Wookieepedia:Requests for user rights/RFA archive/Breathesgelatin

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

Breathesgelatin (2 bureaucrats + 12 admins + 11 users/0/0)

Two week deadline from first request, voting ends November 26th.

Support

  1. Imp 21:15, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
  2. SFH 21:17, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
  3. Well...there you go. .... 21:20, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
  4. Very friendly, balanced user who is a great contributor. Adamwankenobi 21:23, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
  5. Havac 00:01, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  6. Yoshi626 00:50, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  7. Kuralyov 03:28, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  8. Lord OblivionSith holocronSith Emblem 03:35, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  9. It's been six months already? Wow. Support. jSarek 03:59, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  10. Jaina Solo(Goddess Stuff) 04:05, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  11. Support. Don't you just love G15? I think I skipped that one… –SentryTalk 09:47, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  12. (I wonder if some of the earlier admins should answer these questions somewhere...)—Silly Dan (talk) 13:21, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  13. I thought she was already an admin... Sikon 15:22, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  14. Atarumaster88 Jedi Order (Audience Chamber) 15:42, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  15. Cull Tremayne 16:08, 13 November 2006 (UTC) - not that with 7 admins already voting support it's really going to matter.
  16. Darth Culator (Talk)(TINC) 16:17, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  17. I will vote based on the answers to the questions from here on out, and I liked what I read. One bureaucrat vote. -- Riffsyphon1024 18:59, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  18. Support. G.He(Talk!) 02:16, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  19. Ozzel 06:01, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  20. QuentinGeorge 07:36, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  21. WhiteBoy 16:42, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  22. Yes! --Azizlight 00:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
  23. Green Tentacle (Talk) 14:45, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
  24. RMF 22:07, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
  25. LtNOWIS 00:29, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral/comments

She has accepted being nominated for adminship, see her talk page. --Imp 21:15, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

  • An extremely helpful user, invaluable contributer to FA and IDRIVE, and very courteous. .... 21:20, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Breathesgelatin has done an excellent job on FA and IDrive rankings, among other things. She is deserving of the administrator position just so she can more easily handle those. On the other hand, I would like to see how she answers G.He's questions that were placed above. Atarumaster88 Jedi Order (Audience Chamber) 03:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Breathesgelatin does tons of work on things I rarely touch, and she never seems to cause or participate in the sort of conflicts many of the current admins (myself definitely included) seem to get into. And she answered my questions extremely well. :-) -- Darth Culator (Talk)(TINC) 16:17, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Wow, both bureaucrat votes and 11 out of 16 admins, not all of whom are active. Very impressive. Havac 02:11, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
      • We could probably end this early, if not for our obsession with "rules" and such. -- Darth Culator (Talk)(TINC) 18:53, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Answers to Questions

G1 Why do you want to become an administrator?

I am honored to be nominated as an administrator. I think that being an administrator would help me carry out some of the duties I already carry out. Further, I think I am a very neutral and impartial community member—I don't have any fish to fry here—and I think that that is a valuable trait for administrators to have. Also, I am very willing to do operational and technical work, even though I may not be the number one article writer or creator (primarily because I consider writing high-quality prose to be a very time-consuming task).

G2 In your opinion, what is the role of an administrator?

Administrators have several major roles:

  • Setting an example of appropriate behavior for others.
  • Carrying out everyday maintenance tasks.
  • Enforcing policy with reasonable, timely, impartial, and policy-sanctioned actions.
  • Helping to resolve conflicts.

G3 In your view, do administrators hold a technical or political position?

I think it is some of both. Obviously, administrators bear the responsibility of carrying out the technical aspects of wiki/wookiee maintenance. However, administrators are also political figures, insofar as it is up to them to set the example of appropriate behavior on the wiki. Furthermore, I think they should take the lead in diffusing tense situations, conflicts between users, or edit wars. This is not to say that administrators are political in the sense of having decision-making power far beyond that of the average user.

G4 How do feel admins should use their power/stand in comparison with other users?

This leads directly from my last answer. It's obvious that administrators have power beyond other users in certain areas: they have access to administrative functions while other users do not. However, I do not feel that an administrator's vote or voice in any way overrules that of another community member. This is the reason we employ policies such as the use of consensus and the assumption of good faith. Furthermore, if consensus chooses a policy that an administrator does not like, it still must be enforced. For example, I don't particularly like scrollboxes for the "Appearances" sections, but they're policy, so I accept them.

G5 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?

As far as I can remember, I have never been involved in an edit war or even any sort of real conflict here. There have been a few instances where people have made rude or hurtful remarks to me. My reaction has been to either ignore it or to leave them a message on their talk page to the extent of "You said X, and it made me feel Y." The idea is to create awareness that uncivil behavior is hurtful and inappropriate. Overall, though, I would say I find it really hard to get too emotionally worked up about occurences on the internet in general.

G6 Of your articles or contributions to Wookieepedia, are there any with which you are particularly pleased, and why?

I have recently been working on expanding Winter, and I'm pretty proud of where I have gone with it. I have a little to-do list on her talk page if anyone wants to help. I like to find gaps in coverage on important articles or overlooked characters and try to improve them and add details from new sources. I've also done work on various items from the KOTOR comics and put together the final sections to get Quinlan Vos and Mara Jade Skywalker to FA status (in the first case, writing about an overlooked TPB, and in the second, rewriting the Dark Nest section). In general, however, I would say that I prefer to copy edit others' work rather than write my own text. I enjoy doing cleanup. One of the major problems we have here is that of diction: many users are good at getting new information into articles, but write in a stilted or unencyclopedic style. I like to try to fix such problems. I also like to be involved with peer-reviews and help other editors figure out how they can improve their contributions.

G7 What sysop chores do you anticipate helping with?

I hestitate to say. My experience with modding other messageboards/websites is that once I have access to the administrative functions, I learn on the job about how I can best use them and contribute. There's a big experiential learning curve. Once I see what I can do and what needs to be done, I would then know what to do. That said, my typical approach to tasks is to see what's not being done, what's being neglected, and to try to fill the gap.

G8 How important is it for you to be involved in things such as CT, IDrive, FA, and other community-centered items that involve discussion and voting?

As some have already noted, I am extensively involved in community-centered pages here. Upon coming here, I quickly noticed that FA and IDrive were sometimes neglected areas: vote counts would not be updated, formatting would not be correct, etc. I have tried to do my best to make sure these areas of the the wiki are maintained. I also try to update the QOTD counts periodically. I try to vote in as many of the CT and VFD discussions as I can, as long as I have a coherent position on the issue. I think that all of these pages are essential places that help up maintain the quality of the wiki, so my involvement is vital (particularly if the pages are being neglected).

G9 Do you think admins performing actions (I.e. deletions, blocks, etc.) for reasons not covered on policy should be sanctioned/punished? If so, how?

I am a moderator on an internet messageboard that is experiencing many problems with civility amongst its members. There, I have been advocating that we institute explicit moderator guidelines that spell out appropriate behavior for moderators. In general, I think leaders of online forums must be held accountable for their actions and realize that if they do not follow the stated policies of the site, they risk losing their positions. If the problem is an ideological disagreement with the policy itself, then the appropriate response (on the internet, at least) is not "civil disobedience" but beginning a thoughtful discussion of the policy. If your position on the policy is not accepted, too bad for you. Our problems here typically don't involve major ethical decisions where disregard for policy is justified. Indeed, if anything, our policies dictate appropriate ethical behavior.

G10 What is your policy, if any, of welcoming new users? Should you welcome a new user, do you look at his/her contributions beforehand? What about anonymous IPs?

In the past, I have not been very involved in welcoming new users. In general I think every user should be welcomed. When I have welcomed others, I have not typically viewed their contributions, although now that I have thought about it, I can see why that might be helpful.

G11 How would you react if someone undeleted an article you'd mistakenly speedied? Under what circumstances would you consider it appropriate to undelete an article mistakenly speedied by another administrator, if any, and how would you approach this task?

I think this answer to the question is fairly obvious. The key here is "mistakenly". If I make a mistake, the appropriate response to the person who fixes it is "Thank you for fixing my mistake." If I felt another administrator had made a mistake, I would contact them to discover their reasoning for the deletion and then try to decide with them if I should undelete it. If we could not agree, then it would probably be best to discuss it on Votes for Deletion.

G12 How would you react if your user page was vandalized? Under what circumstances would you block the offender? Is there anything else that you would do in this situation?

I'd revert it and probably have a little giggle to myself. I would then leave the person a message on their talk page. If it started happening continually, I might consider a temporary block per the blocking policy. Frankly, my userpage is not an essential article on this wookiee, like say, Luke Skywalker is.

G13 Under what circumstances would you consider blocking an established user?

I think our blocking policy is fairly clear on how this should be handled; I don't have a tremendous amount to add. I would consider blocking only if there was a legitimate problem conducted in bad faith. To ascertain whether the inappropriate actions were conducted in good or bad faith, it would be necessary to contact the user. Disagreeing with someone's edit or opinion is not a cause for banning. Creating problems that threaten the integrity of our wiki or that are threatening and offensive to another user are.

G14 If you could change any one thing about Wookieepedia, what would it be?

I would like to see more civility around here, particularly on talk pages. I would also like to see people put aside their general fandom allegiances and think more about the good of our wiki generally. I am also disturbed by the uncivil treatment of newbies and IP users.

G15 Would you look at a glass to be half-empty or half-full?

I'm sort of a pessimist. As my mother used to say, "If you always expect the worst, you'll always be pleasantly surprised." I'm not sure how much I feel this relates to my philosophy about or behavior on this site, however.

C1 Do you feel the current blocking policy is too restrictive, not restrictive enough, or OK as it is?

I find it to be OK as it is, but at the same time I am always open to ideas on how to improve current policies.

C2 Have you ever considered becoming a regular visitor to the Wookieepedia IRC chat?

I visit the IRC from time to time and have enjoyed my experiences there. As an administrator I would make an effort to visit it more frequently. In fact, since the nomination I have tried to be around more often.

C3 How do you feel about people who already have some influence on other Star Wars communities (TheForce.Net, StarWars.com) trying to change policies here?

This is a loaded question, to say the least. First, I must say that part of the principle of a wiki is that anyone may join and contribute. So if people find out about us elsewhere and come here to contribute, that is not generally a bad thing. Furthermore, in certain cases outside critiques of behavior can be helpful and point the way to improvement. There are some areas in which "outsiders" can create problems; for example, registering en masse in order only to affect a vote or to harm the wookiee. This is often in conjunction with the problem I mentioned above wherein users carry fandom sub-allegiances into every decision they make here. Basically the solution to this kind of problem is to react calmly and with a neutral point of view and to encourage and enforce the same among new contributors who may come here with fish to fry. You can't simply say, "Well, you came here from Site X and thus I can disregard you as a potential legitimate member of this wiki," unless the new member's contributions violate policy... Clearly this is an issue fraught with difficulties and it requires sensitivity to both sides.

C4 How many clones do you think fought in the Clone Wars? (Note: You are wrong no matter what answer you give.)

2...? 5,000...? 30 million...?

C5 Who is the most awesome Jedi of all time? (Note: The only correct answer is Kyle Katarn.)

Uh? Kyle Katarn? I like Tenel Ka a lot. I think Quinlan Vos is smokin' hot.

K1 Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?

I'm sort of a democratic socialist, but no.

I1 What's more important to you: consensus or policy?

Well, this question must be answered carefully, because in certain respects consensus is policy. As noted above, I think that administrators must enforce policy even if they do not personally agree with it. However, there is another problem I have noticed here where people make unequivocal statements to the effect of "This is policy, like it or leave it" to support their own opinions which are not official policy. This is misleading and serves to prevent the formation of consensus on contentious issues by preventing them from being discussed. In cases like this, I think that discussion should remain open so that consensus can be formed. It's also important to be aware that consensus is not the same as "majority rule" and that if consensus cannot be reached, then change in policy cannot be effected. If a large group of members wants to change policy but cannot get the consensus required to do so, administrators must enforce the current policy. Finally, it's also important to realize that in certain cases consensus cannot be policy; for example, we could reach consensus on something, but if it violates a law or opens the wookiee to potential legal action, it cannot become policy. - breathesgelatinTalk 09:00, 13 November 2006 (UTC)