Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Osgoodelawyer

The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a successful request for adminship. Please do not modify it.

[edit] Osgoodelawyer

Final (56/0/2) Ended Wed, 1 Nov 2006 23:41:11 UTC

Osgoodelawyer (talk · contribs) – Oz has been an active Wikipedian over the past year, accumulating 7100 edits to date across the board. His time here has been spent making quality contributions to several articles, participating in maintenance work, and uploading original images – all of which have added greatly to many articles. I have found him to be a respectable, hardworking, dedicated member of the community, always displaying civility and sound judgement. He is your all-round Wikipedian, who is ready and willing to serve the community with a mop. Jay(Reply) 20:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept. _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 21:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

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

1. What sysop chores do you anticipate helping with? Please check out Category:Wikipedia backlog and Category:Administrative backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.

A: The current approach of spreading my contributions across many areas has, I think, worked well for me so far, and so at the risk of sounding like I'm weaseling out of making a commitment, I think I'll likely do a little bit of everything. But if I have to name a couple areas, I would say that I anticipate working on WP:IFD and image tag problems a bit, and since I've already been reverting a fair deal of vandalism, I'll probably keep an eye on WP:AIV so I can help work on preventing it.

Clarification for User:dlohcierekim: By preventing, I simply meant that with the block button I would be able to stop recalcitrant vandals from further vandalizing.

2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any with which you are particularly pleased, and why?

A: The two articles I'm most proud of would probably have to be Flag of Labrador and Newfoundland Tricolour, both articles on unofficial flags from the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, where my wife is from. I'm proud of them because I think that they're pretty well written and in the case of Newfoundland Tricolour, well-sourced (I haven't yet gotten around to sourcing Flag of Labrador, unfortunately).

3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

A: Of the conflicts I've had in the past, only one could be considered major, and I would be lying if I said that dealing with the (subsequently permablocked) user never caused me any stress. That said, I think I generally kept a cool head and learned much from the experience. I now know that I can just step back when a minor dispute threatens to become a more serious conflict and take a short break (if you're "in the right", there will always be other editors to back you up).

Question from Imoeng (talk · contribs)

4. How would you balance your contribution as an admin and as an editor?

A. I hope that the majority of my edits continue to be substantive edits to articles, as that's what I like doing most around here. But, of course, if I didn't think I was going to spend more than just a minor amount of my time on administrative tasks, I wouldn't have accepted the nomination. I don't know if it's realistic to give percentages since I do not know exactly how much administrator-type issues I might come up against in my daily patrol, but I'd guesstimate 75% editor, 25% admin.

5. You edit summary usage for minor edits is pretty low, how would you explain that?

A. Well, my minor edits generally are just that, minor. I don't feel an edit summary is generally needed for edits such as spelling corrections, which I do a fair bit of.

I've already supported and don't think this criterion has much to do with an RfA, but for future reference, a quicky edit summary ("sp" for a spelling correction, "pn" for punctuation etc.) can save time for RC patrollers. Newyorkbrad 00:14, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, will keep that in mind for future minor edits.

6. Additional question from User:dlohcierekim. (As always, all additional questions are completely optional) Hello, Osgood. Thank you for submitting your RfA, I have this question and then perhapd a follow-up. You are RCPatrolling. You see an article has been edited by an anon. The page history indicates the previous entry was by TawkerBot reverting a page blank by the same anon. The current version of the article has a note at the top of the page from the anon saying the article needs to be removed as a “cut and paste job from another site.” What do you do? Thanks,

A. I go searching for the site the page is supposedly cut from, and if I find it (and it's not from a site that's free-use), I delete the page as a copyvio (and hopefully recreate a non-copyvio page in its place). I've done this more than once already (without the deleting, of course). See my work on Burhan Doğançay for an example (in that case I did not request a deletion--perhaps I should have--I just worked the information into a non-copyvio article).

Question from Ginkgo100 (talk · contribs)

3a. Can you be more specific about the conflict you alluded to? Diffs and/or talk page links? Thanks.

A. Unfortunately, as I mentioned below in the Neutral section, the discussion took place almost entirely on the talk page of User:WikiWoo, which is now deleted.

Question from Malber (talk · contribs)

7. What do the policy of WP:IAR and the essay WP:SNOW mean to you and how would you apply them?

A: I'm not a big fan of WP:IAR. The instances where ignoring all rules will actually lead to an improvement of the encyclopedia are few and far between, and I've seen editors use it as a justification to go against clear consensus that has been well thought out and is in the best interests of the community. Content and policy issues are better tackled by working towards changing the rules, not simply ignoring them. That said, there are certain cases where IAR can be used without too much controversy. For instance, a blatant vandal who has made it obvious, through an examination of his or her actions and words, that he or she is not going to stop may be blocked without the requisite number of warnings. In addition, if leniency (such as not blocking when it is usually appropriate) is considered a form of ignoring all rules, then that is another case where IAR can sometimes be an appropriate policy. Finally, WP:SNOW is an explication of the beneficial use of IAR when things such as AfDs and RfAs are going one way. But the situation really does have to be unambiguous; even if an AfD is overwhelmingly in favour of deletion, if the one or two keep votes actually bring up salient points, WP:SNOW should not be applied. Such a use of WP:SNOW prevents subsequent users who might be better at articulating from expanding on those points and perhaps turning the AfD around (or at least giving more support for a deletion review).

8. Is there ever a case where a punitive block should be applied?

A: I thought hard about this question, not wanting to give a straight up and accepted "no", but in the end I do have to come to that answer anyway. To clarify, however, preventative blocks might look punitive to some. As an example, in Jusjih's RfA he claimed that a punitive block could be put in place for offensive usernames. I wouldn't consider such a block punitive at all, since its purpose is to prevent offence being taken.

9. What criteria do you use to determine whether or not a business article should be deleted under CSD:G11?

A: The first step is to actually read the article. While doing this, common sense will be your best tool for determining if something is blatant advertising. It should be obvious to most editors when they come across gratuitous self-promotion, that they're reading an advertisement (we're bombarded with them all day long). A further pointer is that the article may completely lack wikilinks (of course, this is not proof of advertising). You might also want to see if the main contributor has a username connected with the company or product. Once it has been determined that the article is unambiguously an advertisement, and not just the product of an overly enthusiastic editor, salvage options have to be taken into consideration. If the article is short (or largely encyclopedic), and it would only take a few edits to bring it into line with the standard on Wikipedia, then those edits should be made. However, if the article is a lost cause, requiring a complete rewrite in order to become acceptable (and the admin is not willing to do that), then it should be deleted under CSD:G11. However, if the article has previously withstood an AfD (not likely if it really is an advertisement), then it should not be speedy deleted and should instead be sent to a subsequent AfD.

General comments

• See Osgoodelawyer's edit summary usage with mathbot's tool.

Discussion

Support

1. Good news everyone! I support the Holophoner player. - Mike | Trick or Treat 21:33, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
2. Support - I remember Oz's discussions with the (subsequently permablocked) user he discussed above. Although the situation must have been stressful, Oz stayed admirably civil and constructive. His recent edits show even more maturity and judgment, and I'm confident he would wield a mean mop. TheronJ 21:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
3. Support, no reason to oppose that I can see. Daveydweeb (^chat/_patch) 22:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
4. Support. Although I only met the user earlier today, I have to say that I see that this user is a great article-builder who has the experience to handle tough situations and deal with user requests. Best of luck with your RfA! Nishkid64 22:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
5. Support --Jay(Reply) 23:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
6. Sure - CrazyRussian talk/email 23:39, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
7. Support Rama's arrow 23:43, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
8. Support per nom. Michael 23:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
9. Support per nom and answers. Quality editor, will use tools effectively, no concerns. Plus we need more lawyer-admins. :) Newyorkbrad 00:10, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
10. Support - why not? ST47Talk 00:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
11. Support. Polite. Solid contributor to the encyclopedia. Seems a good bloke despite the whole lawyer thing. If he uses the tools, I expect he will use them well. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 00:48, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
12. Support - of course! Khoikhoi 00:56, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
13. Support. Won't abuse the tools. --Mr. Lefty (talk) 00:58, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
14. Support. - Mailer Diablo 01:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
15. Support. meets my standards. Answered my question well. Doubt he'll bite or block newbies in fits of zeal. Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 01:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
16. Support User often forgets to warn vandals, but apart from that no cons. Furthermore, he appears to be a great editor and it's good to see someone willing to work on WP:IFD.--Húsönd 01:17, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
17. Support When you revert this kind of thing, though, be sure to delete (or speedy) the offending pages. As you left it, the offending page and its talk page redirect to the Raiders. Al Davis wouldn't like it – and he gets cranky. I put the {{db-attack}} tag on them, and I doubt they'll last long now that this particular audience is paying attention. ;-) KrakatoaKatie 01:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
18. Support Great user, won't abuse the tools. :) Hello32020 01:41, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
19. Support meets my burden of proof for the tools.-- danntm ^T _C 03:20, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
20. Support - good editor, handled himself well when dealing with a difficult editor over quite a period of time, I suspect he'll do well with the tools. Tony Fox (arf!) 05:08, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
21. Support Excellent editor/contributor in a wide range of issues. Has image uploads in science, sports, from the Arby's logo to an old flag of Waziristan, seems fair minded in afd issues, and looks to be level headed over all. ▪◦▪=Sirex98= 07:48, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
22. --Terence Ong _{(T | C)} 08:19, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
23. Support I can't see why not. The neutral !vote below about not warning vandals is a reasonable point, but there are many admins that I know of that do not warn vandals. --Alex (Talk) 10:25, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
24. Support But do recommend that Ozzy refrain from biting the head off of bats/chickens/newbies if/when they become admin. Jcam 15:35, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
25. Support Good, well-thought out, and nuanced answers to a lot of questions, esp. #9 -- many editors are too quick to apply this to articles. Stayed level-headed with User:WikiWoo. Can use the tools and won't abuse them. --Ginkgo100 ^{talk · e@} 16:45, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
26. Support excellent answers to questions. Clear thinker. —Malber (talk ·  contribs) 17:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
27. I have always said we needed more lawyers as administrators. ;) — Nearly Headless Nick ^{L} 17:15, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
28. Support. Good, well-rounded, experienced editor likely to be a good admin. --MCB 17:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
29. Support -- Zanimum 17:46, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
30. Support, conscientious user with a wide range of contributions. Bishonen | talk 18:08, 26 October 2006 (UTC).
31. Support a good candidate with whom I only had good experiences, even if we disagreed on some points, Tewfik^Talk 18:37, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
32. Support. (Edit Conflict) Seems almost disturbingly well-suited to be a wiki-admin. RyanGerbil10(Упражнение В!) 18:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
33. Support. Really good answers to the questions, and I like his answer to the first question. Although you need to increase your edit summary usage, as admins are selected Wikipedians, and therefore should give good examples to the non-admins. Cheers -- Imoeng 20:34, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
34. Support. Responsible person  Doctor Bruno  20:55, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
35. Support. By the way, we still have a game of hangman to play. bibliomaniac15
36. Support Seems like a rational enough guy. --InShaneee 23:21, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
37. Support. Experienced and dedicated editor. utcursch | talk 12:17, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
38. Support. Godd editor! Anger22 16:29, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

    Now now, I'm not God. =) _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 16:46, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

39. Support sure, looks good. Need more Canadian admins -- Samir धर्म 02:09, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
40. Support, need more lawyer admins :-) -- Seriously, the well thought-out replies and the solid record are convincing. Sandstein 06:30, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
41. Merovingian ※ Talk 07:50, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
42. Support nice edits, good observation skills.Dr.khan 16:55, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
43. Support Sarah Ewart (Talk) 05:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
44. Support. DarthVader 11:44, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
45. Support per nom. John254 15:48, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
46. Support per above. I reviewed the deleted Wikiwoo talk page and nothing seem alarming on Osgoodelawyer's part. Irongargoyle 22:45, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
47. Conspiratorial support (see below) I thought Oz handled himself well in dealing with a difficult (and delusional) user, who was convinced half of Wikipedia's editors were in the pay of the Ontario regional governments. JChap2007 00:34, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
48. Support without question. -- Kicking222 01:49, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
49. Support. Good answers, good edit history, appropriate variety of experience. Wryspy 07:36, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
50. Support, no problem here. I have come across Osgoodelwayer a few times, and each time he has shown the right kind of balance of politeness and firmness in dealing with problem users, especially WikiWoo. Guy 10:12, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
51. Support. I've had limited interaction with this editor in regards to City infoboxes. He was the first person to bring up some very good points about their mechanics. Given that we couldn't see all of his interaction with wikiwoo it was hard to judge how Oz will use his admin powers in a silimar situation. I would hope that he would be very careful and not "jump the gun" using them. Given what I have seen so far, I think that Oz will be very careful with these new superpowers and weigh all the evidence first. Besides the Ontario government paid me $10,000 (one card off from a million) so I guess I too am part of his "Conspiratorial support" (see above). —MJCdetroit 16:33, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

    Comment. I found some of the discuss between WikiWoo and everyone else (not just Oz) here and boy was that boring to read —Regional Canadian politics. Oz conducted himself very well and the only objectable thing that I saw was that he forgot to capitalize the g in "God". There is a right way and a wrong way to do things here and Oz appears to have done it by the book. P.S. This time can the Ontario government please pay me in American dollars? —MJCdetroit 17:43, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

52. Support good replies and the solid history --Steve 00:59, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
53. Support --A. B. 15:15, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
54. Support a smart, capable editor who will make a strong positive contribution as admin. Gwernol 16:33, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
55. Support. I've dealt with user and he seems reasonable. Bastiq▼e ^demandez 17:32, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
56. Support -- Tawker 21:07, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

OPPOSE Brampton 2006 21:55, 29 October 2006 (UTC) Has a tendacy to go on witch hunts and has a fixation on a past user WikiWoo who he apparently worked hard to ban. If given Admin tools may very well use them in illigitimate ways do to his apparent fixation and urge to hunt down people that don't agree with his point of view in articles.[1]

The above oppose has been discounted as it came from a confirmed sockpuppet of banned user WikiWoo per Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/WikiWoo. _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 12:54, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

<sigh> The user above has (unless he is WikiWoo, which is entirely possibile), been in contact with me (and been editing articles) for only three days, and is upset that I am requesting citations for his additions to Brampton municipal election, 2006, and asking him to remove POV-riddled statements from that article. _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 22:05, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• If you went after WikiWoo with the same nitpicky attitude you are applying in my case, I can see how you can drive people over the edge. Not the kind of administrator I would want having tools that can be abused. Reviewing some of the material you do seem to push a particular POV and take or make issues with anything of a political nature. You may make a good editor for being so attentive over particular topics, but I think it should count against you as an administrator since you show a set point of view about certain things and do not allow other editors much leeway to be creative with articles and contribution. You also seem overly possesive of certain articles and individuals, especially pver political elections type issues. Generally you are now so respectfull fo other people greater effort. It is not fun to edit with you on their back and tends to frustrate editors especially newer participants. Lastly you are a lawyer, and educated in representing things in ways that suit your objectives or agenda. Judging from some of the writtings of WikiWoo he was clearly not well educated, but obviously quite bright, informed and made good serious contributions untill he was driven over the edge. I notice some colaborating going on with Jchap which does not look like reasonable activity for lawyer administrators who need maintain a level of public trust, ethics and personal integrity.Brampton 2006 23:13, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Wow, could you make it any more obvious that you are WikiWoo? JChap2007 00:28, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

No. No, he could not. My only question is why he's not on the list of WikiWoo's suspected sockpuppets. -- Kicking222 01:49, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I suspect he will make his way onto the list soon. Evidence is being collected. JChap2007 02:00, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

A request for check user has been filed on Brampton 2006 at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/WikiWoo. JChap2007 07:14, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Which saved me the bother, and I will block the account anyway due to the problematic edit history. Guy 10:12, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Neutral

I know only good of this candidate, and am glad to see the name here, but I'd like to see chapter and verse for Question 3 before I support. The idea of asking about conflicts and stress isn't to let you show you can say something discreet and proper—it's a request for information that'll give people a chance to evaluate how you handled those conflicts. Can we have diffs, please? Bishonen | talk 21:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC).

Moved to Support. Bishonen | talk 18:08, 26 October 2006 (UTC).

I'll let Oz (or someone else) pick the diffs, since the debate was scattered all over Wikipedia, but here's what I recall. WikiWoo was a relatively new user who was convinced that Wikipedia should be edited to expose some kind of procuring conspiracy in Ontario government, and edited all kinds of pages to try to show the conspiracy. Oz was involved in a lot of the Ontario pages, so if you follow WikiWoo's contribution trail, you'll probably find Oz nearby. I came on near the end of the process as WikiWoo's advocate, but was unfortunately unable to prevent him from being banned. IMHO, the best thing that the conflict shows about Oz is that he kept his head, even when WikiWoo was accusing him of being a paid agent of the Ontario government out to censor the truth. Oz had a few frustrated comments here and there, but by and large, Oz stuck to policy, stayed basically civil, and didn't lose it. TheronJ 22:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

TheronJ has summed the situation up well. However, practically all the discussion took place on WikiWoo's talk page, which has apparently been deleted, so I cannot provide diffs. As an admin, I assume you can look at the deleted page and see how the discussion went, but I will admit that TheronJ is correct, it was not my finest hour, but I think considering the situation, I did not cross the line into incivility. I have most certainly learned from the experience, however, and nothing like it has occurred since. _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 22:18, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

1. Hasn't warned quite a few vandals recently, and I don't know of any reason why not.--Andeh 22:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
2. Neutral: Yet again promising, but might need some time in spellchecking, copyediting and, more importantly, patrolling (per minor edit summaries and performance in user talk). --Slgr@ndson (page - messages - contribs) 04:51, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

The above adminship discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.