Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Netoholic

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[edit] Netoholic

Vote here (3/28/7) ending 06:20, 04 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Voting has closed. The result was that Netoholic was not promoted. Please do not add any more votes to this page.

I joined officially in late June 2004, and currently have about 4700+ edits. I am completely enthused about this project, and other related ones. I only wish I had more time to devote! I'm an administrator on the Simple: Wikipedia, and have contributed, when necessary, to Wikibooks/source/quote in order to transwiki content. Lately, I've been finding myself having to search out assistance from admins in order to handle very simple problems, and would very much like to be able to handle them myself. Typical things lately have been deleting Talk pages of deleted pages, requesting text of deleted articles (WP:VFU), clearing redirects in the way of page moves, and similar routine tasks.

I do understand that there may be a few people that I've crossed, and do welcome their positive input here and would he happy to answer any questions - so long as they are civil. I will say that through everything, I have learned a lot about the inner workings of the site and its editors - particularly in the last few weeks. Where I have (too) strong feelings, I steer clear. When I disagree with a decision, I make a point to converse about it early and often.

One concern by some, though probably not much related to sysop status, may be my stance on deletions. I do believe that a lot of information is deleted too quickly from the site, and those deletions are harmful both to the overall content of the 'pedia and to those new contributors who have provided that information in good faith. I can imagine that many first impressions have been dashed by a new editor's first contributions being deleted. Rather than considering myself an inclusionist, I feel I am an "improvement-ist" – I'd rather do a little online research and expand something with marginal content to a basic workable stub level, rahter than see it deleted outright. All this being said, I agree strongly that vandalism and true "non-content" should be removed, and that our admins needs better definitions in order to distinguish those. I do absolutely respect any deletion which has followed established guidelines/policies or which has achieved consensus. -- Netoholic @ 06:19, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)

Support

1. A shame the wiki/personality politics play such a role in the votes against. Sam [Spade] 15:19, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
2. Someone with more opposition than me. I'm impressed. Support. Adminship should be no big deal. If Netoholic uses his admin powers in ways which are not representative of a consensus then he should be deadminned just like any other admin. anthony 警告 15:50, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
3. Clearly a hardworker devoted to adding more and more knowledge to the Wikipedia--not a deletionist devoted to removing more and more knowledge from it. This request obviously won't succeed this time, but I suggest it be submitted again in a month or two. I'll definitely support or nominate. DG 15:26, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

   Do you really want to provoke a rabid politicization of RfA? You will note that, as of now, there is not a harsh division along Deletionist/Inclusionist lines (myself being an example). As this, and your vote on SWAdair, suggest, you have been voting that way, and all it can do is make the debates more one-dimensional. I would like to ask you to reconsider your criteria for voting. --Improv 17:04, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

   The problem is that adminship has become a very political position. All it takes is a single admin to decide that "consensus" has been reached in a VFD dicussion and that article is removed until a majority of people vote on VFU and an admin decides to undelete. Even then you'll have some admins like RickK who will redelete anyway, and some admins will delete without even listing on VFD. Adminship is highly political. I'm interested in changing this, so I've decided not to vote against candidates based on political reasoning, but I can fully see why someone would want to do this. anthony 警告 13:42, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oppose

1. User's initial antisocial behavior has certainly improved—but not enough. Maybe later. —No-One Jones ^(m) 06:31, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
2. I think this comment just about says it all. →Raul654 06:52, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

   I'm a bit surprised that Raul654 would bring this up, because I think that my request for mediation between us could really help to close up any misunderstandings. Raul, I really do hope you choose to accept my offer. -- Netoholic @ 07:46, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)

3. Oppose strongly. RickK 07:01, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)
4. Has proven that he is wont to make controversial decisions and then act on them unilaterally, with minimal discussion. I can't support an admin that will very well be rogue. Mike H 07:05, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)
5. Antisocial to the extreme. Regularly does controversial things unilaterally. Would very likely end up a rogue admin. Ambi 07:39, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
6. Netoholic consistently acts in his own interests rather than the community's and seems unable to cooperate with othetrs in the spirit of a true Wikipedian. He consistently rubs users up the wrong way by acting unilaterally and lacks the humility to to accept a majority views that opposes his own. Mintguy (T) 08:47, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
7. Good heavens, no! (for reasons mentioned above) Johnleemk | Talk 09:09, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
8. (Self nomination huh?)Excessive copyright checking.

   I had to waste hours and hours of my time to prove my originality.

   Replied sarcastically(--Did you also write HSDL-9100-021 proximity sensor yourself? Did all these websites and Agilent itself copy your text as well? I am still checking your other contributions) when I replied . Please think and review before admitting him into administratorship.
   If you review the above link , the later date provided the upload of the Karma page, yet he obstinately continues to attempt to go beyond to even checking Google's cache.Another reference It was a nightmare. I had to keep telling myslf, this too will pass.
   Netoholic please listen man, WAKE UP!!--Jondel 10:26, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

9. VERY strongly oppose. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 11:45, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
10. VERY, VERY, strongly oppose. Neutrality (hopefully!) 15:07, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)
11. Repeatedly called me a "fuck" in private IRC messages, and lied about it publicly. Not now, not ever. Snowspinner 15:14, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)
12. I don't have any personal beef with him, but his consistent oppose votes on this page and overwrought inclusionism make me consider him to be a poor candidate at this time. Maybe in the future. Andre (talk) 15:25, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)
13. BobDoe 15:36, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
14. CryptoDerk 15:37, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)
15. Oppose. - RedWordSmith 18:15, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
16. Mildly opposeNeutralPedant 21:27, 2004 Nov 3 (UTC)
    • pro: does plenty of chores and thankless tasks, does contribute good material...
    • con: needs to work on tact, and consensus-building skills

    would possibly make a good admin at a future date, as he is very active in the community, not afraid of working. Needs to polish his social skills quite a bit, would support the nomination if he demonstrates a long-term commitment to civility, EDIT:has made some recent progress in this regard and has demonstrated that he's willing to learn.(end of edit)(Pedant 21:27, 2004 Nov 3 (UTC)) barring any further allegations like "he called me a fuck repeatedly", etc. Making him an admin at this point does not seem wise. I personally have had no bad experiences with him that stand out in my memory. He's a productive member of the community, just not yet suited to be an example of the best of what wikipedia can be.Pedant 20:15, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)

17. Has mellowed out of late and may be admin material in a couple of months or so, but not yet. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 22:26, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
18. I was actually starting to think that I was mellowing with age, and that I could laugh off actions that could be put down to the callowness of youth. That all went out the window when Netoholic made me explode with rage, and James F and ed2gs were unluckily caught up in the blast (- the causes of which they had been trying to avert). It'll take me quite a few months to live down that embarassment: pity the same can't be said of Netoholic. Noisy | Talk 23:28, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
19. Sorry, but I, too, am concerned about Netoholic's short fuse. I disagree with him on numerous issues, including standards for admins and notability of articles, but this has nothing to do with my vote. However, his argument with Raul on #wikipedia and other behaviors prevent me from supporting his nomination. Admins have to be especially careful when dealing with other users, and I am not, at this time, confident that Netoholic can do this. --Slowking Man
20. User troubles me greatly I'll never trust him with adminship--Comrade Nick @)---^-- 11:01, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
21. Sorry. Itai 17:36, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
22. Very strongly oppose. Wanting to change the system is a good thing, but defying the existing system because you disagree with it is quite another. Netoholic has been helpful and a good editor, but he has (now?) decided that the system of deletion is wrong and has allowed his frustration to lead to quarrelsome actions that were "bold" to the point of vandalism in at least my opinion. I respect his intelligence and his principles and passion, but I cannot support him as an administrator when he has shown already that he is willing to disregard the wishes of the community to pursue his own vision of the way things ought to be. Geogre 19:10, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

    Its only fair to point out that all of that happened ~2 months ago. I was "bold" and didn't exactly understand the history and unspoken rules behind VFD at the time. I did step on some toes, and learned a lot from that. I think even Geogre will agree that my actions with regards to VFD have been proper since that time. I do vote and express opinion about deletion policy, but that's the extent of it. I hope you'll take that long span of time into account. -- Netoholic @ 19:54, 2004 Oct 29 (UTC)

23. I oppose adminship for this fairly new user. I feel he needs to learn people skills and not talk down to people if he wants them to obey his bidding. Deb 12:49, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
24. Absolutely not. A history of fairly extreme uncivil, (I don't have any of my own specific examples to cite, don't want to spend any more time trying to find what caused my general belief that this was a concern, and tend to agree that 'piggy backing' on other's comments is unfair. Also, I will add that I have seen many people say things on #wikipedia that they would never say in a more permanent forum--if people think VfD gets rough sometimes, it's still like a Quaker picnic compared to what can go on at #wikipedia, and I don't even want to try to imagine what probably goes on during private chats.)unilateral behavior, and ignoring of consensus, even if brief, IMHO needs to be followed by a LONG history of civil, community-minded behavior, which is more like at least six months, not two. BTW, where are the 'questions of the candidate'? Niteowlneils 19:14, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

    PS As I've noted on Netoholic's Talk page, "I appreciate your enthusiasm, candor, and most of your contributions." Niteowlneils 00:42, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

    I think Nite has discovered something that I've been trying hard to explain. In the recent two months, I find myself more defending against the perception that I am "uncivil", than defending any actual problems. Unfortunately, once something like this perception becomes continuously perpetuated by a few people, I'm beginning to see, it's impossible to fight the spread of that perception. I've talked personally with many people who've voted here, and they are like you in that they can't cite a specific example which has given that impression. I really hope everyone takes away from this vote that what they perceive may not be actual, and that overly perpetuating such things is more damaging than anything I may have stupidly done a couple months ago. I'd also like to add an invitation to anyone that, if you see me "being uncivil" or wording something too "abrasive", PLEASE let me know, and I will be happy to re-evaluate my written words. -- Netoholic @ 03:17, 2004 Nov 3 (UTC)

25. Reluctantly oppose. He's too abrasive. - Ta bu shi da yu 00:50, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
26. Not now, maybe in the future-Tony the Marine
27. Oppose. —Stormie 08:10, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)
28. Oppose. Seems inflexible and contentious in his approach to inclusionist/deletionist discussions. (Unsigned vote by User:Dpbsmith placed at 14:47, 2004 Nov 4, after voting had closed)

Neutral

1. JOHN COLLISON [ Ludraman] 07:43, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
2. I think it's clear he doesn't vote to keep out of politeness. Netoholic is quite snippy. Netoholic's more inclusionist than the norm, but—as he points out—that makes him much safer than someone with a deletionist bent. Would list as Neutral due to his antisocial tendencies, but he's a good contributer. Cool Hand Luke 07:12, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC) Moved to neutral. Cool Hand Luke 07:50, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
3. He's made some good contributions, but he needs to learn to work with the whole community if he wants to undertakes the tasks of an Admin. —siroχo 08:44, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)
4. I have no personal experience to lead me to vote against him, and he seems to be a good contributor, but I can't possibly in good faith vote for someone who has caused so much bad blood. I hope he'll mend the bridges he seems to have burnt, take the criticism to heart and retry again at a later date, because he obviously cares about the project. Shane King 12:48, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

   To be honest, I have tried to mend those bridges. Some of the personalities on this project are very strong-willed, and I fully expected them to vote oppose. In every one of those cases, though, I have tried multiple times to broker understanding. I can probably go through and provide specific examples for everyone above, if that sort of thing would help. The way I see it though, is that I have done a lot of learning here. My early (over-)enthusiasm stepped on a few toes, and that is a position which is very difficult to ovecome. Indeed, I have even considered starting up a new account, just so that my earlier missteps won't be held so much against me, because my activity has been very positive lately. That prospect makes me a little sad and disappointed, but I'm not sure just how long I am supposed to be held to these. -- Netoholic @ 13:57, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)

5. Reviewing his record on voting, I find him too eager to keep every article, no matter how unencyclopedic the topic. Some of this is done in the name of being kind to newcomers, but he reads it entirely wrong. It is possible to be polite, and yet still delete articles added by newbies, and I feel that this is what the "don't bite the newcomers" policy is all about, not keeping things that don't belong purely to keep them happy. It is similar to how all sorts of bad laws are passed in the name of "family values". It's a pity that this glaring flaw is present in an otherwise extremely good candicate, as he has done a lot of good work in non-policy-related parts of Wikipedia. Still, as it's there, I must oppose his adminship. --Improv 06:38, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

   Definitely what I was trying to avoid with the last paragraph in the introduction. I do have to ask, though, why you see my desire to keep articles as a negative factor for granting access to the "janitor" functions available to admins? I don't see how that makes any difference – I would think someone who is overly eager to delete articles would be a greater risk. There are many areas (like WP:TFD and others) where I am more frequently in favor of deletion. -- Netoholic @ 06:47, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)

   For the record, I don't think you'd be a rogue admin like SimonP, but rather, I feel that being a sysop marks you and your positions as more prominent in the community, and I don't think your interpretation of not biting the newcomers really fits well with not deleting articles by new folks, nor do I think your inclusionist tendencies speak well. I do appreciate that we talked on IRC without any hostility, and it was productive, so I think additionally you seem to be a nice guy, but I just don't think the policy viewpoint is right. --Improv 07:38, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

   On further reflection on the IRC conversation, and reviewing the edits, I'm going to shift to a neutral vote. --Improv 16:47, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

6. Good user, he welcomed me in Simple Wikipedia, but I'm kind of concerned about his behavior. --Lst27 23:54, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC) I move my vote to neutral. --Lst27 23:27, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
7. My interactions with Netoholic have been peripheral at best. I recall that he opposed my RfA, but only on the grounds that he opposes other RfAs, and I respect that. My concern is that Netoholic is still too abrasive when dealing with other users. Given his good edits, I would be willing to support in a few months if the controversy dies down. Mackensen (talk) 23:08, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Comments

• (I appologize for preaching.)
  

Netoholic,
Please don't take it personally. I hope you continue to progress and learn and see great potential.
There are thousands of other wikipedians who probably deserve to be administrators , but do their jobs quietly and are polite. They may never nominated. The don't choose rewards, but they don't need to self-nominate themselves because they are self-assured that they will be compensated accordingly.

Please be polite. Please don't be surprised about the above statements (Come on! Believe me this is not the way to go. Please grow up.). Please don't be sarcastic. This is the ancient way of Kings. There is an interpretation ot the tetragrammaton of- - what was, is and will be- -. What essentially always (past , present future)makes kings(or administrators) ?

I won't be lecturing anymore . I hope you understand. --Jondel 00:49, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• Regarding the "I'm an administrator on the Simple: Wikipedia" comment in Netoholic's self-nomination statement; this was as a result of him convincing Anthere, a steward, into thinking there was an emergency on Simple that required adminship, despite me having said on RfA there was no such thing. He then persuaded Anthere to make that adminship pemanent, something which ought to have been decided by the community at Simple, not by a steward, considering Simple did, until this happened, have a bureaucrat. Angela. 02:44, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)
  • I would like to invite Anthere here give her explanation, but let me make it clear I did -not- actively solicite her to promote me in this case. User:Haydes was becoming a pest on both en: and Simple:. I tried contacting 3 simple: admins and Angela all via email to come take a look at the situation. After 24 hours, with no response, I simultaneously posted on Simple's RFA and on meta:Requests for permissions in order to be granted temporary admin rights. Anthere promoted me without any further prompting on my part, and without seeing Angela's answer over on simple:. Anthere later saw Angela's note, but let the status remain for week, so I went and cleaned up some of the leftover Haydes articles whenever he re-inserted them (usually after he became blocked on en:) – I never expected that temporary assignment to last forever. I later did ask the community and Angela to make the assignment permanent, since I am a regular contributor there, and the current admins are not. Noone's objected to this day, and my status remains. Honestly, Angela knows just how barren it is over there as far as contributors, and if she has an issue with my status, she should have said so, rather than giving me a false sense of approval with this update. I don't think it is right to come here and imply wrong-doing on my part. Simple: is a near dead wiki, and my admin activity is above reproach, but I will absolutely step down voluntarily if that community, or Angela, feels I did anything improper. -- Netoholic @ 03:11, 2004 Oct 29 (UTC)
    • Firstly, I don't think the edit your referred to was Angela trying to give you a "false sense of approval" - it looks to me like a pure maintenance edit. Like you said, Simple is near-dead; someone's got to keep the administrators list updated. Secondly, and more gravely, I don't think for one second Angela came here to try to imply wrong-doing on your part. She was offering her opinion. Notice she had the courtesy to do it in a comment rather than an oppose vote. Furthermore, I think the mere suggestion of impropriety on her part is entirely ludicrous and offensive even. That's my 2¢. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 03:44, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • As I have been trying to explain to Netoholic on IRC for the last two hours, I did not mean to imply any wrong doing on his part. I just feel that stating he is an admin at Simple is misleading since it implies he was trusted by the community enough to be made a sysop when there was not an actual vote which led to his adminship. If he makes it clear in his statement that there was no vote, then my comment can be removed. Angela. 06:19, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

• Comment: I freely admit that Netoholic's "run in" with me was two months ago. While I may have been too obtuse (I mean that) to have perceived a laurel branch being extended to me, the problem that I have is based on the intensity of the passion. I do not mean that I think that Netoholic would be a bad admin, but rather that I can't be sure. To me, this is the same as a user who leaves a vicious flame on another's page. In enough time, it's all past, but you still think, "Hmm, the stress showed in inappropriate action." It's enough to tip many RfA voters from Support to Neutral or even Oppose (depending). What bothers me, personally, is not whether my toes or feelings were hurt or not, but that the whole community was being told that it was wrong. I'm not saying that Netoholic feels that way now, but the commitment to his principles led him to that, and that is what worries me. Time may salve any affronts, but I have concerns, because being an admin does allow one to unilaterally act against the community, and it is currently all but impossible to "deSysop" someone. I also think that its being merely 2 months since an RfC was opened is not enough time. (I didn't want to put these comments in the votes, because I don't want to confuse or belay that section.) Geogre 00:07, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • I'm glad to see that you're here discussing this, since I think it is long overdue between us. When all that was going on, I was still really new to the Wikipedia: space, and had never encountered the concept of article deletion before. Reading all that I did about Wikipedia, it seemed far removed from the goals as stated elsewhere. While I still think a little too much content is deleted too early, I now know how to properly to express my opinion - by tackling the policies and guidelines. I've contributed to those discussions on many occasions – which is why "inclusionism" is part of the votes above.
    I am right along with you that the de-admin options are not very well-defined – and I'm not sure if thats a good or bad thing. I do like some of the ideas, like regular review or even voluntary re-confirmation.
    As for whether 2 months is "enough time", that's up to you. I think in the last 2 months, the breadth of my contributions (both here and on other Wikimedia projects) has shown an honest commitment to the success of these projects. This RFA is certainly proving to me that people have long memories, and that I still have a ways to go. I do hope that everyone from this point might give me the honest benefit of the doubt, and perhaps let this be a fresh start. Long memories tend to fester and impact current efforts far too often. I do take the constructive comments in this RFA to heart. Thanks for writing back, Geogre, and I do want to offer a (virtual) shake of hands. -- Netoholic @ 03:17, 2004 Oct 30 (UTC)

Netoholic is now making threats against Users who have the temerity to want to protect their own User pages from editing from other Users. See User talk:Deb. RickK 21:11, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

• This is an area where existing policy explicitly disagrees with ideal policy. The existing policy is that no page on wikipedia is to be protected unless and for the sole length of time related to its actual vandalism. The ideal policy is that user pages (and NOT user talk pages) should be either restrictable to the owner of the page (not supported in the software right now, but would be a cool modification) or should be protectable, at request of the user, for any reason for any length of time needed. It is accepted wiki practice to use the user talk page to communicate with others, and it is not quite so accepted/common to write on other peoples non-talk pages. What should be done in the case of such a disagreement? Ideally, get the policy changed. It is not so clear, however, if the existing policy should be ignored in advance of such an obviously good proposed change. Maybe it should be. In any case, keeping cool tempers on both sides is a good idea. --Improv 22:01, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Please see my policy change proposal on the Village Pump. --Improv 22:15, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Did this page suddenly turn into an RFC? I think everyone here should take a look at the note's I've left on both Deb's and RickK's talk pages. Being a non-admin, I'm not involved directly with the user page "protection war" going on with regards to user pages. I am trying to broker a peace between the parties, and hoping to let them know that current written policy doesn't support casual user page protection, and certainly not for an extended time. Discussion as to changing the policy is fine, and welcome I'm sure, but currently the "war" is harmful, and I feel like I am assisting to that end. RickK, I'd appreciate you not levying this kind of inflammatory statement in the future, especially on a page so inappropriate as this one. -- Netoholic @ 22:41, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)
  • If you're not involved, why are you going around and threatening to have sysops' rights taken away from them for protecting their User pages? And why is it any business of yours? Are you planning on vandalizing people's User pages? And this is entirely appropriate, being a discussion of your continuing trollish behavior. RickK 22:51, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)
    • I encourage everyone to review my statements. I made no threat at all about removal of any sysops' rights. I'll no longer continue this thread, because I am fairly well convinced that your reasons for posting this serve only to inflame passions and cause trouble - classic trolling in and of itself. -- Netoholic @ 23:12, 2004 Nov 1 (UTC)
• RickK - please could you explain where the threat is. The only thing I can see that could possibly be seen as even a mild warning is "If you continue to re-protect this in the face of standard practice and other people's opinions, it can be construed as a misuse of your privileges." - a fair statement in the light of the current policy (whether that policy is a good one is a whole nother argument). On the same page you said "So far as I KNOW, nobody has unprotected my pages, but the instant they do, I'll file an RfC on them. You should do the same thing." - which seems to me to be closer to a threat that anything Netoholic said - and would be a RfC for doing something that's not against any policy I know of -- sannse (talk) 22:43, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • (a) What Netoholic said was definitely a threat. OTOH, Michael Snow should not have been unprotecting other peoples' user pages, because while technically not against policy, it's fairly taboo. →Raul654 22:46, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)
    • Agree wholeheartedly with Raul's sentiments. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 22:53, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • I disagree that this was a threat - and think this discussion on the protection policy should be moved to another page. -- sannse (talk) 23:01, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Excuse me, since when do I get brought into this? --Michael Snow 23:05, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
      • Just a point. None of the users involved in unprotecting my page actually asked me if I would mind doing it myself. Perhaps I would have. Perhaps I still will. Deb 12:49, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Before this vote closes, I do want to thank everyone for participating. I knew going in pretty much what to expect from a few people, but I do admit to being a bit surprised at how many people haven't taken into account my strong contribution history and desire to improve Wikipedia. I have seen many administrator nominations go through were the candidate had a few hundred edits, yet little interaction with the community. The vote here seems to indicate that "staying silent" is a safer course to adminship than contributing hard and expressing opinion – making this a clearly more political vote than is generally thought. Whether I am an admin or not, I will still continue to contribute just as hard as before.
As for the comments about "inclusionism" - please look again. I don't vote on very many VFD items. Those few that I do vote on, it is because I have specific knowledge or opinion on that area, and feel that the article content is worth of keeping in some form. Indeed, most of my votes are to "merge and redirect", rather than keeping a narrow subject in its own article.
Finally, there were many vote comments made about "uncivil behavior" from editors with which I have had no appreciable interaction with. I really hope those editors will recognize that if they are voting only based on what other people have said, rather than their personal experiences or investigation, then they are in effect granting an extra vote to those other voters. If I'm wrong, then I do welcome further discussion and constructive criticism. Thanks again, all. -- Netoholic @ 22:19, 2004 Nov 2 (UTC)

I can't speak for anyone else, but I think that what you see as staying silent, many people see as not getting into situations of contention. I believe it's perfectly possible for a user to make thousands of good edits without getting into these situations, depending on what areas their interests lie. Some articles are hotbeds of debate, others aren't.

I'd turn your view around: is it fair that we don't make admins of good editors just because they happen to not edit so much on topics where edit wars tend to arise? I'd say we'd be doing the project a disservice if we took that view. There's a whole encyclopedia to write, and I don't see how we're to do that if we priviledge a few articles with special status and glory for those who edit them.

I'm sorry your adminship attempt didn't get up: you might be a perfectly good admin, I don't know. I think what's been reflected here is that people are willing to assume the best about people, but once that faith has (in their mind) been shown to be misplaced, it's hard to win it back again. The plus side, if there can be said to be one, is that if you can manage to win back people's trust, you will know you have truly earnt it, and not just had it placed in you by default. Shane King 01:04, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

For what it's worth, you made the effort to talk to me, and convinced me to move my nay vote to a neutral. I respect that. --Improv 16:00, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Comment: (MATTHEW 7:1-2) Netholic, in your RfA you write "One concern by some, though probably not much related to sysop status, may be my stance on deletions." I concur wholeheartedly. A person's stance on deletions has nothing to do with whether or not they can be trusted to fulfill the duties of an admin. A vote on RfA should be based on whether or not the person is knowledgeable about how Wikipedia works, how they interact with others, and whether or not they can be trusted to abide by policy. I agree with you 100% on that. I won't vote on this RfA, but please know that one thing I do look for is consistency in applying standards. An administrator should be held to the highest standards of fairness. I must admit it troubled me when I saw that you were basically asking people not to consider your stance on deletions, when your votes are often based precisely on that very position. SWAdair | Talk 09:47, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I do take issue with how some editors here seem to be voraciously involved with VFD voting. I also have lodged oppose votes when I think that a potential administrator may have shown persistent bad decision-making when it comes to deletion voting. I know, though you didn't mention it specifically, that your concerned about how I voted in your RfA. I really do think that giving admin privileges to someone who shows a tendency to make deletion a priority in their work here is a serious danger - not only to the content that is lost but to the potential contributors that may be scared away because they see their first contributions coming into a deletion discussion within a short time of its creation. I've said above, and it can hardly be disputed, that my "inclusionism" is a far less risk to the community. As with anything, my interpretation of your work is certainly open for discussion, and it's possible that someone I vote against may turn out to be a good admin. In that case, I don't think voicing my concerns is wrong, and in actuality, I hope that it might wake up in the candidate some awareness of what direction they are going. -- Netoholic @ 17:29, 2004 Nov 3 (UTC)

Upon a little further reflection, perhaps this view will help explain me a little better. The opposite of deletionism is not inclusionism; rather, the opposite is contribution. That is the root problem I've seen with the admin candidates you've challenged be about. It is not that they wish to delete articles too much, but rather that they choose to spend so much effort deleting articles rather than contributing content to this encyclopedia. You mentioned Matthew 7:1-2 above - "Judge not, that ye be not judged." - very appropriate. I would put forth that voracious deletion, without a corresponding history of vigorous contribution, is my major concern when I voted the way that I did in your RFA, and others. -- Netoholic @ 22:00, 2004 Nov 3 (UTC)

The potential contributor scare isn't an issue. If they're gently enough told that their work is on a topic that's not appropriate for here, and encouraged to find appropriate other areas, then they will. Contributors who take offense to the degree that they'll leave after writing an article that doesn't fit, even when given good reason why it doesn't fit, probably arn't going to become good contributors anyhow. We shouldn't make it such a priority to be nice to new users that existing users find it burdensome. All we should be avoiding, in my opinion, is acquiring a clique-like attitude that some usenet newsgroups typified in times past. This should never affect what articles we keep in the slightest. If something is cruft (fancruft, whatever), it should go. If you would care to arrange for some kind of an ambassador group to new users that would help people understand why their articles don't belong, that'd be welcome. As for inclusionism being of lesser risk to the community, I think that *is* disputable, firstly because people care about the encyclopedia being of high-quality, and you risk scaring away people, the more garbage is included here. Secondly, wikipedia isn't a community for its own sake -- it's here to accomplish a goal. We need to balance civility and that goal, remembering that the goal is the primary good. I suppose if you're into the mottos, this might be "wikipedia is not a social club" or something. --Improv 19:59, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Netoholic, I like your response in re: deletionism. However, I still oppose your adminship because your admin standards are much too high - apparently even higher than blankfaze's. This is bad for the position of admin - it shouldn't be so tied to edit counts. This is my remaining reason for opposing you. Andre (talk) 23:13, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

Would it help if I pointed out a couple votes that I did not oppose, even though they had fewer edits than my "standards" (Rdsmith4, ALoan)? All I have to draw on to determine what I think a reasonable expectation for an admin is too look back at admins who were appointed without enough experience and to compare with my own learning curve here. ~2000 represents enough commitment to feel that the admin would keep being a strong contributor. A lot of admins win their votes, and then drop off the project or stopped working on the encyclopedia. 2000 edits also is a buffer to prevent a "sock puppet" admin - someone who makes a new account only in order to hit the ranks of admin. It's easy to hide a lot of minor, repeatable article work within 1000 edits but requires a lot more effort for 2000. I am also convinced that there are very good admin candidates that would make me suspend by "standards". All in all, whether I am an admin or not, my voting standard is high, and I will continue to apply it. I do thank you though for your comments and discussion. -- Netoholic @ 00:31, 2004 Nov 4 (UTC)

My stance on Netoholic has nothing to do with his stance on deletions, nor on my stance on deletions, but on how he goes about trying to implement his various stances. He jumped into the middle of Wikipedia by trying to create and enforce a policy on moving the names of television shows in one fell swoop, without any input from anybody, and when challenged about it, he became abusive. Then he decided to take on VfD and began deleting VfD headings without consensus. This is not admin material. RickK 01:04, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think I ever became "abusive" at all - that's a pretty strong word and implies I made deliberate personal attacks. I will say I was very insistent, but I think that came from likewise attitude from others. To be honest, those early experiences are exactly why I encourage more compassion for new users. Characterizing that I "made policy" without consulting people is not accurate either - I gathered from the talk page comments that there was a direction we could move and wrote up the page. Only after some users noticed articles being renamed did anyone come back. Please remember that it was a VERY early exposure of mine to the "Wikipedia way", and I really did learn from it. That was over two months ago, and I really wish you'd see it for what it was. Everyone involved became overly passionate. Everything after that point, unfortunately, has its roots in those early disagreements... and the unforgiving attitude of you and others. Had I dropped this account and started over, I'd probably be in a better place in the minds of people here. -- Netoholic @ 01:52, 2004 Nov 4 (UTC)

I have nothing personal against Netoholic. I have never spoken to him before. However, one thing I advise everyone here, is to have fun and learn as we cooperate with each other. "Antonio Australian Kangoroo Martin"