky (talk) 06:55, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Neutral - I've seen a bit of Liz's work at AfD lately, and I agree that there should be more participation in the discussions there, see Q 4. But AfD should not become an even bigger battlefield of users who WP:LIKE or WP:DONTLIKE certain subjects/subject areas. Liz says "...it helps the project if editors with a variety of different perspectives and experience participate in deletion discussions." Well, no, it would help the project if editors with a better knowledge of the notability and content guidelines would participate in deletion discussions. Although her overall record at AfD is ok, there are some weird !votes like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Touchsuite (note that IMDb is expressly mentioned in the guideline as unreliable); Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Byon Hee-jae (failure to observe WP:BEFORE); Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Khyber Pakhtunkhwa local government elections 2015 and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cultural Beira (2nd nomination) (failure to understand the context of the content). I suggest to get a firmer grasp on guidelines and policy, and when in doubt, just don't opine. Good luck. Kraxler (talk) 03:14, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
- Neutral leaning to oppose - I have deliberated over this and pondered the answers to my questions, but I don't have enough evidence to go either way on this. The supports worry me, many seem to be variants on I like her which aren't very helpful for people like me who are on the fence. The opposers, meanwhile, make fair and insightful comments. The complete vacuum of content creation is a major problem, I'm not fussed about GAs but a lack of any article work she's happy to have done is seriously worrying. She's made more edits to project space than article space, which leaves me uncomfortable. To avoid repeating myself I've cobbled together User:Ritchie333/Why admins should create content, so read that. The CSD logs are reasonably okay, but I spotted some howlers eg: Genevieve Lyons ("She worked with the BBC drama company"), Matthew Lintz (has notable relatives, generally good for a redirect per WP:BIO1E and WP:INHERIT) and Danny Winchell (has a reliable source). I'm sure she approaches everything with good faith and diligence, but can picture her making mistakes that will get covered up by "playing nice". As for "I guess ArbCom can't be trusted either, huh? Afterall, they are not here to build the encyclopedia" - well, no they're not - one only needs to refer back to Rich Farmbrough's recent RfA to see how Arbcom may not be as consistently perfect as some believe. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:22, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
NeutralI've always noticed Liz around as handing out level-headed advice and actions, and had thought she was already an admin. I note that some are opposing based on a lack of content work. I think she has more than some others who've been opposed on this basis; for instance, she's responded to a lot of comments on the Gamergate article (I know there was bad blood, but I wasn't involved, so don't shoot me ;) ). I think the borderline derisive comment on content creators was uncalled for and perhaps not fully reflected on at the time. Admins ideally should refrain from taking cheap shots.I'll sit on the fence for now.Samsara 16:18, 30 July 2015 (UTC) Changed to oppose. Samsara 19:05, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
- Neutral. Liz and I got off to a rocky start when she edited as an IP, but we later worked our way to being on okay terms with each other and discussing problematic situations. Where we still significantly differ is that Liz has too much of a soft spot for problematic editors, including highly problematic editors, much like Manul stated above in the Oppose section. I understand wanting to give editors another chance, but there has to be a line drawn at some point. I deal with problematic editors a lot, including WP:Sockpuppets (as noted on my user page); and whereas I think that there is usually due process when it comes blocking people as WP:Socks and that behavioral evidence is commonly just as strong as WP:CheckUser evidence (or, in some cases, more accurate), Liz seems to think otherwise; for example, she stated that she "see[s] a lot of [these] blocks occur without any due process." That discussion can be seen at User talk:Flyer22/Archive 14#Lengths of IP blocks. That stated, as can be seen at User talk:Flyer22/Archive 19#Disambiguation, where I was dealing with a particular WP:Sock that Liz offered a Welcome template to, I stated, "Liz and I have disagreed on WP:Sockpuppet issues, such as WP:Duck. She approaches WP:Sockpuppets softly and gives even the most obvious WP:Sockpuppets and other WP:Disruptive editors the benefit of the doubt, including when there is ample evidence that the person will never become a better Wikipedia editor. Her approach has made me think more deeply about WP:Sockpuppet issues and the issue of other WP:Disruptive editors. And I know that the benefit of the doubt should be given in certain cases..." The one case where Liz and I have agreed thus far (at least openly) on prohibiting a highly problematic editor from editing Wikipedia can be seen at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive885#The talk pages of User:RJR3333's sockpuppets. Flyer22 (talk) 04:22, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- I also think that it's best that editors have more than two years experience editing Wikipedia before becoming a WP:Administrator. My reason for that is because Wikipedia editors with only two or three years of experience tend to have a lot of WP:Newbie qualities. Granted, Liz is out there on the front lines of Wikipedia learning all the time, though. Flyer22 (talk) 05:57, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Reluctant neutral. Lack of content creation is an issue, as are the other stuff the opposers raise. On the other hand she has excellent experience in category work, though tending to argue from her views rather than the rules, and we need more categorizing admins. So for once I'm stuck. Johnbod (talk) 13:53, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
- Is a tendency to argue from one's views rather than the rules really something that we want to see in an admin? - Sitush (talk) 18:06, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
Neutral, leaning slightly to opposefor the reasons expressed very well by Lindsay in the oppose section (currently #29). I'd been wondering how to express just those thoughts. In answer to some of the other opposers: I don't think the MMPORG consideration is a valid one, and it's slightly ABF. People contribute to Wikipedia for all sorts of reasons: some people write FAs and GAs and put bronze stars and green plusses on their user pages. That's pride in their work, and they are well entitled to it. If other people do a good job of helping to clear out vandalism, COI, copyvio, personal nastiness, ..., then I say they are equally entitled to take pride in that. The issue is not why they want to do it, but whether they will do it well. Also, I think the "if you won't do what I want you to do, then it means you can't" on the talk page is a childish, manipulative argument and unacceptable. What remains is the tendency to get unsolicitedly involved in the drama places (not only the boards) and the resulting suspicion that she would like to supervise those who do what she doesn't do herself. That may be unfair, and I apologise in advance if it is, but it's just enough to keep me away from supporting. --Stfg (talk) 15:20, 1 August 2015 (UTC)moved to oppose--Stfg (talk) 19:40, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Neutral (moved from support) - While I still stand by my comments regarding Liz's amazing work as an ArbCom clerk, the concerns brought up by Drmies, Cassianto, Kudpung, and others is concerning. First off, my main concern is the shallow and unhelpful comments at the drama boards. Those pages are already crapshoots as they are and the last thing a drama-fest needs is a shallow and/or inaccurate analysis of the situation, which could wind up inadvertently making the situation worse, especially since admins are sometimes turned upon to cool the situation. Second of all, the lack of content creation is definitely concerning. You don't have to be churning out featured content every day or two, but you should know how to build an article to GA or DYK status. After all, the whole point of this site is to create a reliable encyclopedia, so at least some of your time should be spent building content. If this RfA doesn't pass and you build a GA and a DYK by the next one and you work on your drama board commentary, and I'll unquestionably support you then (unless you goof up badly elsewhere ). Best of luck and happy editing. Sportsguy17 (T • C) 12:57, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Neutral - I've struggled with this RfA nomination, and I have vacillated from oppose, to not commenting at all, to neutral. While Liz is obviously a net positive to the project, I am left with significant reservations about her on-wiki background and experience, primarily because I sincerely and fiercely believe that ANI participation is the wrong training ground for future Wikipedia administrators. ANI often renders a distorted view of Wikipedia, our content-contributing editors, and the best methods for dispute resolution, and ANI is often misused and abused by some of our most contentious and problematic long-term users who have learned how to manipulate policy, the guidelines, and the ANI pitchforks-and-torches mentality to gain advantage in their often serial disputes. In my considered opinion, it takes actual writing and editing experience to comprehend and fully appreciate the challenges faced by some of our best writers in contentious subject areas. The best resolution of editing disputes that arrive at ANI is usually not the blocking of the parties; blocking of editors is something that should rarely happen in haste, usually in sorrow, and almost always after the problematic behavior has been explained and the concerned parties clearly warned. ANI often contributes to a shoot-first, question-later mentality, and too often does not reduce the heat or lower the level of rhetoric. Snarky, sarcastic, and otherwise unhelpful comments from non-parties -- including some long-time administrators -- contribute to this atmosphere; these are not behaviors to be emulated by newly minted administrators. To be clear, I could not give a rodent's hairy little backside whether an RfA candidate ever produces a Feature Article, but I would like to see a candidate whose primary qualifications do not rest most prominently on his or her participation in ANI and other drama boards. Given the knife's edge on which this RfA is currently balanced, I have consciously chosen not to register an "oppose" !vote, but I do hope that Liz, her nominators and her supporters will accept my comments as constructive criticism -- and those of other thoughtful editors -- and "take it on board" whether the present RfA is successful or not. Good luck. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:51, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
- Neutral (moved from support): I just do not have the heart to oppose at this time; I am usually quite firm and cemented in my decisions and to so thoroughly reverse myself to "oppose" I cannot do. But it is clear from all the questions, investigations and evidence that have now been let out of the box, that this candidate does not need to be awarded adminship at this time. Too many troubles on too many fronts. What I have learned is that I will be very slow to grant a "support" !vote in the future; these things run for seven days for a reason... Fylbecatulous talk 19:57, 2 August 2015 (UTC)