User talk:Dank/Admins/Archive 1

RFA Review Responses

Well, they're sort of not online. Here's what I did - I made a spreadsheet and started tallying the first 55 or so responses, about 25% of the total. That gave me a list of common responses to use in populating the tally sheets for the other 165+ responses. That way, we had a starting list of responses to tally, with room for additional items if needed. It prevents us from having 20 different variations of the same response; I can tally "Neutral Canvassing is OK", "No need to go overboard with canvassing, as a little bit goes a long way" and "A Neutral Announcement should be all the canvassing you need" into the single line item "Limited Canvassing is OK". Since I started at the top of the list, your response was one of the 55 I tallied myself.

Once the other responses are tallied, I'm adding them to the spreadsheet. When we're done, I'll be able to generate tables and charts and totals for the most common responses, which I can't really do with an on-wiki table, unfortunately. I can find and post the tally I did for your response, if you like - I'm keeping everything by name, so I can edit and amend later if needed. Hope that answers your question, UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 14:05, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm impressed how much energy you're putting into this, and thanks for the explanation. Please don't go to any extra effort on my account; I'll wait my turn. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:09, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

No worries, and I appreciate the sentiment. Thanks, UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 14:34, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

RfA Review

Based on your recommendations, I think I've drafted a question for the next phase that hits on your concerns over educating candidates about their chances. You'll want to look at Wikipedia:RfA Review/Reflect#Conclusions and next steps, question A2. Please feel free to tweak the language a bit, but I think that addresses the concern you raised on the talk page. Thanks, UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 14:39, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it needs any tweaking, and thanks! - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 15:10, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/SilkTork 2

Hi Dank55. Just wanted to clarify I wasn't having a go or anything at the above discussion. Sometimes RFA ends up as Chinese Whispers and the original comments of an editor can become something quite different, even when the original comments are still displayed! Hope you didn't feel I was being argumentative, just trying to clarify things. Pedro :  Chat  15:26, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Not only were you not argumentative there, I've never known you to be argumentative. I come across that way sometimes, because I don't generally weigh in at RfA unless the vote is close or there's something I want to push back against. I didn't mean to push back against you, just against the notion ... which is common at RfA, and there's some justification for it ... that all of the behavioral and deletion policies, and the forums where they get exercised and worked out, are really, really important, and all other policies pale by comparison. For instance, SilkTork just pointed out today at WT:MOS that one of the guidelines may be in conflict with image policy. That kind of work is a bit lonelier, but damn, we need it. Although I don't know half of what Balloonman knows, I think this puts me in his camp ... I really like those candidates who have shown dedication and intelligence in policy areas that aren't as well covered by the admin community. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 15:35, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh I do get argumentative - but I try not to! I think there is forming, slowly, the time for a much wider debate on RFA "standards". Not that it will probably achieve much but there we go! I sit in the "some experience everywhere" camp. Others are in the "content contributions are everything" camp and others still seem to think that 100 AIV reports is all that matters. I guess RFA still muddles on regardless :) Certainly, I'm always happy to be challenged on my mind set and beliefs - I've certainly changed by idea of the "perfect" admin candidate over time. In many ways it's more beneficial to have a debate when (as is here) we are actually on the "same side" in that we both believe the candidate is a good choice, just with a difference in perhaps how "ideal" they are (terrible word but I hope you understand my meaning - I'm not after ideal candidates just capabale ones!). Again, my key concern was that you did not think I was singling you out, or ignoring your position and well thought out rationale. Very Best. Pedro :  Chat  15:44, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I didn't think that. Thanks for dropping by, feel free to pull up a chair any time. Hopefully RfA Review/Collate will give us some momentum for a larger discussion when it's done? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 15:53, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

RfA

Dank55, It's taken me a few days to look you over, but I just reviewed your edits and I think you would make a hell of an admin candidate. Based on what I've seen, you are arguably the strongest admin candidate I've ever made! I was very impressed and surprised at the diversity of the areas that you contribute in and your attitude. Generally, I always have fears about "what skeletons am I missing," but I don't have that fear with you! I would be honored to nominate you for Adminship. If you wish to accept, I suggest reviewing this essay. If you want to ask somebody or accept a co-nom, that is up to you, but my advice to have no more than 2 nominators, 3 tops---but 2 is, IMO, the idea number of nominators. When you do place yourself up for RfA, make sure that you are around for 2-4 hours to answer questions. Those first few hours are crucial and the community expects candidates to be available to answer questions during the first few hours of a nom. Also, you might be interested in this essay---it is an essay on how to write nominations. If you read it, you'll notice that I didn't follow my own advice! I think you are that strong of a candidate!---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 05:53, 24 November 2008 (UTC) EDIT: I hope you don't mind, but I have gone ahead and asked somebody else for their input and potential co-nom. I think you are a hell of a candidate! Also, if the person I contacted wants to nom you (and you accept), then I would suggest keeping it to just the two of us.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 06:01, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, I accept, and if there's someone you recommend as a co-nom, I accept them too. Obviously, I'm overwhelmed by your enthusiasm. I've been thinking that I wanted to run at the end of December, because I have a lot to learn about AfD. Then after I saw your note, I started to write something at WT:MOS, and immediately I ran into problems: the fact that I'm thinking about RfA influences my thinking, and I should be honest about that influence, but I can't say anything about it because that would be canvassing ... there's a certain discomfort to being in an "almost ready" mode, so I should probably speed things up. Do you recommend WP:ER? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 14:16, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Some people really like to see AfD, but not having it isn't the killer that it used to be. 18 months ago, not having 100+ AfD's would kill a nom, today there is a sense that candidates can demonstrate policy knowledge in other ways---and I think you've done so. Right now, there is a push for candidates with article building background, and you have that. There is also a push for candidates who have communication skills and a head on their shoulder. If a person can demonstrate sound reasoning abilities, then it is assumed that they can parse consensus at XfD or other areas.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 14:25, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Give me a few days, I'd like to learn some things and finish some things I started. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 14:54, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

No rush, but I may have to change my intro ;-) ---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 14:58, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Just as an FYI, I don't like your answers to Deacon's questions... in every one of them you said something to the effect of "not my area." This sounds insecure and uncertain.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 20:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Also, make sure you are around for the next few hours to answer questions... Good luck.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 20:47, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I'd strongly recommend you keep the answers to Deacon's questions as they are. I understand Balloonmans desire to help but you need to pass or fail on your own two feet and refactoring those answers with this note on your talk is exactly the kind of thing that would fail your RFA. I'm going to support on the basis that you will not refactor.Pedro :  Chat  21:12, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, don't change them, but do keep it in mind when answering questions.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 21:19, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, I'll keep it in mind and invite people to ask as many questions as they like. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 21:22, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

My support in your RfA

I hope this didn't sound too backhanded - I was trying to point out to Editorofthewiki that while I trust that you, or any administrator for that matter, won't abuse the tools, I don't know you - or 99% of other administrators - well enough to stake my reputation on it. I hope you succeed in your adminship request, and over the years if we wind up working in the same area we'll get to know each other well enough that I can put you in that 1% and categorically say "I know Dan, he won't betray you." davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:08, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I didn't mind at all. May I respond at the RfA? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 21:17, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

If you like, but I've heard it said that responding on RfAs can hurt your chances. Not that you have much to worry about :). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:25, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I see the thread at WT:RFA. I was just going to say that I love precise answers like yours, in my RfA or anyone else's. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 23:01, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

You have an email. Malinaccier (talk) 03:30, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Your RFA

What caught my eye here is that the bot was showing your ending time as before Dravecky's but showed yours above his (ie, above his). While looking into this, I found this was because a 20-hour delay in yours being created and then transcluded, almost a full day (20:18, November 25, 2008 Dank55 (Talk | contribs | block) (2,442 bytes) (Here goes!) (undo)). A difference of few minutes is no big deal but this is almost 1/7th of the running time. Therefore, I've adjusted your ending time for the standard full run. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:50, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for catching this. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 23:45, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

No problem. — Rlevse • Talk • 21:44, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Your RFA

I regret to inform you that with a nearly-final !vote result of 92 to 1 with 1 neutral, it is highly unlikely your request for adminship will pass. I hope there are no hard feelings and I hope you continue to edit as you have been without the distraction of the mop.

Just kidding: At the slight risk of being premature, let me say congradulations! davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 20:37, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

There was a guy who won the Masters golf tournament and then got it taken away from him when he didn't sign the scorecard before stepping outside the clubhouse ... I'm not making that up. My partner was worried something similar would happen here; he advised me not to say or do anything all day, just in case :) But I'm hopeful that it's too late to screw this up. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 20:48, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

AfD? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 20:48, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Oops, I was thinking Administrators For Desysopping. My bad. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:36, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

It as Michelle Wie and the State Farm Classic not the Master's.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 21:24, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I blame my source. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 21:33, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

its official

Congrats...BTW, you should note when I finally supported your nom!---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 21:20, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

RFDA

See WT:RFA#EVula's ideal RfA process and User:Hersfold/Admin_recall for two current proposals on admin recall. I made a post at User_talk:Hersfold/Admin_recall to see if I can get support, but those guys may be wedded to a different proposal; if I can't get a response there, I'll continue the conversation here. I have also commented at WT:RFA. The folks at WT:RFA have tentatively decided on a straw poll, which should move things along. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 20:40, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Here's a summary of my comments from WT:RFA:

It shouldn't be difficult to look through an admin's deletion and block log, see who's angry, and organize a posse to go through every single contribution of the admin, looking for flaws. We can hope, of course, that angry people will be obvious and clumsy, but that's not a given; they may have friends and socks show up at RfDA who have no apparent connection to the admin, who do a good job of coming off as "concerned wiki-citizens". If admins start losing the mop, and other admins get the impression that the RfDA was not entirely fair, that's going to have a strong chilling effect on admins, and you'll see fewer blocks and deletions ... especially of exactly those people and articles that most need to be blocked or deleted, because those are the ones most likely to seek revenge, and do a good job of it.

P.S. Initial input from the very active admins is very negative, and no matter whether it's a good idea or not, we can't afford for current admins to cut back on their work out of fear of unknown repercussions; in light of that, I'm thinking that if we do RFDA, it should apply only to people who pass RFA after the proposal is approved. (That actually might work: the theory would be that you'd get the benefits to RFA ... easier to pass, and we get valuable feedback to the RFA process from the RFDA's ... and the things discussed at RFDA would give Arbcom a stronger sense of what the community expects from admins, which would probably make it easier for them to justify desysopping troublesome admins.) - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 20:52, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

...

I find this proposal disturbingly indicative of a very defensive attitude that's apparent in too many administrators. What is it that you all have to hide? Would you, Dank55, be making a similar suggestion if the propsal was to decrease the accountability of administrators, or to introduce some new admin-only function? "New button only for administrators who pass from now on." I rather doubt it. --Malleus Fatuorum 21:06, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Heh, I was just headed over to your talk page to get your feedback, Malleus, but I see I don't need to :) I admit that my quick poll may not be giving me a correct assessment of the likely reaction of admins; we can find that out from the straw poll. But I reject the idea that I'm being defensive or vague; it's not a complicated point. 1. If 99% of Wikipedians decide that X should happen and 1% are opposed, but the 1% are responsible for a critical task and we can't figure out a way to do without them, then we have to listen to the 1% whether we want to or not, if we care what happens to Wikipedia. 2. The straw poll will give us some numbers; I don't think we're talking about 1%. 3. I'm maybe more optimistic about ArbCom than some. I think they're smart, and also very much creatures of the Wikipedian community. If we get lots of participation at RFDA, and standards for de-sysopping evolve, I think that's like to have a big impact on ArbCom's willingness to apply similar standards to current admins. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 21:27, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I hereby offer to include myself as subject to RFDA if it passes by March 31 in a form that wouldn't otherwise apply to me. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 21:32, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Dan, if ordinary editors are competent enough to judge which editors ought to be made administrators without sending the encyclopaedia into a spiral, how is it that they are not competent to judge when editors ought not be administrators? Skomorokh 21:34, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that's the most concise and powerful pro-RFDA statement, Skomorokh. And, I won't be upset if EVula's recommendation is accepted (except that we need to find a way to efficiently and fairly toss SNOW cases). I'm hearing roughly 3 objections to that: 1. The problem with the logic is that it's not the same "we". "We" at RFA tends to be the same people, and the people who aren't regulars haven't so far been able to turn the process on its head; in contrast, the heavy-duty admins have already pissed off large numbers of people, and every admin I've asked is fairly certain (but possibly wrong) that RFDA will be largely inhabited by the friends and socks of the people they've pissed off. These people don't carry warning labels; we won't know who they are, and we have to allow for the possibility that they will be diligent and skillful in seeking revenge. 2. Even if that doesn't happen, the fear that it might happen, or the fear that ordinary Wikipedians will be inventing the criteria as they go along (which is the current proposal), will mean that admins think two and 3 times before performing actions. That can be a good thing ... but if only half the work gets done, we're going to start hurting, at least, that's the claim. 3. Suppose none of that is a problem; what happens when someone gets desysopped, and admins can't tell for sure why it happened? It's likely that they will stop blocking so many people; in fact, they'll stop blocking the very worst people, the ones who would be most skillful at exacting vengeance in an RFDA. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 21:54, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

My RfA

Thanks very much for all your help and advice. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:43, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

For you, any time. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 22:46, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I had absolutely no idea there were so many issues with it all. It seems that you've spent in a whole load of time making the process fair and human, not least your thoughtful page of post-unsuccessful advice, and still it doesn't seem to work. "The Way is broad and easy to follow, yet people prefer the side paths". Itsmejudith (talk) 11:10, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

And it's not that I'm right and others are wrong, either; I'm pushing in the direction of transparency and consistency, but only in small ways. Others are pushing in the other direction, on the theory that the day that RFA becomes easy to understand, with a handy guide for how to pass and lots of sympathy for people who don't pass, then we'll get overwhelmed with applicants. There is consistent pressure at RFA not to come to any broad agreements and write them down into guidelines, not to tell people what they need to know, and to let voters say things that AGF and CIVILITY would prohibit anywhere else on Wikipedia. On top of that, what it takes to pass RFA constantly changes, as Avruch pointed out yesterday. RFA also attracts a lot of people ... and I'm as guilty as anyone else ... who think that we can extrapolate from past mistakes to figure out if a candidate's future admin actions are going to hurt anyone. (Btw, there are current proposals involving desysopping which are probably the only thing that can ever make people at RFA ease up, but let's not get into that; the proposals are complicated and unlikely to pass, especially in their current forms.) It's easy to judge RFA people as being way too self-involved and tight-assed, but when you see the kinds of people that our process has only just barely caught and rejected, you start to understand our mass paranoia. (Ecoleetage's RFA was hanging by a thread this weekend when he suddenly resigned, then contacted the RL boss of his detractors to complain about him; Eco was immediately indef banned. This isn't a flaw in RFA, this is a flaw in people; it's hard for any process, anywhere, to catch the smartest offenders.) None of this can be "fixed", because RFA is too chaotic. [Removed my soapboxy stuff.] - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 15:44, 19 January 2009 (UTC)