Before we being...

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... a few points I want to make:

Let's get started

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OK, let's start off with the standard questions you'll get on an RfA, plus a couple of my own:

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as an administrator. It is recommended that you answer these optional questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. What administrative work do you intend to take part in?
A : The main administrative work in which I intend on involving myself goes in line with what I am currently doing. I am copying images to the Wikimedia commons (and making sure to rename all links to the image if I give it a more descriptive name!) to help clear up the 20,000 image backlog, and I then tag the articles for deletion. It would be more effective for me to be able to delete them straightaway, rather than passing them off to an administrator. I also intend on working on speedy deletion nominations—deleting the ones that need deleting and helping to clean up the ones that can easily be fixed. The other places I would work are AIV and UAA, having made nearly 100 reports to each.
2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
A : My best contributions to Wikipedia are definitely my contributions to reducing its tremendous backlogs. I have worked in backlogs such as articles with POV problems, articles needing copy edits, images needing to be copied to commons, articles needing general cleanup, articles needing their referencing improved, and other related backlogs. These are my best contributions because it helps to clean up articles to make them more encyclopedic. I also have several articles I have started and written, including Worlebury Camp, which I have taken to GA status.
3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?
A : I have never really been involved in a personal content dispute with another editor. However, I regularly deal with content disputes as part of the third opinion group. I deal with these conflicts by remaining calm and giving as unbiased an opinion as I can. (We all have biases, and the best way to reduce the influence of our biases is to recognize that we have them.) I have found that the best way to spur a consensus is to offer a compromise within the bounds of reason and policy, because, oftentimes, both contributors have reasonable opinions. At other times, it is more of an attempt to explain policies to an SPA. (The removal of 60kb of external links earlier today is a good example of this!) However, none of these really ever have made me stressed out.
Additional optional questions from Phantomsteve
4. RfA has been described as "a feculent sinkhole of hatred and rage", and adminship as "hell" - why do you want to become an admin?
A : I am interested in becoming an admin because it will help me further improve wikipedia. As mentioned above, I commonly port public-domain images to the wikimedia commons, but then I have to tag them as ((nowcommons)) and hand over the job to an administrator for him to delete. I will also be able to block the vandals I commonly report at AIV, rather than waiting for an admin to come through and block them, which commonly gives fast-moving vandals a short time to vandalize 1 to 3 more articles. It would also be helpful for me to be able to speedily delete obvious attack pages, unambiguous copyright violations, and pure vandalism/blatant hoaxes (such as a page containing only "Die, damn u" or "mephistoros are a bird in Florida which eat people and live in swimming pools and....").
5. If this were someone else's RfA, how would you oppose them (yourself)? Write a convincing oppose rationale to your own RfA and then a rebuttal to your oppose, if possible.
A : I might oppose such a person and then rebut the oppose like this:
Oppose - Reaper Eternal has only been here for around ### months. I do not believe that he will have picked up the subtle nuances of the policies which he will have to employ as an admin. Reaper Eternal (talk) 13:31, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
I understand that I have only been here a short time, but I believe that my work at WP:3O shows that I do know how to apply policies. Also, I believe that the mentoring that I received here has helped me better understand the policies so that I will not make major blunders on account of a misunderstanding. Reaper Eternal (talk) 13:31, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Experience

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(Credit goes to User:Bibliomaniac15 for this, with a couple of additions from me)

Have you ever:

More questions

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Some of these may be kind of covered by the questions above, but don't worry about that!

1. What are your favourite contributions to Wikipedia? Your best contributions?
A. : Probably my favorite contributions to Wikipedia are the ones I made to DYK articles. However, my best contributions are my contributions to articles needing copyedits or POV-language fixed.
2. Do you tend to concentrate on any one article type to edit?
A. : When working on backlogs, I do not pay attention to the type of article I am editing. However, when writing content into articles, I tend to write on topics such as archaeology or Somerset. (I am a member of WikiProject Somerset.)
3. What percentage of the time do you spend fighting vandalism compared to just editing encyclopedic content?
A. : I probably spend around 10% of my time reverting vandals, but that equals a lot of edits!
4. What weaknesses do you see in yourself?
A. : I am not very familiar with BLPs, since I have never written one.
5. What kind of editing habits do you have? Do you get on, check your watchlist, and then head to recent changes patrol or new pages, etc.?
A. : I tend to log on, check new pages for any obvious disruptive/spam pages, possibly check the user creation log for spam usernames or attack usernames, check my watchlist for changes, and then do one of three things: work on backlogs, write content, or start up Huggle and revert vandalism.
6. Why do you enjoy editing Wikipedia?
A. : I enjoy contributing to what Jimbo has called "the sum of human knowledge".
7. Upon becoming an admin, what tasks would you regularly participate in?
A. : I would definitely work at AIV and UAA. I would also work at CAT:SD, which regularly gets backlogged. Probably, I would close noncontroversial AfDs and CfDs, and I may work at RfPerm, especially Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Rollback. I would continue giving third opinions, but I do not consider myself qualified enough to resolve disputes beyond that.
EDIT: I have reconsidered and decided that closing XFDs is really not something I am interested in. Most of what I would enjoy doing as a sysop would be antivandalism-related activities. Reaper Eternal (talk) 20:25, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
8. Upon becoming an admin, what tasks would you have to read up on? What tasks would you totally avoid?
A. : I would need to read up on the protection policy before protecting pages. I do not intend on closing controversial XfDs until I gain a lot more experience closing them. I do NOT intend on working at ANI.
9. What Admin-like tasks have you not had experience with?
A. : I have not had experience at deletion review, RfC/U, or ANI.

Footprints

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Right now, I'd like for you to pick a few administrative areas you'd like to participate in. You can change these later or add/subtract any areas as your interests change. The areas you choose will be the ones I will help develop in the next phase and will most likely be where you would want to work as an administrator - I can guess what you'll probably say based on your answers above, but take your time and think things through before deciding!

I would like to work at:

  1. Administrator Intervention against Vandalism - I routinely do anti-vandal patrol, and I would definitely work here.
  2. Candidates for Speedy Deletion - I also routinely patrol new pages for incoming vandalism/spam/"Such-and-such is a cool death metal band!"/attack pages.
    I also have a bot, ReapETbot (talk · contribs), which scans new pages and reports suspicious ones at ##until_it_sleeps-bots connect.
  3. Usernames for Administrator Attention - I regularly come across spam usernames, and I also occasionally see usernames like "SHlTBAG" (note the 'el' rather than the 'ie') in the new logs.
How you would close AfDs also will show how well you know policy, and how well you can explain yourself - both essential evidence for !voters at an RfA.
OK, let's get on....

Deletion

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AfD

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Please link to relevant policies/guidelines/essays as appropriate

1. How would you close the following AFD's?
A 1
I would delete this article. WP:NOTGAMEGUIDE directly covers this type of article and states that Wikipedia is not the place for such articles. Also, one of the "keep" !voters is an indeffed sockpuppet, so I would completely ignore his opinion. Tracing back the reasoning of the "keep" !voters, it all appears to come down to "I like it". Tracing back the reasoning for the "delete" !votes, I found that they appear to stem from a lack of notability and reliable sources.
  • The role of the closing admin is to judge the consensus. As such, you appear to be doing so - although this is a close thing, as numerically it is a "keep" (if you ignore the blocked editor, it's 5 keeps to 3 deletes) - but the arguments for keeping are not policy-based, unlike the deletion arguments. PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 15:34, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
B 2
I would delete this article too. One of the keep !voters said that "we have room for it", which is not a reason for keeping an article (see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS). Meyer does not appear to have an exceptional claim to notability, and the only possible claim would be the receiving of medals. However, per WP:ANYBIO, he should be the recipient of an important award, but none of the medals appear to be exceptionally significant. And last but definitely not least, the rough consensus appears to be for deletion due to a lack of notability.
C 3
I would relist this article. He does not appear to have significant coverage in secondary sources, as the "delete" !voters say. However, there are only two editors outside the nominator commenting on the discussion, so I believe that relisting this article would produce probably produce a better consensus.
  • Again, I'd do that too, as per WP:RELIST the discussion has only a few participants (including the nominator), and/or it seems to be lacking arguments based on policy PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 15:34, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
D 4
I would delete this article. The !voters seem somewhat divided, but the corporation notability guideline states that companies need coverage in reliable, independent, secondary sources to establish notability, and this article is sourced only to a primary source.
  • As the nominator states, reliable independent sources couldn't be found. The arguments in favour of deletion are more policy-based, and so carry more weight PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 15:34, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
E 5
I would delete this article. WP:NOTGAMEGUIDE directly covers this type of article and states that Wikipedia is not the place for such articles. "Keep, the article needs more time to improve" is not a valid reason for keeping a game guide. "Delete" !voters also note that the topic lacks notability.
  • For me, the fact that the "keeps" are basically because "there's other stuff" or "I like it" arguments, as opposed to the "deletes" which are about the lack of reliable sources, etc PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 15:34, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
F 6
This article needs to be relisted. Articles need verifiable, reliable sources, and this article is unreferenced. Additionally, the "keep" !voters said that places are "automatically notable", a policy I cannot find anywhere.
  • Relisting would be a valid option. Although there is no policy about places being inherantly notable, if some evidence of the place existing (or having existed) can be found, that would generally be enough to warrant keeping the article. I note that none of the "keeps" found such evidence, so in relisting, I would probably mention this PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 15:34, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
2. When closing a deletion discussion, when may you disregard comments and !votes?
A. : You can ignore the !votes and comments of banned users and sockpuppets. Additionally, very new editors or IPs are given very little weight in the discussion because of the possibility of socking. Anybody's !vote can be ignored if he provides absolutely no rationale for it or if it is obviously a bad-faith or pointy !vote.
  • The only thing I would add would be that if they were banned/blocked for other reasons (e.g. making legal threats, but they are not connected with the article under discussion), it might be better to note that the editor has been blocked, but not necessarily ignore their comments. PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 15:34, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Question on G3/G10

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I have a question, does a page like this warrant a CSD G10 or a CSD G3? It seems to be on the fuzzy fringe between G3 and G10, and I am sure that a lot of these pages are created in order to show to a victim, thus necessitating immediate blanking. (I have seen somebody in my class—and I'm in college!—write up an attack page about a classmate and then call him over saying, "Hey, I just found your Wikipedia page!") Another example of this is Doofushead, where the content was something like "Doofushead - EXAMPLE: [name redacted]". Reaper Eternal (talk) 16:32, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

  • It'd probably have gone for G3 with that one. If it's a one-off, then leave a warning to the creator; if it's repeated, then give a final warning and then block if it happens again. PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 15:40, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Another question I have is: How do you tag a redirect of somebody's name to Gay? I just tagged this one as an attack page, since such a redirect appears to be only used for attacking somebody. (However, it could also be seen as vandalism.) Reaper Eternal (talk) 16:44, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

  • I'd tag that as an attack page and warn the editor involved. It's blatantly intended as an attack page - even if the individual involved were to be gay, then a redirect from their name to the Gay article would not be what was desired by the individual. PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 15:40, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in replying... life is busy at the moment (both work-wise and personally), but I will try to get on as often as possible! On to more mentoring...

More deletion stuff

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Right, more deletion stuff...

3. What should be done with redirects to deleted articles?
A. Depends on the redirect. If the redirect has a potential, meaningful target, you redirect it there. If not, you delete it too as a redirect to a nonexistent target (CSD G8). You should also delete double redirects.
4. When filling in the "Reason for deletion" text (basically the edit summary for the deletion), what should not be included?
A. You should NEVER include the content of a negative unsourced BLP or an attack page. Other pages, such as vandalism, should just have "G3 Vandalism" or a related edit summary. When closing an XfD, link to the deletion discussion. Realistically, I never see a reason to include the content of any page in the deletion reason, since you normally want to give a summary that states why the page was deleted (not just "G11", you would also want "G11 - spam or advertising).
5. Why are the criteria for speedy deletion so strict?
A. They are strict to prevent the deletion of potentially valuable or marginally notable topics. For example, if Wormy Hillock Henge had been created as a single-line stub with the content "Wormy Hillock Henge is, according to legend, the burial site of a dragon.", that would not be eligible for speedy deletion since it is a place. (Actually, it is an archaeological site.) The purpose of these criteria is to remove completely unimportant articles such as "John Doe is twelve and lives in Vermont", which have no chance of ever being an acceptable article. In summary, then, the strictness is necessary to prevent against people not knowing the subject and deleting it. (I once saw a newly-created article on quantum field theory tagged for speedy deletion as "patent nonsense", and it was quickly denied as being obviously not nonsense. By the way, I feel that "patent nonsense" is the most overused criteria in the whole list.) I have seen admins violate this and delete per WP:SNOW.


6. What should one do if a ((hangon)) is placed on a page nominated for deletion?
A. First, it depends on the reason for speedy deletion. I am assuming that the CSD tagger is correct in his analysis of the article. In each case, with the exception of blatant attack pages (i.e. "Fuck <name>! He is a gigantic faggot who likes to suck spotted dick!") I will detail for each criteria below:
A1 & A3 : Give them time to improve it. That is the only reason the article has been tagged for speedy deletion. If the article is unimproved for several hours, move it (without redirect) to a user subpage.
A7 & A9 : Wait to see if they post a reason on the talk page or begin working on improving the article. If they do, give them time to improve the article. If not, delete.
A10 : Apologize to the creator that the article already exists, thank them for their work, and direct them to that article with encouragement to improve it. Then delete/redirect, but first let him merge any new content into the old article.
G1 : Read the rationale if it is meaningless sentences. It may be very bad English that the creator will clean up. If gibberish, delete. "askrjkjksdfvjkls asdasdf" isn't going to become a valuable article.
G2 : Move (without redirect) to a user subpage. Direct them to their new sandbox.
G3 : Delete. Vandalism doesn't belong on Wikipedia.
G4 : Read the old article to see if the new article has been changed. If not, delete.
G5 : Block the sock of the banned user and delete.
G6 : Read the reasoning and ask the users to engage in discussion. This is supposed to be noncontroversial, so it cannot be speedied.
G7 : Don't delete, the author is no longer requesting deletion.
G8 : Read the rationale for keep and decide based on that.
  • Sometimes a subpage of the talk page is a draft used to resolve an editing dispute, where editors can say "I propose such-and-such". If it gets accepted, then a history merge is required to add the content to the main article before the page is deleted. Reaper Eternal (talk) 15:39, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
G9 : Delete immediately per WP:OFFICE.
G10 : Delete. Block the creator if this isn't a first occurrence.
G11 : Give the author time to rewrite the content in a non-promotional way.
G12 & F9 : Delete. Copyvios cannot be accepted for legal reasons. If the creator claims to own the copyright, point them to the donation policy and OTRS.
Everything else : Read the reasoning (if provided) and take action accordingly. If no rationale for keep is given, or if it is frivolous, delete anyway.
If the keep rationale is reasonable (i.e. "So-and-so has won a Grammy Award."), then I would decline the speedy and remove both the CSD tag and the hangon tag.
7. Why is it so important to check the page history of an article before you speedily delete it?
A. The article may have been vandalized or replaced with spam. If there is a non-vandalized version to restore, revert to that.
8. Please state what actions you would take if finding the following articles listed at CAT:SD. Take your time and make sure to evaluate all of the external links in the articles.
I would decline this speedy, as there is an assertion of importance in the article. A7 does not indicate notability
I would delete per G11. This is blatant advertising.
Decline the speedy, as this article has an assertion of importance (head of a foundation, embezzlement, raising $12,000,000).
Decline the speedy, as the article asserts importance (marrying a supermodel and starting a company that earned more than $45M a year).
Definitely decline speedy! Having a single at #1 on the charts would make the notable too! I would also remove the opinions and chatty commentary.
Delete per A7-website. There is nothing to indicate importance, and the article has a decided promotional slant, but not quite enough to be "blatant advertising".
But I liked your responses - you are reading the policies, and using your common sense! I may have done different on a couple of them, but they are borderline cases! PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 01:13, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
9. What is a WP:PROD? How does it differ from WP:XFD and WP:SPEEDY?
A. A PROD is a PROposed Deletion. It is done in noncontroversial circumstances where a discussion is unnecessary. However, it also does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion.
10. What is the appropriate length of time that should pass before deleting a PROD?
A. 7 days for normal PRODs and 10 days for BLPPRODs.
11. Who can remove a PROD tag?
A. Anybody! However, in the case of a BLPPROD, it can be restored if no references are provided.

Another question

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What do you do about pages in the File talk namespace where they are created solely to say "i luv u" or "looks hot!" or other chatlike commentary? For example, I tagged this page for speedy deletion since it seemed to be vandalism. I left this page alone since I had no clue what to do with it. Reaper Eternal (talk) 15:25, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Asking a question again...

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9. What is a WP:PROD? How does it differ from WP:XFD and WP:SPEEDY?
A. A PROD is a PROposed Deletion. It is done in noncontroversial circumstances where a discussion is unnecessary. However, it also does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion.

Although what you said is correct, it does not really explain the differences in enough detail for me (I'm a picky so-and-so at times!)

That's fine! I am here to learn! :D Reaper Eternal (talk) 13:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Do you want to give it another go?

9. What is a WP:PROD? How does it differ from WP:XFD and WP:SPEEDY?
A. PROD stands for PROposed Deletion. It differs from a speedy deletion in that it does not meet any of the criteria for speedy deletion. It also differes from an XfD in that there is no discussion involved—the user simply tags the page and leaves it for 7 days. It also differs from an XfD in that it is supposed to be noncontroversial, nobody is supposed to PROD an article whose deletion may prove controversial, and for this reason any editor can prevent a PRODed article from being deleted by simply removing the PROD tag. In an XfD, consensus must be for deletion, and no single editor can prevent the article from being deleted. Another difference is that an article can be tagged for AfD multiple times, but it may only be PRODed once. (Hence why an admin should always check the history of a PRODed article to see if there are any prior PRODs.) A BLPPROD is a special type of PROD in that it must be a BLP created after March 18, 2010 and contain absolutely no sources. The BLPPROD tag may be re-added at any time if no sources are added when the tag is removed. Additionally, it takes 10 days rather than 7 to be deleted. Reaper Eternal (talk) 13:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Vandal Fighting

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I am going to go onto AIV/blocks, and page protection now (but don't forget the quick follow-up question above!)

Page protection

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1. A user requests semi-protection on an article, but you instead fully protect it. Why?
A. I would full-protect an article only when it is subject to a prolonged, slow-motion content dispute, a content dispute by many editors, or a WP:DRV. (In the case of a rapid-fire edit war between two users I would block for WP:3RR violations, but only after warning them about WP:3RR [or WP:1RR for sanctioned articles].) Full protection is done to force discussion on the talk page and spot endless, mindless reverting. The other case, for a DRV, the page is restored and protected to prevent editing while the DRV is going on. There is one other case that happens very rarely, and that is when the page is getting heavy vandalism by autoconfirmed accounts (see Justin Beiber, for example), and even then full protection should not be applied for very long.
Another use for full-protection is office protection, and this should NEVER be undone by any admin. Reaper Eternal (talk) 15:14, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
2. When should a page be SALTed? Why?
A. Create-protecting an article is only used to prevent the creation of an article that is repeatedly created despite getting deleted. It is commonly used to prevent the repeated creation of vanity pages or attack pages.
3. List three times when move protection is appropriate.
A. 1) When the page is subject to repeated page-move vandalism, 2) When the page has no need to ever be moved (i.e. the help desk), and 3) Pages where there is a dispute over the name. There is also another form of "pseudo-move protection": upload protection. Upload protection is used to prevent vandalism to files subject to persistent image vandalism, a dispute about the file contents, and images on the main page. This is regularly done for the picture in the pictured DYK, the picture in Today's Featured Article, the picture in ITN, and the Today's Featured Picture.
4. A user requests for their user page and talk pages to be protected. Do you protect only the userpage? Only the talk page? Both? Or neither?
A. The answer is really: it depends on what is occurring.
  • For the user page: If there was only a little vandalism on the user page, I would semiprotect it for 24 hours, and/or if the vandalism was repeated/persistent, I would semiprotect it indefinitely. Really, there is no reason to be editing others' userpages. In rare cases, as described above, I would full-protect in the event of autoconfirmed account vandalism
  • For the talk page: I would rarely semiprotect the talk page. The only times I would do this would be for repeated, constant, and active vandalism, and even then I would only semiprotect for several hours. This is because IPs and non-confirmed users need to be able to interact with the editor. It would take extreme cases of repeated RevDel'able/suppressible harassment and sockpuppeting to get me to full-protect a user talk page for a brief while. (NawlinWiki's talk page occasionally ends up like this due to Grawp sock attacks.)
5. Why would you restore and fully protect an article during deletion review?
A. To prevent it from being edited in the meantime. (The articles are also commonly blanked an replaced with ((TempUndelete)).)

Pending Changes: I have another question, what should be done concerning pending changes? Right now Wikipedia:Protection policy is highly ambiguous, as it says, "During the current Interim period, a poll determined that 'It can be removed from pages where it is causing problems, and added sparingly to pages where it has clear benefits (in its current incarnation) over semi-protection. ... Any new use of PC during this interim period should be sparing and focus primarily on BLPs.' As before, please avoid doing anything drastic." There is currently an RfC running concerning pending changes. Additionally, what should be done if I find another article like Justin Beiber, which is currently PC-2 protected and semiprotected? Reaper Eternal (talk) 15:14, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Question on WP:UAA

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Was it acceptable for me to do this? Reaper Eternal (talk) 13:03, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately...

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To confirm, due to many Real World™ commitments, I do not have the time to continue mentoring Reaper Eternal. However, I hope to see RE continue to make progress in this area, and hope to see an RfA in the future! -- PhantomSteve.alt/talk\[alternative account of Phantomsteve] 16:23, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
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